Bah, Humbug? 9 TV Shows That Adapted ‘A Christmas Carol’
Even the number-crunching Ebenezer Scrooge would be hard-pressed to count how many times Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has been adapted for the screen. (Check out our 10 favorite Scrooges from film and TV.) But non-Dickensian TV shows have also devoted episodes to Christmas Carol-inspired stories, as you’ll see below. With selections spanning five decades of television, here are TV shows that put their own spin on the classic Christmas tale.
The Odd Couple
In “Scrooge Gets an Oscar,” a grouchy Oscar (Jack Klugman) refuses to play the part of Ebenezer Scrooge in the charity Christmas play Felix (Tony Randall) is mounting. But then Felix and Oscar’s poker buddies get Dickensian and haunt Oscar’s dreams that night.
WKRP in Cincinnati
“Bah, Humbug” casts station manager Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump) in the Scrooge role, as he’s reluctant to give his employees bonuses for the holidays. But when he eats one of Dr. Johnny Fever’s (Howard Hesseman) brownies and passes out, ghastly visitors change his mind.
Family Ties
Leave it to the fiscally conservative Alex Keaton (Michael J. Fox) to be the miserly Scrooge of the holiday season in “A Keaton Christmas Carol.” Eventually, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future show him the reason for the season — as well as a future version of himself wearing an obvious bald cap.
A Different World
When Christmas doesn’t pan out the way Whitley (Jasmine Guy, pictured here) envisioned, she plans to spend the holiday “solitary as an oyster,” as Dickens would say. And it’s not Marley but Marion — Whitley’s mother, played by guest star Diahann Carroll — who heralds the incoming arrival of three Christmas ghosts.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The episode “Devil’s Due” opens with Data (Brent Spiner) performing a scene from A Christmas Carol on the Enterprise’s holodeck as Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) watches. Stewart, incidentally, had made a name for himself with his one-man stage performances of A Christmas Carol a few years prior.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
In “A Very Sunny Christmas,” twins Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson) try to get dad Frank (Danny DeVito) to be a more generous giver at the holidays by showing him a blast from the past, tough love from the present, and an ominous vision of the future. (Frank, however, gets the last laugh, and his Scrooge-like ways persist.)
Doctor Who
In “A Christmas Carol” — a holiday special from Matt Smith’s run as the Eleventh Doctor — a space liner is stranded in a cloud belt, and the one man (Michael Gambon) who can control the clouds refuses to help. So it’s up to the Doctor to time-travel to the man’s past to engender kindness in the young lad and save the space liner in the present.
Family Guy
In “Don’t Be A Dickens at Christmas,” Peter Griffin (Seth MacFarlane) grouses about joining wife Lois (Alex Borstein) in charitable Christmas activities. And it’s the ghost of Patrick Swayze — voiced by Don Swayze, the late actor’s brother — who gets Peter to show more holiday spirit.
General Hospital
The Port Charles residents dramatized the Dickens tale in the episode “A General Hospital Christmas Carol,” with the Scroogey attitude of Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton) set right by ghosts in the forms of Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy), Liesl Obrecht (Kathleen Gati), and Ava Jerome (Maura West).
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