20 Best Muppet Christmas Carol Moments

(Image via Walt Disney Pictures/Jim Henson Productions)

9. Slapstick that Works

Here’s another hoary old film trick that actually works. Again, maybe I’m just giving everything a bit of a pass because it’s the Muppets and I’ve watched this every year since I was a wee one. Is that fair? Who knows? Who cares, really?

Again, a fair amount of the slapstick action comes thanks to Gonzo and Rizzo the rat. There’s a lot of slipping on ice, of course. Rizzo manages to catch on fire thanks to flame-filled Victorian street lamps, and Gonzo pushes his friend into a bucket of ice water to save him.

Perhaps my favorite is a sequence early on in the movie. The Ghost of Christmas Past urges Scrooge to accompany it to, well, the past. After a little bit of persuading, Scrooge touches its hand and flies up in the air with the spirit. Gonzo and Rizzo want to go along (at least, Gonzo does), but thanks to their position as narrators, they can’t interfere with the action. Gonzo’s solution? A grappling hook. Where exactly that grappling hook lands or what part of Scrooge it’s not connected to, I don’t know. But it’s effective and manages to take Gonzo and Rizzo on the journey.

It also means they’re dragged through an evergreen forest. By the way, I’m pretty sure those particular pine trees weren’t native to England, and certainly not during the Victorian era. It doesn’t matter at all, but my viewing partner for that evening will tell you that I got way too worked up about it.