Episode 001 | The Muppet Christmas Carol

Ashleigh, A.J., and Bubba discuss one of the greatest holiday movies of all time: The Muppet Christmas Carol.

This movie has it all: Michael Caine starring as Scrooge. The Great Gonzo reciting Dickens. Tiny Tim (spoiler!) cheating death.

It’s got laughs. It’s got scares. It’s even got one of the best holiday movie soundtracks to ever grace the screen (featuring what is probably one of the most controversial holiday songs to only sometimes grace the screen).

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Episode 001 Transcript

Bubba: All right, let's jump into this thing, huh? Hello everyone. Why are we talking about The Muppet Christmas Carol?

A.J.: Well first of all, welcome everyone to Haunted Basement. This is a family-run podcast. Haunted Basement is the name of our production company. My name's A.J. We got Bubba over here. And we got Ashleigh. We're siblings. We've been making videos since we were little kids. But now we're not little kids anymore. So we decided that we want to talk about movies and music and other stuff that we grew up loving and that we love now. And if there is a Mount Rushmore of Serrano traditions and movies, The Muppet Christmas Carol is up there. Do you guys remember one of the more influential things that was in our childhood home was Mom's The Muppet Movie vinyl? Remember we had the record player and she had that vinyl? 

Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also had her old Miss Piggy sheets.

Bubba: Oh, my God. I remember those.

Ashleigh: One thing I was thinking about while prepping for this was why she kept them. I will never know. But I love them. They were like so many Miss Piggy's, and I think she was doing ballet. So clearly, Mom's love for the Muppets runs deep.

Bubba: One of Mom's go-to voices is definitely like a version of a Miss Piggy voice that evolved over time. Just this high pitched. 

A.J.: You can do it too.

Bubba: I can't. 

Ashleigh: What is it?

Bubba: I can't. I'm not going to try it. She just. Whenever she does her baby talk voice. Maybe you would describe it, but it's very Miss Piggy. And you can tell that it started with her trying to impersonate Miss Piggy to do it.

A.J.: I feel like it's going to come out in this podcast. 

Bubba: Okay. I'll try it. Yeah, Maybe if and when we start impersonating Miss Piggy and doing the whole Betina/Belinda thing.

A.J.: Okay.

Bubba: The other thing is that my first dance with Mom was to Rainbow Connection, as you guys remember. But originally, I didn't tell you this. Originally, I was really wanting to play The Love We Found from the very end of The Christmas Carol. Because it's so epic and it's so beautiful. But it doesn't really have a traditional song structure and it's very quick.

Ashleigh:Yeah. 

Bubba: As we'll discuss it has like, you know, it works because there is a setup to it that's actually really sad and pretty dark and dismal. So I didn't think it was right for a first dance. Mother, son, first dance. But yeah, the Muppets are important.

A.J.: It was released in 1992.

Ashleigh: I was going to say, does everyone want to feel old? I didn't know that until I was doing a little bit of research. 30 years.

A.J.: So how old were we when we first watched this? 

Ashleigh: We were young because I was trying to remember this too. And I very vividly remember-- I don't remember a lot from the old house-- but I remember us all being together, huddled together when Dad would come home and singing, we'd set up to sing the chorus. We were such little assholes, basically. So we sang the chorus for the Scrooge song as he came in. He worked hard all day to come home to his stupid children singing "He must be so lonely." And so I remember that in the old house.

A.J.: "Here comes Mr. Humbug."

Ashleigh: Clearly I wasn't four when I first watched it, but it was somewhere around there.

Bubba: I was born in 92. I must have been anywhere from 2 to 4 when we first started watching it.

A.J.: Muppet Christmas Carol is three things. It is really earnest, like any good musical has to be. It's really goofy, like the Muppets are, and it's occasionally very creepy. And those three traits are my favorite traits, and I think it has been very influential to me. I think it's been influential to you, Bubba, and in a way also to you, Ash.

Bubba: I think there's a lot to dig into, especially the creepiness of The Muppet Christmas Carol. A lot of the creepiness also shows up in the '96 Muppet Treasure Island, which is also the same deal. For anyone who doesn't know Muppet Treasure Island, there is just like the scariest scene upfront with a character named Blind Pew who looks a lot like a mask that shows up in Labyrinth. It looks like the culmination of years of work trying to like, get this creepy design. This is kind of goofy and hilarious. But as a kid watching both these movies, Christmas Carol and Treasure Island, they just are full of these moments that are just terrifying. But I think it is really important to make an impression on kids. Like there's a little bit of an adrenaline rush in it. It's not like, you know, you don't want to shock and disturb a kid and traumatize them, but there was just enough creepiness to really sink into the subconscious of the Serrano siblings as kids, I think.

A.J.: I don't want to get too far ahead in the movie, but when the Ghosts of Christmas Future shows up, which is just like...he looks like a Dementor basically. Yeah, he shows up and Gonzo and Rizzo--Gonzo, who plays Charles Dickens in the movie. They say to the camera, "This is too scary. We're going to leave until the end of this movie." And as a kid watching that, as a kid watching the characters that you love be like, this is too scary, we're going to go away for 10-15 minutes but it feels like half the movie...That is terrifying as a kid.They don't do that anymore in movies. 

Ashleigh: I had Rory and Reagan watch it this weekend and I was really worried about that part because it is super scary for four and three year olds. But I think because he doesn't talk-- if he talked and he had a creepy voice, that would be too much. I don't think they're old enough to get it because it's for adults and for anyone who understands death and everything, it's too much. It's like, oh my God, what is happening? But they just saw No Face and so they were fine with it. I think they were more creeped out by the Ghost of Christmas Past. And I remember being creeped out by her. I was like, What is this creature? Oh, it's kind of like a jellyfish. What was that? Was that a muppet or a human?

Bubba: So do you know how they shot that?

Ashleigh: No.

A.J.: They put it in water, right?

Bubba: They put it in water. But if this behind the scenes video that I watched on YouTube is correct, they initially tried to shoot it in like baby oil to get a really slow levitating look to it and floating. And they realized that cleaning the glass of the tank that all the baby oil was in was just terrible. According to this YouTube video-- I love that I'm just quoting YouTube videos without actually looking it up. But the puppet in that water disintegrated over time. So, like, progressively the shots get a little bit more and more like, you know, the puppet looks a little bit more torn up and kind of frayed and all that.

A.J.: Her face being expressionless and  almost unmoving is...it is very scary.

Ashleigh: It haunts my nightmares still.

Bubba: I think that they initially wanted Muppet characters to be the ghosts for past, present and future. I saw that they were initially thinking Gonzo would not be the narrator but the Ghost of Christmas Future. And in this video that I watched they comped in his nose coming out of that. And then Miss Piggy was supposed to be like the Ghost of Christmas present, which I think is great. But I don't know who they were thinking about for the Ghost of Christmas past.

Ashleigh: I was reading something about how, you know, Gonzo as Charles Dickens is just like the perfect casting. Is it Frank Oz? He was saying, or it wasn't Frank Oz who plays Gonzo. I can't remember his name (it's Dave Goelz), but he was very excited for Gonzo to play that character because in the past he's always been like the kooky, crazy one and never before that point had they really showcased his his sweeter side and, you know, he's kind of level headed in it where Rizzo plays the this like who? what? where? you know that guy. And the one casting, I mean, Kermit was just like the sweetest fellow in that, in that movie. Like, obviously his character is very sweet and Kermit's very sweet, but he's just so nice in that movie. And Miss Piggy, I thought was really interesting in that movie, because she was not playing herself, but she still had little elements of herself. But it's just amazing that they've created these characters who can be cast as other characters and still have elements of their personality shine through. And we still know who they are and know who they're trying to be. And they're not humans, but they seem so, you know, perfectly cast. So perfect.

A.J.: Well, here's a question for you guys. How do you say the title of this movie?

Ashleigh: Muppets Christmas Carol.

Bubba: It's The Muppet Christmas Carol, right?

A.J.: It's The Muppet Christmas Carol. Now, what is the title of the book that it's based on?

Bubba: A Christmas Carol.

A.J.: A Christmas Carol. Yeah. So I looked up The Muppet Christmas Carol is the first non-Jim Henson directed Muppet movie because he died in 1990. So his son Brian Henson directed this. But the other Muppet movies, they made it 3 before this. They're all titled The Muppet Movie, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Great Muppet Caper.

Ashleigh: Yeah.

A.J.: So they all start with The and they kept that tradition even after Jim Henson's death. And then it was only when they did Muppet Treasure Island that it's out of it.

Ashleigh: Bold move.

Bubba: What's the deal? They just want to get higher on an alphabetical list with them instead of T?

A.J.: Don't know what it is, but they went back to it. They did Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from Space. And then when Jason Segel did his revamp of it, the movie was called The Muppets or whatever it was called. Another thing is even before this movie starts the nineties Disney logo of like the blue laser forming the castle and whatever sort of soundtrack that's playing over it. I can just like, hear it. 

Ashleigh: And the buzz buzz of the Jim Henson, the whole thing is just ingrained in my memory forever.

A.J.: I know.

Bubba: It's like a buzzing. He makes a laser etching. Like a 2D Kermit that kind of rotates up and reveals. 

A.J.: The buzz is the dot in the i in Jim Henson.

Bubba: I don't know if you remember this, A.J., but we definitely copied that Buzz Buzz sound with a trailer that we made for a project that we never actually even attempted to make called The Horny Bee. A lot of buzzing. But yeah, it is definitely seared. It's like very nostalgic hearing and watching those opening logo credit things.

Oh, can we go back to the scariest moments real quick? Because for me, it's not the Ghost of Christmas Future. It's definitely the first reveal of the Marley Brothers.

Ashleigh: Oh, I know. It's horrifying. 

Bubba: It's just like everything. Well, the doorknobs. So the doorknob is freaky for sure. The doorknob creaking, but yeah, yeah. But even scarier is the whole kind of tension building process of Scrooge sitting down in front of his fire in that really bare room. He's eating his loaf of bread and his cheese in his nightcap and his robe and it's just like a really dark sitting parlor room. And the bell rings once he's like, Oh, that was weird. Whatever. And then the bell rings again, and you get those kind of weird smash cuts in on themselves. And then he turns to see, like, the banister glowing or the stairwell glowing. And the two old guys, I don't even know what those Muppets names are. The two old guys kind of talk shit from the balcony and all the other.

Ashleigh: Yeah.

Bubba: As they pop up, it's the Marley Brothers and it's terrible.

A.J.: Before they pop up, there is this watery sound effect when the camera's panning across Michael Caine towards the fireplace. I don't know if you guys heard it, but it's just like, Why do I hear this weird water? It just makes it even more tense and uncomfortable and weird. And then the tension is sort of broken when you hear the Bob Marley laugh.

Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah. No, but then there's a flip here. It's like Walter and someone.

A.J.: They're just Marley and Marley.

Ashleigh: I know.

Bubba: It's just, you know, Jacob and Robert. Quick tangent on that, which might not be super quick. So The Muppet Christmas Carol is the only Christmas Carol that I ever saw up until like a few years ago. And I watched the 1951 version. Everything that I know about A Christmas Carol comes from this movie because I've never read the book and I've never seen other versions. So I grew up thinking that there were two Marley Brothers, that it was Marley, Marley, and Scrooge had like a little business together. But there's only one. There's only Jacob Marley.

Ashleigh: Oh, my God.

Bubba: It took me until the age of 27 to know, like, Oh, there aren't. What do you mean there's no like, where's the other Marley? Will there be two of them?

Asheigh: I found that out today.

Bubba: The other big piece to a Christmas Carol that I never knew because it's not in this adaptation, is that Scrooge, for his whole thing, was such a kind of miserly old crustacean of an old man. He's such a humbug of a guy because his sister passed away while giving birth to his nephew. That's why he resents the nephew for his sister not growing up. His sister Finn basically comes to his school one year, saves him from the school his father has sent him to this boarding school to get out of the house. They have, like a bad relationship. Finn comes, rescues him, tells him to come home, and he has this loving relationship with Finn for a few years until she gives birth to the nephew and then Finn passes away and Scrooge resents the nephew and obviously has that falling out with his love interest or his wife. So at the end of the '51 version, and I'm sure at the end of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge goes to the nephew's house for Christmas. He doesn't go to, you know, the Cratchitt's. And when I watched that and learned that, I was like, Oh, that kind of makes a little bit more sense.

A.J.: Michael Caine's performance in this movie is incredible. I think it should have been nominated for an Oscar. It never would have though.

Ashleigh: But yeah, no.

A.J.: He is so committed in this movie. He treats the Muppets like they are fellow humans. And you can tell as a kid, you can tell that it's a truthful, authentic performance. And watching it last night at the age of 33, I'm like, this performance holds up. But I need to talk. We need to talk about this. This is the most important thing. And it has to do with the nephew. The version of The Muppet Christmas Carol that we watched growing up had a song that happened after young Scrooge and Belle break up, and it's When Love Is Gone, which is yeah, not the most exciting song when I was a kid, but it felt like it was necessary because it's sort of like...what's the song at the end?

Ashleigh: When Love is Found.

A.J.: When Love is Found. I don't know what the technical Broadway terms are for. It was like a call and response song, right? Reprise. And they cut it, I don't know, maybe like ten years ago, Disney just cut that song out.

Ashleigh: I did some research.

A.J.: Yeah, tell us.

Ashleigh: So when we watched it, we watched the VHS version and I always sang When Love Is Gone. You guys hated it. I loved it. Sappy, romantic. And then the first time I remember we got the DVD, we were in the basement. We were watching it, the whole scene was gone. It's just not there. And I remember really, like, what is happening? It was the strangest thing. So I was looking into it. Apparently when they were converting from VHS to DVD, they cut the scene because Disney lost the negative and it looked terrible. And then somehow in 2020 they found it, so they put it back in.

A.J.: I don't buy that.

Ashleigh: I don't buy that either because Brian Henson, like, yeah, he loved it. He wanted it and he wanted it. And Disney was like, no, basically because the kids hate it is probably the reason. But now, like all these people are like, Where is this scene? Oh, we found the negative. We'll put it back in like, it's so weird, but now it's in and the kids did hate it when they were watching it. They're like, What?

A.J.: What? Where did you watch it? Because I rented it on Amazon and it did not have it.

Ashleigh: I watched on Disney Plus.

Bubba: They have it on Disney Plus?

Ashleigh: Yeah. So DVDs don't have it. I don't know how Amazon works. 

Bubba: But I watched on Disney Plus too, and it was missing that scene in my version. You have to go for the director's cut or something?

Ashleigh: Oh no, I just did straight from the home page. They had it and we played it.

A.J.: I guess the movie works without it, but--

Ashleigh: It's weird without it.

A.J.: I mean, it's fine because we know. Yeah, really, the ending is so much more emotional when it's like an echo of that sadder song. 

Ashleigh: It's funny. I know the girl who plays Belle was interviewed, like, a few days ago for the 30th, and she was saying, like, this is such a saga, the song, because it's like it was in then it wasn't now it's in and everyone's happy. But people talk to her about it all the time, which is just probably not something she was expecting.

Bubba: I think one thing that the version without that scene benefits from is that most people going into A Christmas Carol know something about Ebenezer Scrooge just being kind of the grumpy old guy even if they don't know why. So you don't really know because it kind of culturally seeps into your brain somehow. You just know that he's a Scrooge. So, like, maybe you don't need the explanation, but in the version without that scene, without that song, you don't really have an explanation for why, you know, he thinks love is a humbug and Christmas is a humbug. And it's just like, I don't know, it just seems like Screenwriting 101 to have that scene in there, the full scene in there. I don't know why they took it out. I think it's kind of weirdly hypocritical that Disney was like, oh, the kids are going to hate this when they have at least two self-aware moments where Gonzo and Rizzo are discussing how scary the movie is. Like, there is that moment after the Marley Brothers scene where Rizzo's like, Should we be worried about the kids? And Gonzo goes, No, it's culture. It's fine. I feel like that's in there because Disney and the Jim Henson Company were having their own versions of that conversation, like, how scary should we make it because this is for kids. But A Christmas Carol is a ghost story and someone was probably like, It's culture, Come on, It's totally fine. And like you would think that that same argument would kind of hold up for like, these kids are so bored by this one musical number. I don't know, it's part of the story. Kids, suck it up.

Ashleigh: I was going to ask what do you guys think about Rizzo? Like playing himself when no one else is?

A.J.: I think it's necessary to have at least one Muppet character for the kids. Y

Bubba: Yeah, and Rizzo is very funny.

Ashleigh: Yeah. "Thank you for making me a part of it."

A.J.: When he turns to an ice cube. 

Ashleigh: Oh, it's good. It's good. I also just love--what's his name? Bean Bunny. Just the cutest character of all time. And similar to what you were talking about, Bubba, where you only had ever seen the Muppets version. On SNL this past weekend they did like a Scrooge, a quick little skit. And Sarah Sherman, she played the bunny character. And I was just like, I could only see it.

A.J.: His name is Bean?

Ashleigh: I think it's Bean Bunny. Yeah. I could only see him and so, like, I was comparing her to him. It was so weird. It was so weird, but it was a funny skit if you haven't seen it.

A.J.: Bubs, did you call Bean Bunny pathetic?

Bubba: Yeah, he's...I mean, he's so...There's like, that shot of him--No I mean, pathetic in like he's like, yeah, he needs help. Like, I feel he's such a sympathetic character. So another thing that is happening in this movie but kind of goes unnoticed when you're a kid is like all the subtle social commentary jabs left and right. I only noticed that this time around, the movie opens with three or four pigs. Yeah, rich pigs going to breakfast. So like, you have these two or three business pigs that are coming from wealth that are just like, Oh, we just were full, like stuffed as pigs. "What should we do now? Next we should go eat lunch." And then the next thing that happens is you kind of swoop down to that town square and someone steals one of those talking vegetables off a cart. So you follow that up with all these cutaways after. But I think after Kermit's number with the rats, you know, "Tis the season to be jolly and joyful." He's standing there and he's looking at the shooting Christmas star. And then that scene ends with the camera kind of panning down to the shaking bunny. And it's like, maybe it's not saying a ton, but it's just like a little jab of like, Ooh, that stings at the end. Like, Christmas isn't all about being, you know, not everyone can celebrate Christmas with that joy. The movie does a great job balancing out dark and light. And I think that might be one of the reasons why The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the better adaptations of A Christmas carol. It's just the Muppets add this lightness to all that darkness that is kind of inherent to the story, and it's just great. It's great.

Ashleigh: Well said. Circling back to the two guys, you would never guess their names. I don't even think I've ever heard them called...Waldorf?

Bubba: Waldorf?

A.J.: Yeah. I think they're named after...Well, there's the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, right? I think they're named after New York hotels, but I'm not sure. But yeah, I mean, Jim Henson was kind of crazy. He also died when he was 53, Too young. Yeah, I would love to have seen another decade or two of Jim Henson movies. 

Ashleigh: You're right. They did the Statler Hotel. Yeah. Did he go to Cornell, though? I'll look it up.

A.J.: Any last words?

Ashleigh: No. He went to the University of Maryland. 

Bubba: I got two last words and I got a topic for the three of us, but my two last words are I can't believe this movie came out in '92 because it looks so good. Some of the technology is kind of lame. Some of the transitions and the visual effects are kind of lame.

A.J.: The green screen looks great.

Bubba: It's really just those weird, swirly portal transitions that don't really hold up. And then I don't know who ever thought like, Hey, when the Ghost of Christmas Present is like fading out of existence, we should have these, like, horrible rainbow sparkles cover his body because that just looks not good to me in a world where everything else is super tangible.

Ashleigh: But the set looks incredible.

Bubba: It's beautiful. The costume design looks so good. And it's just like however they shot it this movie isn't really aging, you know. It's aging gracefully is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. The other thing real quick is that I just want to circle back and plus one the fact that Michael Caine does a weirdly amazing job. I think he, like A.J. said, respects these little puppet actors as actors and not as Muppets. And I think of all the Muppet movies I've seen--maybe it's because it is a Christmas Carol, like a, you know, a kind of a timeless work of literature that everyone knows and loves this world that they created for The Muppet Christmas Carol just works with the humans and the Muppets interacting. Everything feels right. It doesn't feel weird and I don't know, it just doesn't feel like, oh, these human actors that are easily identifiable are just like walking around in Muppet World. It feels like everyone should exist here together. And I don't really know how they did it, but they certainly pulled it off.

A.J.: Oh, they did. Ash?

Ashleigh: I just love the opening song. "When the Cold Wind Blows it Chills You." It does such a great job getting you in. You're right in the world and you're like following this guy around with his footsteps. He's walking in the cold snow. Like you guys are saying, there's joy, there's wealth, there's poverty, and we're just singing this song and we're getting to know this character. Like that opening song, top, top song.

Bubba: All the music, all the music is fantastic. Every song.

Ashleigh: Yeah.

Bubba: I love how it's like weirdly baroque and it just sounds great. 

A.J.: You guys notice Granny Kermit is one of the old lady singers?

Bubba: Oh, noted. Yeah. Well, I feel like we really need to apologize to dad one day. Remember when we sang him that song from the Prince of Egypt?

Ashleigh: Oh, yeah. No. Another character or theme that I really like was when the penguins are skating. The memory flashes through my head because it's so sweet. I love that.

A.J.: So I couldn't figure out if the penguins were stop motion animation. I think so. Some of the comp work is so good. Okay, we can keep talking about it forever, but we need to wrap it up.

Bubba: Real quick, real quick before you say thank you and all that first thing that comes to mind. What's your most quotable line in this movie?

Ashleigh: I think I already said mine. "Thank you for making me a part of this."

Bubba: A.J.?

A.J.: Heat wave! This is my island in the sun!

Bubba: That's mine, too. Oh, my God. I wonder if they kept those costumes for Treasure Island.

A.J.: All right, well, thank you for listening to the first episode of Haunted Basement. We are looking to do more of these soon. My name's A.J. That's Bubba over there. And that's Ashleigh.

Bubba: Maybe go watch The Muppet Christmas Carol and happy holidays.

A.J.: I hope you like it as much as we do, but maybe not.

Ashleigh: Maybe not now. But I love it.