Tuesday, December 25, 2012
From Lionel Barrymore to Jim Carrey, they have all played the main character of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol.’ The first movie version cast Tom Ricketts in the role the last time the Cubs won a World Series.
Ebenezer Scrooge may not be the most played role by an actor but over 35 people have reprised the role from British nobility to Scrooge McDuck, an animated version of the character with a strong resemblance to Walt Disney’s Donald Duck, according to an Internet Search. Patch was going to do a poll to let readers vote for their favorite Scrooge, but there are way too many for a credible contest so we invite you to share your memories in the comments beneath this story. Earlier: What Is a Humbug? Patch will give you some history to stimulate your memory and then we ask you to debate away. Would you believe Patch research showed the first person to play Scrooge in a movie was Tom Ricketts and the film was made in Chicago the last time the …
Monday, December 24, 2012
When Ebenezer Scrooge said, “Christmas, bah humbug,” what did he mean?
When Charles Dickens first had Ebenezer Scrooge utter the words, “Christmas, bah humbug,” six days before the holiday in 1843, what did the English author have in mind? Was Scrooge comparing the holiday to an insect? No. But it was nothing good either. The word humbug first made its way into the English language as slang about 100 years before Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol,” according to the Miriam Webster online dictionary and my college version of Webster’s New World Dictionary. Neither dictionary nor an online search shed much light into the meaning of the word in the 1750’s other than it was used by college students. By the time Dickens penned the utterance into the vocabulary for use by a man whose name has become synonymous with …
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
First, schools banned Halloween. Now a class outing to see a church performance of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" could be nixed as well. Have schools taken things too far when it comes to 'anti-Christmas' activities?
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” has been a holiday TV classic for years. So when students at Terry Elementary School in Little Rock, Ark., were invited on a class field trip to see a performance of the show this December, they were excited. But their excitement was quickly quenched when a parent complained; an atheist group got wind of the outing and called it a “violation of religious freedom” because it contains some religious content and will be performed at a church. The school sent a letter home to the parents detailing the field trip and letting them know that it did, indeed, contain a small amount of religious content but that any child who wished not to go could be exempt from attending. The outing also included a food drive for area …
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Because this show takes such an unflinching look at things we fear, and lets the power of love transcend them, it achieves heights that are all the more joyous.
The Goodman Theatre's production of "A Christmas Carol" does not shy away from the dark, the frightening, and all those things we prefer not to think about. Indeed, this production uses stage wizardry to solidly confront us with many of the biggest fear factors in human life--poverty, sickness, loss, regrets and death. Because of that, Ebenezer Scrooge's gradual emergence from the darkness into the light takes on a magnificent feeling of triumph. It's a fully cathartic experience. This is the show's 35th year, and I've been seeing it, on a pretty regular basis, for about 13 years. Every time, it pulls me into its Dickensian world with the stellar quality of its acting, directing that brings out nuances of humor and grimness, and fine …
steven hubbell
7:04 pm on Wednesday, December 26, 2012
the 1939 verson with Reginald Owen is not as lengthly as the rest, but He plays a great Scrooge before and after His transformation! A true classic! more ›