A Muppet Christmas Carol

If I had to pick one Christmas Carol version to watch for the rest of my life, I think it would have to be A Muppet Christmas Carol, currently celebrating its twentieth anniversay.* Music, bright colors, muppets! It's got everything you'd ever want in a movie about a greedy, cruel man's personal redemption.

I can remember, in sixth grade, my English teacher first taught us A Christmas Carol and we staged a mini production of the play (after a cutthroat audition process, I managed to snag the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past). To celebrate our good work (or possibly because it was Christmas and she was damn tired), we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol in class. I have a very vivid memory of watching the scenes with frog-Tiny Tim and weeping openly in my classroom. Not like a sniffle or two but TEARS STREAMING DOWN MY FACE.**

This muralcle worried me a bit going in. I had two pictures that I was considering using as a guide, this one and another that was a bit simpler. I am sort of reaching the "please let this stupid Internet thing be over" point of this project, and I was tempted to use the simpler photo, despite its lack of vital characters (Scrooge, Fozziwick, ice-skating penguin). Finally I decided that I am IN THIS dammit! And went with the more complicated picture.

I'm pretty happy with it! To save my sanity, I decided to try something new where I didn't blend the chalk (which is why it looks a little rougher), sort of because of Muppet-texture skin and mostly because of laziness. I think it turned out well!

Dave's first-view reaction: Wooooah, Muppets... Wacka-wacka!***


*You heard me. Twenty years. Enjoy the weird feelings.
**I like crying at movies and do it every opportunity I can get. The most surprising movie I've ever cried at is WALL-E, after Wall-E sacrifices himself to save the fat people on that ship. I watched the movie with Dave on one side and my sister-in-law on the other and lost it in a way that would suggest I had some personal investment in Wall-E's outcome. Afterwards my sister-in-law, who is literally the sweetest person on the planet, told me "I was so embarrassed for you that I couldn't even look at you."
***This project is getting to all of us.

Miss Piggy, aka Mrs. Cratchit

Ice-skating penguin and Rizzo the rat (my fave!)
Shoot. Just saw that I forgot to color in Rizzo's little tooth. Oh well. Imagine it's chalkboard-colored

Kermit the frog as Bob Cratchit and little Kermit as Tiny Tim

Michael Caine as Scrooge
While drawing, I had the original soundtrack playing in the background,
and every time he sang I couldn't help imagine some Scrooge/Alfred Pennyworth mash-up.
"And why do we fall, Kermit the frog? So we might learn to pick ourselves up."

Fozziwick!
Clearly wins the award for "Best Combination of the Muppet's Name with an Actual Dickens Character"

Gonzo as Charles Dickens
See! He's holding a little copy of the book!