Brian Henson Didn't Want The Muppet Christmas Carol To Be Compared To His Father's Work
Since the death of Jim Henson in 1990, there has been a scramble to figure out what to do with his signature creation, The Muppets. Some of the attempts have been quite successful, and some have fallen flat on their face. Remember that primetime ABC mockumentary series from the 2010s? Yeah, best we all forget that ever happened. For many Muppet fans today, the solution seems fairly obvious: bring back "The Muppet Show." Back to basics. It seemed like the 2011 Jason Segel-led movie "The Muppets" was going to result in that, but Disney went in a different direction. It has been over 40 years since that original show went off the air, and reconfiguring it for today could be a joy.
Back in 1990, though, that was not the clear path. The Muppets had moved to the big screen and starred in three incredibly funny, successful films. Television was in the rear view. They had proven themselves outside of the confines of the variety show. But now that the major creative force behind these characters for decades was gone, who was going to take up the mantle? The Muppets became a family business, and Jim's son Brian Henson became the go-to guy. Even though this was what his father created, Brian wasn't all that interested in playing cover versions of that work. Any artist worth their salt isn't content to rest on their laurels. They want to try stuff, and Brian Henson was going to establish his own vibe within The Muppets. His first crack at that happened with his directorial debut, "The Muppet Christmas Carol."
Turning to overt parody
In an effort to find his own path with The Muppets, Brian Henson was searching for a new way to bring these characters to life. The ideas weren't just coming from his own mind either but from all the people surrounding him. In fact, the idea for "The Muppet Christmas Carol" was not some long-held passion project for Henson but came from his agent. Henson spoke of its genesis with The Guardian in December 2015, saying:
"I didn't want too much of a direct comparison between me and my dad. So I thought: 'Let's do something different.' Our agent, Bill Haber, said to me: ”Christmas Carol' is the greatest story of all time, you should do that.' While I was thinking about it, he called me back and said: 'I've sold it to the ABC TV channel.'"
Based on that, Brian Henson found himself thrust into a whole new direction, almost forcing him to carve his own way out. However, he and longtime Muppets writer Jerry Juhl's original conception of "The Muppet Christmas Carol" was originally quite different. As The Muppets are a comedy troupe, their first instinct was a straight parody of the classic Charles Dickens novella. Henson explained:
"The Muppets are famous for questioning the status quo, and anti-establishment irreverence, so we took that and pointed it at Charles Dickens. Robin the Frog was going to be the ghost of Christmas past, Miss Piggy was going to be this bacchanalian ghost of Christmas present, and Animal was going to be the ghost of Christmas yet to come. We were going to do a romping parody."
That could've been a funny movie perhaps, but what makes the story such an enduring classic lies in its juxtaposition of fear and elation. Parody would've flattened it out.
Honoring Charles Dickens
Wisely, Brian Henson and Jerry Juhl realized that there were further dimensions to be explored in their telling of "A Christmas Carol," especially when Disney decided to move the film from television to the big screen. Charles Dickens' text is incredibly rich, which is why it has been adapted countless times in countless mediums. They saw this as an opportunity to pay homage to Dickens himself, which led to the idea of Gonzo as Charles Dickens telling the story of the film, as Henson told The Guardian:
"Then we stopped and reconsidered. Nobody had ever captured Dickens's prose – the wonderful way he described the scenes. So we had to put Charles Dickens in the movie. Who's the least likely character to be Charles Dickens? Gonzo! So we made him this omniscient storyteller, with Rizzo his pain-in-the-neck sidekick. Ninety-five percent of what Gonzo says in the movie is directly taken from the book."
"The Muppet Christmas Carol" ends up being a rather straightforward adaptation of the novella, big emotions and all. Michael Caine delivers a tremendous dramatic performance as Ebenezer Scrooge, arguably the best the character has ever been portrayed on film. All of The Muppets certainly have their schtick and still deliver some big laughs, but they all are serving Dickens' story here. Instead of making a film that could be seen as a trifle to just further perpetuate the brand of The Muppets, Brian Henson made a fully realized, emotional, and highly entertaining picture that showed he had a tremendous amount of talent that was completely different from his father's. And he did this when he was 28 years old. No easy feat.