Disney’s A Christmas Carol

Take a hop, a skip, and a jump scare through the uncanny valley on a trip back to 2009 to rewatch Disney’s feature-length version of “A Christmas Carol.”  Matt Weiland joins us for Robert Zemeckis’s motion capture nightmare starring 4 Jim Carreys, 3 Gary Oldmans, 2 Robin Wrights, and a Cary Elwes in a pear shape.  ****  Topics & Tangents:  Respect to a Disney movie that jumps from a storybook opening to a corpse’s face.  Despite being the 5th highest grossing Christmas movie as of 2020, this is also one of history’s biggest box-office bombs.  Coins on a corpse’s eyes in 19th century England had less to do with paying the ferryman’s toll and more to do with keeping their eyes closed.  Cary Elwes (one of the “portly” solicitors) is a descendant of John Elwes, the real-life inspiration for Scrooge.  Christopher Walker forgetting his lines as Captain Hook in “Peter Pan Live.”  Disney’s Movies website accidentally credited Gary Oldman as both Kermit and Robin the Frog.  Philadelphia’s Dickens Village.  The Ghost of Christmas Present flying Scrooge’s entire room around London is a weird mix of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Soarin’.  Jim Carrey on his various accents.  “Roundhouse” alumna Julene Renee as Want.  ****  Commercials:  McDonald’s: Scrooge’s Party (1984), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.  Merry Britsmas.  Yuletide TV.  ****  Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” © 2009 Disney.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.