For some films, a 30th anniversary is truly a big deal. It will often mean plenty of fans rewatching the film for the first time in years, and a whole new group of fans discovering it through those rewatches.
For Meredith Braun, who played Scrooge's once-fiancé Belle in the film, this annual tradition is never something she anticipated.
For the film's director Brian Henson, the emotions around the film are slightly more complex. When I ask him whether it's a lovely piece of work to look back on, he says: "Yeah, I guess.
"Except I also feel it’s quite possibly the best thing I ever did. And so when you go, ‘gosh, the best thing I ever did was when I was 28’, it's a little weird. I've done a lot of other really good things that I'm proud of as well, but maybe none that I'm as proud of as Christmas Carol."
So, let's take this back to the beginning. I ask Henson where the idea for the film first came from, for which he is only too happy to admit the credit lies elsewhere.
Henson continues: "And then Jerry Juhl [screenwriter] and Alex Rockwell, who was head of development for me, we got together and started hashing it out. Initially, it was a TV special, so we thought it would maybe be a parody of the Christmas Carol, and then we thought, ‘oh no, Christmas Carol is way too good to parody, so we really need to do it properly’.
"By the time Jerry wrote the first draft we knew this was really going to work wonderfully well. And then it moved to Disney. Disney got a hold of the script because somebody snuck it to them, and Disney said 'don't do this for TV, let's do it as a movie’, which was super exciting."
Henson explains: "In The Great Muppet Caper, [the Muppets] were playing parts in a movie, but they weren't really, they were really just themselves. And I think when we realised if we really committed to the Muppets really playing their roles in the story, that they could actually do it very faithfully but in a Muppety way.
However, it seems that not everyone agreed – a feeling which ultimately led to a certain cut song which we'll talk about later.
Once the movie was up and running, it was time for casting. Braun was cast in the role of Belle when she was 19 and performing in Les Misérables in London as Éponine. When the opportunity to audition for the film came up, she was elated.
"I'm such a big fan of the Muppets," she says. "As a child growing up, every Sunday night in New Zealand, I remember at 6:30 or something like that was The Muppet Show. And I was just the biggest fan."
During the days she would be in Muppet land, or certainly the Muppets' version of Dickensian London. I wanted to delve deeper into just what it was like on those sets in 1992.
"If you walk down the street in Muppet Christmas Carol, in 60 feet the building next to you is now eight foot tall and it's a three story building," says Henson. "So it's force perspective everywhere, which is sort of old school filmmaking in a lovely way. That whole look was Val, and then the enormous talent of British art departments in general."
Henson explains: "Raising the sets is something that my dad had always done, because a puppeteer standing under a puppet can do a much better performance than a puppeteer sitting on the ground on a little chair and trying to roll around.
"I was very old school about that, I almost never let a puppeteer sit on the floor, I would always take the extra time to pull up a section of the platform and let them stand underneath."
She explains: "The puppeteer didn’t come into it, it was Fozzie the actor, who then when the cameras started rolling again would go back into being Fozziewig. That was a really weird experience.
"It was disturbing to flirt with Fozzie because I’d grown up as a child knowing him. But of course, Fozzie’s ageless… I don't even want to get into that now, it was very odd. But they were so serious about it, they were actors, just as Michael Caine was."
For Henson, Caine's casting was one of the key components which made the movie's disparate parts and melding of tones fit together.
"The whole movie was going to be that contrast – you feel it in the scoring, in the lighting, in the production design, it's all the contrasting of Dickens and Henson. And we knew that we needed an actor who was a skilled comedian, to understand that the dynamic would work if they played it straight."
"It was one of the first things he said to me the first time we met, he said 'I'm going to play this utterly, utterly straight’. And I was like, ‘yes, that would be great’," explains Henson. "Because up until Muppet Christmas Carol, actors in Muppet movies were mostly cameos AND it was an opportunity for them to do things a little bit outrageous and to tell big jokes. And it was terrific that he got it – he got how this was going to work."
Given how seriously Caine wanted to play the role, did he go full method Scrooge on set? "He wasn't overly serious no, just absolutely professional," says Braun. "You know when you need to be quiet, to concentrate, focus, to give someone space to get into the right place for what they're doing."
Ah, but cover your eyes, Michael – you might not want to read this next part.
"I think I was more starstruck by the Muppets to be completely honest," says Braun. "And Miss Piggy is not a diva. She doesn't deserve the reputation, she’s really not a diva at all."
I'm aware when asking that this must be like choosing between your children, but I have to ask Henson – which is his favourite?
The music was written by Paul Williams, known for composing the score to Bugsy Malone and writing the lyrics to Evergreen, the love theme from Barbara Streisand's A Star is Born.
He continued: "He's mostly a folk songs writer, which is an odd mix to stick into Dickensian London, but again, I thought ‘this is really going to work because Paul Williams’ songs will be that Jim Henson side versus Miles’ scoring of the rest of the scenes which are very dramatic and very Dickensian."
Henson says: "Paul had had a few bad years – he’d gone off the rails and had become an addict, and had only just recovered. And it turned out that was probably why my dad had not been working with him, because his life had gone in a dark direction.
"But this was his first project after getting over his addictions and it was wonderful because it's a movie about redemption, and Paul felt like in his life he was looking for redemption. And so it touched him very deeply and it became a very important project for him."
Henson and Braun both recount to me separately the story that Katzenberg also wanted Part of Your World cut from The Little Mermaid.
"So Jeffrey just wanted Love Is Gone cut out for the theatrical version. That was the agreement, that only in the initial theatrical release will the song be gone, and from then on the movie will always have the song in. And then Disney lost the negative and that created this big old upheaval."
"There wasn't improvising that was going on, there might have been improvising in terms of physical comedy and stuff like that, but not really on dialogue or anything. So that's really the only scene that was lost."
Henson's passion to restore the lost song and his fight for its inclusion in the first place has not gone unnoticed by Braun, who remembers him sending her a letter after the decision had been made.
"But he obviously understood the implications more than I did because he was really lovely about it, saying 'I'm fighting, it’s going to stay in there and it's essential to the storytelling'; which, of course, it kind of is. In terms of storytelling, it's really important."
"I know that there were these campaigns through the years," she says. "I'm not much of a social media kind of person, but that was so funny. So thank you, Brian, for finding it and putting it back in, we will be sitting down and watching it, probably with some sloe gin and something – roast potatoes."
Braun released an album in 2017 titled When Love Is Gone, which features a new version of the song – she certainly still holds that tune very close to her heart. But how about the film as a whole and, that all important question, how does it rank alongside other Christmas films?
"It's been a gift for me, it's been the gift that just carries on giving. My children have grown up with it too and I just find it so funny. I'm very, very happy to be known for that and I'm just really grateful to Brian and Paul for casting me and that it’s part of my life."
He says: "Do I have fond memories looking back? Absolutely. Was it a rewarding experience making it? Yes. Was it terrifying? Absolutely, it was terrifying to me.
The Muppet Christmas Carol is available to stream on Disney Plus now - you can sign up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month now.
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