The Real Ghostbusters: "Xmas Marks The Spot"

Premiered December 13, 1986

The Ghostbusters are driving around, lost in Upstate New York, when their Ecto-1 ambulance breaks down.  

Winston (Arsenio Hall), Ray (Frank Welker) and Egon (Maurice Lemarche) wish they were home celebrating Christmas.  Peter Venkman (Lorenzo Music) scoffs at this, he’s never had any use for the holiday season. Venkman’s father had a job that kept him that often kept him away during Christmas when he was a kid.

They stumble on a small town that’s not on the map.  The buildings look old and all the people are dressed in Victorian fashions. 

We see a resident of the town, Bob Cratchit (LeMarche) buying a Christmas turkey.

Bob Cratchit with Tiny Tim on his shoulders.

The Ghostbusters hear ghostly noises and track them to a nearby house.  They find three ghosts talking to an old man. The ghosts are promptly captured & trapped. 

It turns out the old man was Ebenezer Scrooge (Peter Renaday), he’s very grateful for the Ghostbusters' intervention but gets angry when they ask for payment for their service. 

The Ghostbusters threaten to release the ghosts, but he pays them with a valuable coin over a hundred years old.  The age of the coin makes the Ghostbusters curious.  Scrooge decides to declare war on Christmas.

The Ghostbusters return to New York and are shocked to see no one celebrating Christmas. 

They wish passersby a Merry Christmas only to be greeted with “Bah Humbug”.

Scrooge's message has turned the Ghostbusters' assistant Janine (Laura Summer) against Christmas.

They learn that their upstate New York adventure somehow caused them to travel back in time to Victorian England.  They realize they've accidentally changed the future.

In the anti-Christmas spirit, New Yorkers greet each other with "Bah Hambugs."

The Ghostbusters captured the Christmas Spirits before they could teach Scrooge his lesson, and eventually Scrooge’s anti-Christmas sentiments caught on all over the world.  Scrooge authored a book called A Christmas Humbug that served as a manifesto against the holiday.  The Ghostbusters have accidentally destroyed Christmas! (Perhaps they should have remembered their Dickens.)

They hope that if they can go back in time again and release the ghosts, everything will go back to normal.  But that may not be an easy task.  Egon will have to go into the containment unit and free the ghosts, which could cost him his life.

This prompts the Ghostbusters to act as substitutes for the three Spirits Of Christmas, in case Egon's efforts are not successful. 

Peter stands in for the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Winston "understudies" for the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Ray poses as the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Can the Ghostbusters restore Christmas?  Even if they can, will Peter Venkman continue to hate Christmas?

J.A. Morris says:

The Real Ghostbusters is a show I remember but  I'd never seen an entire episode until I stumbled on this a couple years ago.  It's a fun Christmas episode, as long as you get past a few things.  For example, Scrooge is a fictional character, not a real one.   And like most time-travel stories, this one has paradoxes. 

This is not,strictly speaking an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, but it's a good homage.  In this episode we get not one,but two Scrooges, since Peter Venkman is lacking in Christmas spirit just like Dickens' old miser.  When the Ghostbusters are forced to stand-in for the Ghosts, they come up with some humorous techniques.  My favorite was using a View-Master as a "magic window" that let's Scrooge see his past!   

   
If I have any problem with this episode it's that the animation looks cheap and hasn't aged very well. 

Carolers sing outside the Ghostbusters' firehouse on Christmas Eve.

But the voice actors are very good.  Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker and Maurice Lemarche are big names in the voiceover world.  They're good here, even if they don't sound like very much like their movie counterparts.  And Arsenio Hall (years before he became famous as a talk show host) is also good as Winston.

The Ghostbusters and friends share a Christmas toast.

I can't discuss this series without mentioning Lorenzo Music.  He played the voice of Garfield in Garfield And Friends.  Music voices Peter Venkman here, a role played by Bill Murray in the Ghostbusters movies.  In 2004 the motion picture Garfield, the cat was voiced by...Bill Murray.  Life is funny sometimes!  

Marley's Ghost flees Scrooge's as the Ghostbusters arrive.

"X-mas Marks The Spot" is no classic, but it was fun and exceeded my expectations.  While it wasn't an adaptation, it still contained Dickens' message about treating your fellow humans with kindness at Christmas and year-round.  And it was a nice introduction to the series.  If nothing else, it makes me want to check out the Halloween and Thanksgiving episodes of The Real Ghostbusters.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 candy canes.

RigbyMel says: 

I know I watched The Real Ghostbusters when it was first on  (my younger brother ADORED it), but I don't remember watching this particular episode until recent years.  

As J.A. Morris says, there are some clever touches to this episode, but there is also a LOT going on in it. The stumbling into an alternate time/dimension reminds me a lot of Brigadoon.  The Christmas-less world that the Ghostbusters inadvertently create has a bit of an It's A Wonderful Life flavor.   And, of course, there are the obvious references to A Christmas Carol throughout.  The sub-plot where Egon actually goes into the ghost containment unit in search of the captured A Christmas Carol ghosts that leans heavily on the sci-fi aspects of the series.   In point of fact,  there seems to be a bit too much going on in this little, cheaply animated half hour episode for it to have much cohesion.   

Also, when the Ghostbusters meet Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, it bothers the heck out of me that Tiny Tim resembles a frog more than a human child.  

This is an amusing episode, but the lack of cohesiveness keeps it from being great.

RigbyMel's rating:

2 1/2 candy canes

Homicide: Life On The Street: "And All Through The House"

"To get here, I had to run a virtual gauntlet of Christmas cheer.
Bargain-hungry shoppers, mewling kids, carols blasting from diabolically hidden loudspeakers.What kept me going was the thought that once I reached my destination - our sacred inner sanctum - I'd find refuge from this yuletide delirium."
-Det. John Munch

Premiered December 16, 1994.

It's Christmas in Baltimore, Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) arrives at work in a Scroogey mood.  Munch says he hates Christmas and isn't happy to see a Christmas tree in the precinct.

Munch argues with Bollander about Christmas (check out Stan's Baltimore Orioles scarf).

Fellow Det. Stan Bollander (Ned Beatty) brought in the tree to in hopes of adding a bit of holiday cheer to the office.  He refuses to let Munch ruin his Christmas.

Munch and Bollander get a call about a dead body.  It turns out to be a Salvation Army Santa.  This prompts the cynical Munch to say "Uh-oh, Rudolph's gonna be pissed!" They visit the dead man's home and find a young boy named Fidel (Ryan Goldstein) all by himself.  Bollander steps out to make a call, leaving Munch with the burden of telling Fidel about his father's death.

This is the last thing that Munch wants to do, so he delays telling Fidel the crushing news for as long as he can.  This leads to the two spending Christmas Eve together well into the night, talking about Fidel's father.  They wind up visiting a batting cage, where Munch fails to make contact with a single baseball. The tragic death of Fidel's father forces Munch to find some Christmas cheer in his heart.

At the same time, Det. Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Lieutenant Megan Russert (Isabella Hoffman) investigate another homicide.  They find a woman who has been burned to death.

The detectives are surprised to learn a deceased drug addict lived in a mansion.

Russert and Lewis discover her name was Whitney Freeman and she was scheduled to testify against a drug dealer. The detectives learn Whitney came from a wealthy family and they visit her mother to break the news.

Back at the station, Det. Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) is trying to get his fellow detectives to play cards. Bayliss suggests it's just for the sake of building camaraderie on Christmas Eve.

 He's turned down by several co-workers.

Det. Kay Howard (Melissa Leo)  isn't interested in playing cards with Bayliss.

But he finally finds a willing opponent in the form of his boss, Lt. Al "Gee" Giardello (Yaphet Kotto). Bayliss thinks he can hustle Gee for money in a game of Hearts, but he may get more than he bargained for.

Giardello accepts Bayliss' challenge to a game of Hearts.

 J.A. Morris says:

I was a huge fan of Homicide:Life On The Streets when it aired back in the 90s.  It was the best drama of the 90s and it featured one of the best ensemble casts in recent memory.  I'm a bit biased, because the series took place (and was partially filmed) in Baltimore, one of my favorite cities.  Homicide was created by the same people who later produced The Wire and Treme and it helped pave the way for those series.

Danielle Spright (Gabrielle Goyette) is interviewed about her husband's possible connection to a murder.

"All Through The House" is probably the darkest programming we've covered here.  It shows that for some, Christmas isn't such a "merry" time of year.

Bayliss critiques the tree.

 The holiday season can be a reminder of loved ones who have departed.  People are killed on Christmas.  Both Munch and Lewis quote statistics about suicides at Christmas time.  For the crack addicts, it's just another night when they need a fix.  And there's a heartbreaking scene where a suspect is arrested in front of their family on Christmas Eve.

Det. Frank Pimbleton (Andre Braugher) wishes he was home with his wife on Christmas Eve.

This episode is also a reminder that some jobs force people to work on Christmas Eve.  When asked how he's doing, Pimbleton says "I miss my wife.  I miss my fireplace.  I miss Nat King Cole."  Det. Beau Felton's (Daniel Baldwin) wife has recently left him and taken their children, he doesn't know where they are.  Felton says spending Christmas Eve at the precinct makes him want to put a bullet in his head (ouch!).

Felton wraps a baseball signed by Orioles pitcher Mike Mussina  (I love the Baltimore references on this series!) for his son.

But For Russert, investigating a murder is preferable to being at home with her family, since they remind her that her husband (whom she first met on Christmas) is dead.  Lewis misses his late patrol partner (they spent Christmases together), who has recently committed suicide.  There's a nice scene where they share coffee and bond over this.

It's not all grim and depressing.  One of the cases has a happier-than-expected ending.  Munch's monologues about his hatred of Christmas (and just about everything else, except being a detective) are funny (helped by Belzer's background in stand-up comedy).  Bayliss' attempts to engage the other detectives in a game of Hearts helps lighten the mood.  And we get a brief but fun scene where the detectives engage in a snowball fight on Christmas morning.

Howard prepares to hurl a snowball.

In addition to the regular cast (who are great as usual), I wanted to commend the performance here by the late,great Nancy Marchand (best remembered for her award-winning roles on Lou Grant and The Sopranos) for her excellent portrayal of Lorraine Freeman.  As soon as the detectives arrive, she knows her troubled daughter is dead.

But she keeps decorating her tree, discussing the arts of how to hang different colored bulbs, trying to delay hearing the awful news.  When Lewis blurts out "Your daughter's dead" you can practically feel a jolt when Marchand's expression changes.

We also get a nice scene at the morgue.  Lewis is surprised to that Scheiner (Ralph Tabakian), the coroner has Hanukkah decorations on display.

Scheiner explains his Hanukkah decorations.

 Scheiner isn't Jewish, but he says he displays a Menorah because he wants "everybody to feel welcome".  This is a bit of a play on words, since he could be talking about everyone who enters or every dead body that arrives.  In any case, it's a nice reminder (especially in a city as diverse as Baltimore) that not everyone celebrates Christmas.

Bayliss gets in a cheap shot!

"And All Through The House" is a great episode of one of my favorite series.  I strongly recommend it, even if it isn't the most "feel-good" Christmas story ever.

Gee is greeted by a Christmas morning snowfall.

J.A. Morris' rating:

Four Candy Canes.

Scrooge (1951)

UK release poster.

Premiered October 31, 1951

This film was released in the U.S. as A Christmas Carol, here's the lobby card.

We now blog about the film that most critics call the best of all adaptations of A Christmas Carol.

But even this version is an not entirely faithful adaptation of Dickens' novel.  

Alastair Sim stars as Scrooge.  

Bob Cratchit is played by Mervyn Jones.

What are the major differences in this adaptation?

The film opens in the London Exchange instead of Scrooge's counting house.  He interacts with some businessmen, telling them that "Christmas has a habit of keeping men from doing business."  Outside the exchange, he encounters a man named Samuel Wilkins (Clifford Mollison), who owes Scrooge 20 pounds he cannot pay.  If Scrooge doesn't give him more time, Wilkins' and his wife will go to debtors' prison.  Scrooge dismisses Wilkins.  This makes Scrooge here arguably even meaner than he is in Dickens' story!

When Scrooge's nephew Fred (Brian Worth) visits the counting house, he doesn't give his usual speech about Christmas.  Scrooge also doesn't get to the utter his usual line about Christmas celebrants needed be boiled in their own pudding with a stake of holly through their hearts.  His interaction with Scrooge is short, followed by a separate visit to Cratchit. 

Michael Hordern as Jacob Marley

During Marley's ghostly visit to Scrooge, we are shown the tormented spirits wandering the earth trying in vain to help living folk.   This scene shows up occasionally in filmed adaptations, but rarely. 

The biggest change in this version is that it fleshes out Scrooge's backstory during the Christmas Past segment.   

Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Past (Michael Dolan). 

During Scrooge's time working as apprentice to Fezziwig (Roddy Hughes), a businessman named Jorkin (Jack Warner), who does NOT appear in Dickens' story (or in any other adaptation) tries to buy Fezziwig's business.  Jorkin tries to get Scrooge to poach Scrooge away from Fezziwig by offering him a bigger salary. 

Fan (Carol Marsh) comes to bring Young Scrooge (George Cole) home from school

We also see Scrooge's sister, Fan's death.  Ebenezer is heartbroken, insisting she's going to get well as he walks out. Because of being with the Ghost of Christmas Past, Scrooge learns that Fan wanted him to take care of Fred when she is gone.   As we saw in the opening,  he hasn't done a very good job of this.

Fan's death inspires young Scrooge to accept Jorkin's offer to clerk for him.  He meets Marley, who is already a clerk in Jorkin's business.  Scrooge speaks to Marley about his feeling that the world is "becoming a very hard and cruel place" and that he does not want to be crushed like "the weak and the infirm."  Marley and Scrooge realize they have much in common.  They eventually engineer a hostile takeover of Fezziwig's business.  Scrooge appears to feel  a bit guilty about this, but he refuses to talk to Fezzwig.  Later still, Jorkin is accused of embezzling funds from the company which allows Scrooge and Marley seize control of it.    

In a parallel scene to Fan's death,  Scrooge visits Marley on his deathbed - another scene that does not appear in the book or other adaptations.  Marley tells him they were wrong, but there's still time for Scrooge to save himself.  Once again, young Scrooge doesn't really listen to what the dying person asks of him.  

Scrooge signing Marley's death register

Scrooge's fiancee is named Alice. (Most adaptations call her Belle. Curiously, Dickens doesn't give her a name at all!)  When they discuss money, Scrooge says he loves Alice "because she's poor,not proud and foolish."  Of course, he changes his tune later and loses Alice as a result.  

Young Ebenezer and Alice at Fezziwig's party

When the Ghost of Christmas Present (Francis De Wolff) arrives,  along with the usual visit to the Cratchit's and Fred's homes that we expect,  we actually get to glimpse a scene with coal miners singing  carols around a fire.

Singing carols around the fire in a mining camp

This is part of Dickens' description of Scrooge's journey with the Spirit that rarely makes it into filmed adaptations. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present also shows Scrooge Ignorance and Want.  This is something that's in the book, but not often depicted in film and tv adaptations.

Ignorance and Want.

And in another new addition to the story, Scrooge observes Alice providing services to the poor during "Christmas Present".  

We also get a bit more of Scrooge interacting with Mrs. Dilber (Kathleen Harrison) the housekeeper in this version than is typical.  

J.A. Morris says: 

I've always believed that adaptations of this story are only as good as their Scrooge.  Sim has long been considered the best Scrooge and I have to agree.  Some actors play Scrooge as a mustache-twirling cartoonish villain.  But in Sim's hands, Scrooge is always human, we can relate to him even when we detest what comes out of his mouth.  This makes his nastiness more believable.  

Scrooge in a set that is lit like film noir

I'm not bothered by the expanded backstory.  Every adaptation omits portions of the story or adds new ones.  It would have been fine without the new stuff, but it doesn't detract from Dickens' story.

The rest of the actors are fine in their roles as well.  It's worth noting that two actors are well known to anyone who watched tv and film over the last 40-odd years.  The young Marley is played by Patrick MacNee, best known for portraying John Steed on The Avengers.  And Hermione Baddeley (best remembered for roles in Mary Poppins and Maude) plays Mrs. Cratchit.  Fans of Maude might appreciate seeing what "Mrs. Naugatuck" looked like when she was young. 

Hermione Baddeley as Mrs. Cratchit.

More than 60 years later, Sim remains the best Scrooge and this is still the best adaptation.  

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 candy canes!

RigbyMel says: 

This is a great adaptation of Dickens' classic tale.  Although there are additions to the tale, they serve to enhance and expand upon Dickens' themes rather than distract from them.    

The pacing in this version is interesting since so much time is devoted to the expanded Christmas Past segment.   It almost makes the Christmas Yet To Come part seem like an afterthought! (But what an effective afterthought it is!) 

I also like some of the smaller moments like the scene with the tortured spirits that Marley shows to Scrooge. I think this is the best iteration of this rarely shown aspect of the story that I've ever seen. 

I also love the interplay between Scrooge and Mrs. Dilber   The poor, put-upon woman is completely freaked out by Scrooge's transformation at the end and the scene where he gives her a guinea "for a Christmas present" on the staircase is actually very sweet.  

I also think this film has the Bet. Tiny Tim. Ever.   He's sympathetic and adorable without being cloying.   Kudos to Glyn Dearman for excellent delivery of The Line!  

"God bless us every one!"

This adaptation is also notable for showing up in quite a few subsequent Christmas-y films & programs -  Lethal Weapon,  2 separate episodes of The Sopranos and the "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas" episode of The X-Files to name but a few.

This version of A Christmas Carol definitely captures the "spirit" (pun intended!) of Dickens' story with aplomb and is highly recommended.

RigbyMel's rating:

4 candy canes