Blackadder’s Christmas Carol

It’s 1988, and the Spirit of Christmas just broke down my bedroom door to say hello.  Jack Ford from the Total Christmas Podcast joins us for an edition of Scrooge Sunday that turns everyone’s favorite festive tale of redemption on its head and blows it out its enormous, muscular backside as great philanthropist and all-around softy Ebenezer Blackadder learns from watching his ancestors and descendants that it’s good to be bad.  You can watch “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” on Vimeo.  ****  Topics & Tangents:  Tony Robinson’s “Christmas Wrapping” and the Total Christmas Podcast episode on it.  How have I never heard of humbug candies?  “A Merry Messy Kweznuz.”  A deleted scene.  Miriam Margolyes (Queen Victoria) in “Little Shop of Horrors.”  Jim Broadbent (Prince Albert) as Santa in an Aldi Christmas ad.  “The Last of Scrooge,” and Jack’s review of it.  The cast of “Grange Hill” sings “Just Say No.”  Dennis Lill (Beadle) in “Batman” (1989).  Spitting Image and “The Chicken Song.”  Merry Britsmas on “A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong.”  ****  Commercials:  BBC1 Intro to “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” (1988)  Barclaycard: “Surveillance” (1995), starring Rowan Atkinson.  Festive Foreign Film Fans.  ****  “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” © 1988 BBC.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.