Originally published at: You can finally watch the 1987 Henson Holiday special, complete with original commercials | Boing Boing
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I was seriously planning on posting this with the same Avengers joke. Well played @thomdunn, this is a real heartwarming holiday classic.
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I weirdly do not remember this, although I would have been of a prime age to watch it… we loved the Muppets in my house as a kid, so we must have watched it. Maybe I’ll check it out later and see if I remember it.
I did watch Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas last night, which I adore…
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As of 2022-12-09, ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ FULL LENGTH VERSION with the ‘When Love Is Gone’ song restored is also now available in 4K on Disney+, in the Extras section for the film.
This YouTube video (Disney Finally Fixes Their 30-Year Mistake - YouTube) and this article (https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/…t-song-4279777) explain why this is sort of a big deal, and why it’s been such a long time coming.
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This is one of my all time favorite holiday programs. I watch it every year.
Don’t suffer the terrible audio of the upload with commercials. Watch this 1080p upscale with superior audio:
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This is easily my favourite Christmas special. I saw it on the air a few times around 91/92 on the CBC in rural Ontario before it disappeared. I found a downloaded copy a handful of years back after my daughter was born and now it’s part of our regular holiday viewing schedule.
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My wife (a huge Muppets fan) and I saw TMCC in the theater. I was sure that “When Love is Gone” was in the theatrical release we saw. Apparently, my memory is poor, and I was remembering the 4:3 VHS release version. The movie is certainly better with the song in place. It adds to the tragedy and ultimate redemption of Scrooge, and makes the reprise of the song at the end of the movie make sense. So glad Disney found it and reincorporated it into the widescreen version this year.
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The best part (I mean, it’s all great) is at the very end when Jim Henson himself makes a short appearance, washing the dishes. Very touching.
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The Jim Henson-produced Holiday Special that stuck with me was the previous year’s The Christmas Toy. The plot of the film centers around a child’s beloved toy who is facing an existential crisis he won’t the the favorite anymore after the kid he belongs to gets a fancy new space-themed action figure (who doesn’t realize they are an action figure and thinks they are stranded among strange aliens). So pretty much the exact plot of Toy Story for the pre-CGI era.
The biggest difference between the Christmas Toy universe and the Toy Story universe is that any time a human sees a toy out of place (that is, not in the same position it was in last time a human saw it) then it is “frozen,” unable to ever talk or play on its own again. This concept really freaked me out as a kid because
- It means that all humans are basically gorgons, unwittingly killing beloved toys with their life-draining gazes
- Since the human children have no idea that some toys are “alive” and others are “frozen” it means that toys are regularly made to play with the lifeless corpses of their fallen compatriots, even tossed into toy bins or closets among piles of dead plushie bodies
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Same. I’m the exact age and interest group for this and totally missed it.
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I don’t know if I missed it or just forgot about it…
But in other Muppet holiday news… they have a yule log video… which is pretty delightful…
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“Finally”? I remember watching this on a similar (the same?) dodgy YouTube stream just over a decade ago…
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Is 480p the best we can find?
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Doc (From Fraggle Rock): I will go pick up your friend. What’s your friend look like?
Kermit: Well she’s a pig
Doc: A short while ago I would have thought that strange.
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480p? Luxury!
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