20 Best Muppet Christmas Carol Moments

(Image via Walt Disney Pictures/Jim Henson Productions)

12. Young Scrooge is… Hot?

I hope it’s clear that this is a realization that I came to in my adult years. Childhood me was more focused on solving the mystery of the Singing Vegetables (why do they exist? Where are their vocal cords? Is someone going to eat them? Do they have feelings? And so on).

You can tell that I had good priorities. Maybe they were at least a little more noble than the one I’m talking about now. Does anyone else see it, though? I always assumed the literary young Scrooge was kind of an unappealing nerd. He would have been burdened with the 19th century equivalent of taped-up glasses and a shirt that’s buttoned all the way up to the top. Unfair, maybe, but I get the feeling like that was a widespread assumption.

But then there’s young Scrooge (played by Raymond Coulthard, who also appeared in The English Patient). He doesn’t make anyone faint from passion, but he’s not terrible to look upon, either. At the very least, he manages to keep a fiancée, the previously mentioned Belle, for an extended period of time. However, we do have to face the fact that Belle eventually dumps him because he keeps postponing their marriage. At least they had a kind of good run.