The Muppet Christmas Carol celebrated its 30th birthday in December, and over the years its fandom has blossomed to a point that it is almost impossible to find anyone who has watched it that won’t tell you it’s the best adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
‘I was not getting hired, the phone was not ringing off the hook for Paul Williams to come and write songs for your movie. So, when the phone rang and it was Brian Henson and he said, “Come write the songs for a story about somebody who’s experiencing a spiritual awakening,” whileHe describes his writing for the movie as coming ‘right from the centre of my chest, with great enthusiasm’.
‘I literally took my little recorder, a yellow pad, a pencil and this Laurence Bloch novel, and in a sense of prayer just said, “Big amigo, Muse, whoever, wherever these ideas come from… just let me know when you’ve got an idea.”’ ‘I had given myself to the process of percolating and trusting that my unconscious would do the work. So, when I sat down to write it, it pours out of me. And it happens again and again,’ Williams says of penning his songs for The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Aside from the likes of Gonzo, Rizzo the Rat , Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the usual Muppet suspects, the other star of the Christmas movie was, of course, Sir Michael Caine. He remembers: ‘I stuck my hand out, and I said, “It’s so wonderful to meet you” and he said, “Are you out of your mind? We spent an entire weekend at The White Elephant [a popular London club in the 1960s]”. I was like, “Oh my God, you’re right!” and it came flashing back. But it was in the days when I was sick. I was suddenly face to face with that bullet, and we both laughed.’
Williams was bowled over by his performance, which the Alfie and Tenet star famously said he would do completely straight ‘like I’m working with the Royal Shakespeare Company’ and with no indication that his co-stars were, in fact, puppets.
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