It’s a testament to Charles Dickens’ skill as a storyteller that all the versions of “A Christmas Carol,” however altered or updated they may be, generally follow his original plot and use a great deal of his original prose and dialogue.
That’s how YouTuber Heath Waterman was able to take 400 versions of the classic Christmas ghost story — live-action, animated, TV, movie, you name it — and knit them together into one fairly coherent narrative.
“Twelve Hundred Ghosts — A Christmas Carol in Supercut” interweaves lines and conversations from versions stretching over decades and genres. From the YouTube description:
So this is one of the stupider things I’ve done. A little over a year and a half ago I became obsessed with all the various ‘A Christmas Carol’ adaptations there were.
Telling the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, over the medium of film (silent and talkies), tv episodes, tv specials, books, audiobooks, songs, comics, pornos, a view-master slide and one special episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (tried to put the full list in the description, but was too long to fit).
There are even some commercials and text messages folded in.
From The A.V. Club (in an article with some spicy language, so follow the link with caution):
There’s an unending parade of pop culture figures in here: Oscar The Grouch, Mr. T, Aqua Teen’s Ghost Of Christmas Past From The Future, Sanford And Son, Montgomery Burns, countless audio versions and raunchy parodies, weird old Masterpiece Theater stuff, Lawrence Olivier, Howdy Doody, the Cryptkeeper, a couple of pornos, Mickey Mouse, Matlock, Xena, and so on. Ayn Rand shows up. The film ends with a full index of the clips used, going back to 1843, though 300 of them come after the 1980s, and a full 100 are from the past couple of years. As the index scrolls past, a five-minute montage of various actors saying, “Bah, humbug” plays. It is all the Christmas cheer and Scrooge-like antipathy one can reasonably take in a single sitting.
Enjoy.
Image: YouTube screenshot
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