The Muppet Christmas Carol is now considered a holiday classic and probably one of the best of the Muppets’ filmography, but when you look at it, it is such a departure from all the previous Muppet media. It’s much darker- both in terms of tone and color palette. There’s no celebrity cameos. A human is the central character instead of one of the Muppets. There are many new Muppets instead of relying on regular Muppets for some of the roles and some the Muppets are in roles you wouldn’t expect.
A lot of this makes much more sense with the context that this is the first Muppet project after Jim Henson’s sudden death and Muppeteer Richard Hunt was incredibly sick due to complications from AIDS that he was unable to participate (he would die during production). It’s a film created by a lot of people actively in the grieving process. You can feel that grief in scenes like the ones in the Cratchit home. It also explains why certain Muppets appear and some don’t. They really only use Jim and Richard’s characters when they have to. You can’t have a Muppet movie without Kermit, so Kermit is in. Statler and Waldorf are both perfect for Jacob Marley, so they both had to be recast because they were performed by Richard and Jim (which makes the fact they are ghosts kind of sad). Beaker is one of Richard’s characters and because you can’t have Bunsen without Beaker, Beaker was recast. Of Jim’s other major characters, Dr. Teeth and Rowlf are present but silent and the Swedish Chef has a more active cameo. Of Richard’s regular characters, only Janice is present. Scooter and Sweetums are not in the film. Frank Oz was busy with other jobs, so he really only does his main four of Miss Piggy, Animal, Fozzie, and Sam the Eagle. Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, and Jerry Nelson did a lot of the main characters, except the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future. Jerry Nelson did the face puppeteering and voice of the Ghost of Christmas Present. I think it speaks to Jerry Juhl’s skill as a writer that he was able to not only adapt to these casting considerations, but also write one of the most faithful adaptations of A Christmas Carol.
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