A final Friday at school for the year. Fifth grade. I was ten years old, I figure. My birthday was a few week’s distant and Christmas was right around the corner. The weather was chill (or as chill as a Southern California winter was going to get, anyway) and a Christmas party was in the cards that weekend. It wasn’t a party for either my younger sister nor for me … it was for my folks and their friends.
You see, in the good ‘ole days, there wasn’t anything as high-falutin’ as babysitters to watch us while the folks went out. You shuttled your kids along with you and stuck them in a playroom or let them rip around the yard with strict orders: 1) Not to kill each other; 2) Not to break anything (that went double for arms and legs and teeth); and 3) To stay out of trouble. Follow those rules and anything else was fair game.
Man. Good times.
And, no … of course we didn’t follow the rules. Sometimes, half the fun of the get-togethers was posting a lookout to make sure some stray adult wasn’t coming around the corner as we jumped off the roof or enmeshed ourselves in some other mischief we shouldn’t have been involved in. (Hey … we were kids. Envelope pushing was part of our business.)
The parties usually ended with a bunch of us stuffed in a room with enough popcorn, chips, candy and soda to choke a horse, planted in front of an old wooden console set, cathode ray tube pulsing out warm white and blue goodness for our enjoyment. And it was at such a party ‘round about 11 o’clock on a Christmas Eve that I got my first taste of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the rather gothic 1971 animated version of the classic tale.
I don’t remember how many kids there were with me – various cousins and friends and others – but I do remember most of them had nodded off barely five minutes into the program. Me? Well, some other kid and I were mesmerized by the story and the weird imagery we were subjected to. This strange cartoon held my interest from start to finish and simultaneously had me smiling and involuntarily raising the hackles on the back of my neck. I was horrified at the revelation of Ignorance and Want beneath The Spirit of Christmas Present’s flowing robe. They were downright frightening and nightmarish; and I was sucked in by their plight like a babe being offered up as sacrifice. I distinctly remember one of the adults coming in to check on us during scenes with Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. That other kid and I about leapt out our skins when she entered.
Good times. Good times, indeed.
To this day, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to find A Christmas Carol on the boob tube Christmas Eve; or, at the very least, coming out some local channel during the wee hours of a December 25th morning while Santa is making his “gift deliveries” and munching away at the milk and cookies left out for him. It’s tradition for me to see this tale of stinginess and woe and hope and joy. In any incarnation, it’s a good one, be it in glorious black and white with Alastair Sim or Reginald Owen or with The Muppets and Michael Caine.
Find it on your television set and fall asleep to it if you can. Because everyone – whether alone late at night or with the family gathered around you – needs a little classic ghost tale in their lives come the end of the year.
IGNORANCE & WANT from John Allen Bell on Vimeo
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Dec 22, 2010 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
I love all various ones they have made of this. I must have watched 6 different ones so far this year. But one of my favorites is the one with Bill Murray.
It’s easy to see that our current society is much more interested in watching Ralphie get his Red Ryder Carbine Action 200 shot Range Model Air Rifle and Flick getting his tongue stuck to the flagpole than watch anything with any hint of a social message to it.
We few remember though, we few.
Tell you what..the ghost of Christmas yet to come gave me the nightmares…holy moly! This year I purchased the Disney’s Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey. I was thinkin’..another comedy but not so. Although it was animation (kudos to the studio), Carrey actually did a great job as Scrooge…who would have thunk?!
I like the George C. Scott musical one. (My sister was in a Shakespeare production with Anton Rodgers who sang “Thank You Very Much” on top of Scrooge’s casket. She said he was a very funny man with great theatre stories. And if you really study that number, it’s just fantastic.) All the music is good, and written by the same composer, Leslie Bricusse, who wrote “Victor/Victoria”, “Doctor Doolittle,”and “Willy Wonka.” So, that gets my vote for favorite version. Although Patrick Stewart and Alastair Sim are mighty fine as well.
I meant Albert Finney. Geez. I’ve only seen it 3 times this week ;)