The family and I went to see “A Christmas Carol” at the Hartford Stage on the day after Christmas.
The timing was ideal. I highly recommend it.
During intermission, I turned to Charlie and asked, “How do you like it so far?”
“It’s great,” he said. “I’m just waiting for the kid to lose his eye and the man to have his head kicked off by a horse.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You know,” he said. “Scrooge throws the coins and kills everyone.”
Then I understood.
Saturday Night Live aired a spoof of “A Christmas Carol” two years ago wherein Scrooge, played by Martin Short, tosses a coin to a boy in the street so he can purchase a Christmas goose for Tiny Tim’s family.
The coin cuts into the boy’s eye, creating a bloody mess.
Things get a lot worse from there as Scrooge attempts to rectify the situation by tossing more coins and blinding several other pedestrians in the process. Eventually, Tiny Tim falls into an open sewer and a frightened horse kicks off the head of a nearby man.
And this skit — a horror show of a Christmas morning — was Charlie’s only frame of reference for “A Christmas Carol.” Having never seen the movie, read the book, or seen the play, he assumed that the SNL version represented the real version.
Instead of a holiday classic, he thought “A Christmas Carol” was some gory, horrific, blood-spattered monstrosity.
As you can imagine, he was quite relieved at the end of the Hartford Stage production.
It’s also a good reminder:
It’s easy to walk around the world with massive misconceptions based solely on your experiences or lack thereof.
Also, “Tiny Tim” is a terrible name to call a small, disabled child.
Right?
