Skinflint: A Country Christmas Carol

It seems as though every genre has adapted Charles Dickens' classic tale A Christmas Carol to its own tastes, and 1970's country music is no exception.

This movie contains some of the worst dialog I've ever heard. Here's a prime example:

Dennis Pritchett (Bob Cratchett): "Well, ole Skinflint (Scrooge) can go jump in a lake!"

T.J. (Tiny Tim): (despondently) "I sure do wish that I could jump in a lake..." (in his best mopey "aw shucks" voice)

If you happen to find this on some channel or other as you approach the holidays, it's worth having as background noise while you do other things. Otherwise it's a waste of your time.

It's hard to think of a story in English literature that has inspired as many filmatic adaptations as A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Dickens' sentimental statement on Victorian social ills. Setting aside the more than numerous animated versions, we still have countless live-action versions, with many more undoubtably to come. One of the strangest is this, a seemingly forgotten TV effort that, to my knowledge, only aired once during the 1979 Christmas season. It was the basic story, with the kicker being that the setting was transposed from Victorian London to present day Tennessee, and the cast was populated by Country/Western singers! Really. Hoyt Axton as Scrooge, Mel Tillis and Lynn Anderson as the Cratchits, Tom T. Hall as Marley, and I believe Barbara Mandrell as the girl Scrooge left behind. I'm sure there were more, but can't think of them. Since I'm a fan of the story(and love tracking down all the film versions and variations), this one sprang to mind while I was watching scenes from the George C. Scott version(truly the best version in the past 20 years). With the rise in cable availability it seems like this forgotten version would rise to the surface(given all the channels vying for holiday programming), but that hasn't been the case yet. Maybe someday TNN or CMT will show it again.