So Many Scrooges, So Little Time

While Mr. Magoo will probably always be my favorite Scrooge (followed closely by George C. Scott), I hold out the possibility that he could be supplanted by Rod Serling's version of the old curmudgeon, which I just read about in the New York Times.

It seems Serling wrote a script called "Carol for Another Christmas" that aired one time only on ABC in 1964. Since my favorite part of the G.C. Scott version is when the Spirit of Christmas Present opens his robe to reveal the hideous children whose names are Ignorance and Want, I obviously have a high threshold for didacticism, perhaps even an appreciation for it. It sounds like this trait would come in handy when watching Serling's version. To quote the Times' author Thomas Vinciguerra:

...the Ghost of Christmas Past..., a World War I soldier representing the dead of all wars, ...whisks Grudge [the Scrooge character] to the blasted landscape of Hiroshima... Then comes the Ghost of Christmas Present..., a self-absorbed glutton who feasts while starving masses huddle in a displaced persons camp. Finally, the Ghost of Christmas Future..., escorts Grudge to the nuclear aftermath of World War III.

Whew. I wonder who owns the rights to this cultural artifact of the Cold War, and why they don't release it at least on DVD? According to the Times, there are no such plans. I may have to write a letter to someone, but I'm not sure who!

I have a particular affinity for Rod Serling for several reasons:

• We are from the same area of Upstate New York
• He scared the bejesus out of me with Night Gallery (since I was a bit too young for the Twilight Zone in its original release), and finally
  
• I spent many hours at the Greyhound Bus depot in downtown Binghamton, N.Y. (Serling must have, as well, since he used it for the inspiration for the TZ script "Mirror Image.")

This year, I got my Christmas Carol fix by seeing a live production called "A Klingon Christmas Carol" by Commedia Beauregard, complete with subtitles and a Vulcan anthropologist as narrator. It was a scream! Check out some pictures and a synopsis here.