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Songs Of My Life (Christmas) – Bless Us All (Tiny Tim / Muppets Christmas Carol)

Florian Buechting Songs Of My Life No Comments

After having released four editions of the Songs Of My Life already, I felt like having a special one just a couple of days before Christmas. Indeed, there have been a couple of holiday songs, which influences and shaped me during my life. Finally, I felt that my favorite Christmas story is the very classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – and my favorite version of this story is surely the Muppets’ one. Tiny Tim is the secret star of the story – and, even more, this mixed puppet and real actor movie. He is having one (more or less) solo song during the movie, which is just extremely touching to me. Here are my thoughts about Bless Us All by Tiny Tim in the Muppet Christmas Carol.

 

Muppet Christmas Carol / Bless Us All – The Story of The Song

The Muppet Christmas Carol is a 1992 Christmas movie by Brian Henson, based on the famous A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Compared to the original novella by the English author, there are just very few significant changes. The most obvious one is that instead of Scrooge’s partner in the original, Jacob Marley, the Muppets version has two Marley brothers, Jacob and Robert, in order to play them by Waldorf and Stettler.

Roughly, the Scrooge family is played by human actors (with Michael Caine acting as Ebenezer Scrooge), while all other characters are played by Muppet puppets. Kermit and Miss Piggy are playing Bob and Emily Cratchit, for example, their son Tiny Tim is played by Robin the Frog. Charles Dickens as the narrator is played by Gonzo and is typically accompanied by Rizzo, other important characters are played by Dr. Bunsen Honeydrew and Beaker, Fozzy Bear or Sam Eagle. A lot of other characters appear in side roles.

Bless Us All is the only solo by Tiny Tim. The song appears when Scrooge is visiting the Cratchit family with the Ghost of Christmas Present. While Emily Cratchit is very angry about Scrooge and his behavior towards Bob, Tiny Tim is very friendly and forgiving.

Bless Us All, who gathered here
The lovely family I hold dear
No place on Earth compares with home
and every path will bring me back from where I roam.

At the end of the song, Tiny Tim is already heavily coughing, teasing that he will no longer be part of the Cratchit family when Scrooge is visiting the family the next time, alongside the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Success of the Movie and the Soundtrack

Disney was very optimistic about the commercial success of The Muppets Christmas Carol – however, the success was modest. The total profit of the movie, according to wikipedia, was some 27.3m USD in North America only. The soundtrack did have quite nice reviews, but the peak Billboard chart position was 189, after the soundtrack had been released in winter 1992 as well.

 

Muppet Christmas Carol / Bless Us All – My Story of The Song

In contrast to the average to good reviews of the movie, I really like love that version of A Christmas Carol – I would definitely say it is my favorite Christmas movie, based on my favorite Christmas story – but I am in general a fan of the Muppets and their movies. The Muppets Christmas Carol is a film I would say I almost watch every year. I just love these “bad human transform to good ones” – and especially during Christmas time, these things feel so holiday-alike to me.

Tiny Tim is of course a very special and touching character in the story, finally saved by the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge. Thus, my personal story here feels not too special and long – but I hope you enjoyed to have these holiday thoughts from me anyway. Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Songs Of My Life Playlist

I created a playlist with all the Songs Of My Life songs so far. It will be updated with very new episode:

 

 

 

Title picture: taken from original movie poster 

 

Songs Of My Life

Here are the postings of the personal Songs Of My Life category:

 

Flyctory.com about Christmas

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