You can tout Alastair Simms, or sing the praises of Bill Murray as Scrooge. You may believe Bob Goldthwait is the quintessential Cratchit. I disagree.

In my favorite Christmas Carol movie, Michael Caine has the principal role opposite Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit. The Muppet Christmas Carol has been a favorite in our household since its release on VHS. On some night in the week before Christmas, we pour the port, pop the corn and settle down to music, muppets and the eerie Dickens story.

Gonzo plays Charles Dickens, who (with a little assistance from Rizzo the Rat) narrates the tale. The narration allows for the proper setting of this story, which is so often played as comedic or sickly-sentimental, instead of the ghost story Dickens wrote.

"The Marleys were dead, to begin with," intones the wide-eyed Gonzo/Dickens. "Remember this, or nothing else which follows will seem at all miraculous.."
///"Ooh, that's creepy!" says Rizzo. "Don't you worry about scaring the kiddies?"
///"Nah," Gonzo replies, "this is culture."

The movie casts Muppets in roles that fit our knowledge of them: Miss Piggy is Bob Cratchit's wife, Fozzie Bear is the genial Fezziwig, Sam the American Eagle is Scrooge's schoolmaster. It adds "Robert Marley" to the original partner Jacob so the two hecklers can play them, and a dozen ratty book-keepers to Scrooge's office. Some of the best bits of the movie are provided by these extras—nothing is funnier the the book-keepers sprouting Tahitian luau-wear and singing "This is my island in the sun..." You expect this in a Muppet movie.

What is unexpected, and touching, is the way the movie recreates the sentiment of Dicken's tale without becoming maudlin. The future Caine, unseen by his younger self and his lost love, joins in a tender duet as Emily sings her firm farewell. Scrooge's cruel response, "let them die and decrease the surplus population," is returned to him as he sees Tiny Tim for the first time, and Scrooge is both rebuked and saddened by it.

One can also step outside the story and marvel at the way live actors and muppets share scenes without it being jarringly apparent that the actors are way bigger than the Muppets.

When I want the original tale, I'll read it. And for many years now, whenever I reread A Christmas Carol, it is Gonzo's, Caine's and Kermit's voices that I hear.