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Destroy All Podcasts DX Episode 268 - A Christmas Carol (Starring Tim Curry)

Hosts: Jeremy, Mike, Tanya

This is about the sequel to Robinson Crusoe, irritating cartoon dogs, and Tim Curry, Ed Asner, Michael York, Whoopi Goldberg, and Frank Welker making questionable career choices.

Click [HERE] to pelt starving orphans with chunks of coal.

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DAPDX-268.mp394.45 MB
Posted 16 December, 2012 - 21:54 by Destroy All Pod...

Comments

3 comments posted
HOW

How did we manage to talk for an hour about, or inspired by, this movie? We are amazing.

metalorchid's picture
Posted by metalorchid on 17 December, 2012 - 15:18
Stuff.

First, let me slow down the Destroy All Podcasts tragedy train. No one died in that China attack
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/12/14/china-school-stabbings/1770395/

So less horrific loss of innocent life. We can at least be happy for that.

Is Tim Curry pretty much the Kevin Bacon of DAP DX? I haven't been listening since this podcast started, but I've heard conversations lead to him more than any other being, living, dead, or animated.

Yotaru's picture
Posted by Yotaru on 22 December, 2012 - 11:37
Funny I haven't heard of this

Funny I haven't heard of this version of A Christmas Carol. The story itself has been adapted over and over in both live-action and animated forms over the years. Though not mentioned two animated specials that come to my head include "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" from 1962 (NBC aired it last Christmas but ruined it by cutting the film by 10 minutes to fit in more ads), and the Academy Award-winning version from the 70's with Alistair Sim reprising his role of Scrooge that he once did for a previous British film in the 50's. You should check out that version for it's rather dark take on the tale and unique art style meant to evoke the look of the original text, though it suffers from a shorter running time (25 minutes, still not bad for what they could do). At least give you some ammo for next Christmas if you need something to bring up over the holidays.

The original story was first published in 1843, and was meant to reflect the time period it was written in I feel (what we would refer to as "present day"). I'm sure they probably didn't get the era down pat unless they didn't do the research of what England of that time period was like. Having a musical take on the story of course has been done before (Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol is a good example of that, though it is saved by having had actual Broadway composers involved to create it's trademarked tunes).

The line of Scrooge stating "decrease the surplus population" was in the book too when he told off the poor collectors who came to his establishment, so it's not original to this film, though I suppose you could go off the rails in how to depict such a greedy person. The Ayn Rand bit is perhaps simply how we would perceive a person like Scrooge even though the idea of a selfish, arrogant rich guy has been as old as the Bible really.

The "Electric Babysitter" mentality of television has been there for a number of years probably going back to television's infancy, though I suppose the introduction of home video in the 80's brought it to prominance. Every mom in the country liked the idea of simply plopping their kids in front of the TV while they went off to do their usual chores in the kitchen, I knew that by heart. This probably got aired on TV someplace before getting a VHS release that was stuck on the video store shelves for years. The 1990's also saw a glut of "Direct-to-video" releases often to complete with Disney's productions that range from poor to fair in terms of animation and story quality. Video games were still very big in the 90's as I remember it best but I suppose television was still king for a child's free time off school or whatever else they had to do.

Speaking of Dickens', there's been a few other stories of his that ended up in the animation meat grinder over the years. One that came to my head today was the TV series "Saban's Adventures of Oliver Twist", featuring animals playing the roles of the characters in that story. Another Dickens tale that ended up getting the funny animal/musical treatment was "David Copperfield" from 1993 (aired on NBC). Both are pretty lame attempts at capturing Dickens' integrity on the small screen.

The "Garfield Minus Garfield" is what is described but in reality, Garifled isn't even shown as he along with his thought bubbles are removed, giving us a rather bleak look into the life of Jon Arbuckle.

Garfield: His 9 Lives is quite a good special to check out if you have the time. It was loosely based on a book of the same name that came out in '84 that also included the "Babes & Bullets" story that was a separate special all it's own (though Garfield technically wasn't in it). I remember those strips that suggested Garfield died as well. I wonder if it wasn't based on something Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto did for a sequence in the Fantasia spoof, "Allegro non Troppo".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Oc_J1Lu-o

Reminded of one role Tim Curry had for an animated video put out by Hanna-Barbera in the 1980's. An episode of "The Greatest Adventure: Stories from The Bible" where he plays the serpent in the story of the creation. I'm only bringing that up for the one or two moments of unintentional nude female clevage that goes on in the episode I bothered to notice!
http://i.imgur.com/Y6RdJDg.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KumNFNnjey4

Chris@StudioToledo's picture
Posted by Chris@StudioToledo on 12 March, 2013 - 21:18