I’m sure, if I put enough work into it, I could wank this post around until I had some quasi-valid connection to advertising such that it would suit the theme of this blog. But it’s still the holiday season, and thus I’m going to give myself the gift of straight-up indulging in one of my favorite holiday-season topics: how awesome Michael Caine was in The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Because he was. Caine was one of four entire adult humans in the whole movie and delivered a performance worthy of an Academy Award. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Al Pacino killed it in Scent of a Woman, but it’s not like he was playing opposite Gonzo-the-Great-as-Charlie-Simms. Y’all can have your own opinions, of course, but be content with the knowledge that if you disagree with me on this, you’re objectively wrong.
I cut my teeth on the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol, but as soon as the Muppet version came into my life, it became the definitive version and has remained such ever since. Because let’s be clear: This movie, as a whole, is a work of freaking art. The music, the acting (puppeting?), the costumes (the HISTORICALLY ACCURATE PUPPET COSTUMES), the Dickensian prose as delivered by a blue… furry thing, all of it is awesome. (Peruse this reading list at your leisure.) But even amid all that awesomeness, Michael Caine’s performance stands out, thus my celebration of him today (and every year around this time).
Why?
1. His performance.
Just in general. Michael Caine came at this role with all the seriousness and gravity of a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company in front of the reincarnation of Charles Dickens himself. The role of the token human in a Muppets movie is generally that of straight man to their muppety antics, but Caine said screw that, I’m no straight man, Ebenezer Scrooge is the central character of the story and I will give such a role all the sincerity it merits.
2. Opposite puppets.
There was no way for him to pretend his scene partners were anything other than a frog, a faintly green dude with glasses but no apparent eyes, and whatever Beaker is. No human stand-ins, nobody in a mocap suit — his sightline was damn close to the floor for damn near every scene, because that’s where the puppets he was conversing with were. And those puppets included a righteously and deservedly angry pig in a mobcap, controlled by people hidden under the floor, but you know what? To Michael Caine, that pig was Emily MFing Cratchit, and that’s all there is to it.
3. Including Statler and Waldorf.
Statler and Waldorf were, of course, portraying Scrooge’s late partners, Jacob and Robert Marley, but they were very much their beloved, heckling, Statlering-and-Waldorfing selves throughout. This is one of the more serious sections of the story, as Scrooge is faced with 1) the existence of ghosts, 2) the eternal suffering being endured by his late partner(s), 3) the inevitability of his own such fate due to his miserly ways, and 4) the enormity of the experience before him that night, and as these two Muppets performed a musical number that was one laugh line after another, Caine was reacting with all the fear and confusion of a man being confronted by actual, non-puppet, doom-portending ghosts.
4. One specific line delivery.
“It’s old Fozziwig’s rubber chicken factory!” I don’t know how much of a theoretical gag reel would be made up of takes of that line as he dissolved into laughter, but I like to think there aren’t any such takes, and he gave it dead-on every time, like the professional he is.
5. These.
Because of this.
And this.
and damn everyone behind the decision to cut “When Love Is Gone” from numerous releases because good God, that song and the performance thereof are staggeringly beautiful.
Give the man his Oscar.
And add the movie to your annual holiday movie rotation, if it isn’t there already.
If I wanted to try and drag some advice-for-the-new-year message into this or something, I’d advise us all to attack 2023 with all the earnest dedication of Michael Caine accepting the gift of a red scarf from Beaker at the end of the movie, but I’m not gonna do that, because I don’t do resolutions or whatever, because I’m already cool and if I became any cooler, the world wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’m just going to say God bless us, every one, but especially Michael Caine.
And God bless y’all for continuing to stop by my little corner of the internet and listen to me blather. See you in the New Year!