Where To Watch
Richard Williams had two conditions for A Christmas Carol
Spooky Christmas movies? Bah, humbug!
In 1971, Chuck Jones approached Richard Williams to create an animated television special adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Before he won two Academy Awards for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Williams was an up-and-coming animator who had mostly animated intro sequences for films, as well as directed animated shorts and commercials. But Jones had been impressed with Williams' work on The Charge of the Light Brigade, a 1968 live-action film directed by Tony Richardson. Williams' animated sequence changes were designed to look like 19th-century Punch magazine cartoons, and many of Williams' animations were drawn directly from the magazine sketches.
Fun fact about Punch magazine: they created the word "cartoon" in 1843 when they needed a word to describe their editorial sketches that were satirical in nature, especially their cartoons by John Leech, who drew humorous, parody comics of modern news and culture.
John Leech's work was enjoyed by Charles Dickens, who needed an illustrator for his upcoming novella, A Christmas Carol. Leech drew four plates for A Christmas Carol, including illustrations of Jacob Marley's ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Present, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and Fezziwig's Ball, the last of which serves as the frontpiece of the book.
Jones saw Williams' work in Light Brigade and realized that if Williams could replicate Punch's cartoons, then he was the right animator to bring Leech's illustrations to life. Williams set two conditions: first, that the animation resembled Leech's original illustrations, and second, that the story could be dark and scary to focus on the ghostly elements.
To this day, the surrealism and haunting visuals are what keep fans coming back to this film. In an interview with Judy Hamilton, Williams recalled the discussion with Jones, saying, "I called up Chuck Jones and said, 'Hey, look, this is frightening. It isn't a sloppy sentimental thing. It's about ghosts. Do you really want it?'"
Jones replied, "Give it Dickens," and Williams jumped right into research, finding every old copy of A Christmas Carol in used bookstores and museums around London to find the original Leech sketches to begin replicating them. The project took nine months and over 30,000 drawings, but the result was a hit Christmas movie.
The movie was considered such high quality that it was also released theatrically, which meant it was eligible for the Oscars. Jones submitted it for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film - and it won!
Williams recalled that someone at ABC told him, "Make us a classic we can run for 20 years," and now, 50 years later, it's running for the first time on MeTV Toons for 'Tis the Season for Toons! We will be showing this classic holiday film on November 29 at 6P | 5C, December 14 at 7:30P | 6:30C, and on Christmas Day at 10A | 9C.
