History Fridge / TheMuppetChristmasCarol

* This adaptation of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' provides us more foreshadowing of the potential for the redemption of Scrooge's soul than most; while Bob Crachit is Scrooge's only clerk in most versions of the story and he has to beg to get Christmas Day off, Scrooge has many bookkeepers in this version and he gives them ''all'' the day off.

* Also in "The Love We Found," Bean Bunny is sitting near Bunsen Honeydew, who is one of the charity collectors--so maybe he won't be homeless for much longer, either.
* The Ghost of Christmas Past mentions being able to recall "nearly 1900 Christmases." If one considers the birth of Jesus as the first Christmas, around Year 0 CE, and that the movie takes place in the nineteenth century (i.e. 1800's AD; most likely around 1843, the year the original Christmas Carol story was published), then the Ghost's claim of recalling nearly 1900 Christmases is completely accurate. So much for WritersCannotDoMath.

* Also in "The Love We Found," Bean Bunny is sitting near Bunsen Honeydew, who is one of the charity collectors--so maybe he won't be homeless for much longer, either.

* And then, of course, there's the Ghost of Christmas yet to come resembling the grim reaper, evoking thoughts of the one indifferent, certain thing about any living creature's future: that he or she will die.

* If you look closely as the camera zooms out during "The Love We Found," you can see that one of the guests at the dinner table is Mr. Applegate, the same guy that Scrooge threw out of his office at the start of the movie for not being able to pay his mortgage. This makes sense from a character development perspective. Scrooge probably forgave his debt and invited him to make up for past mistreatment.

* Listen to what the Headmaster tells Scrooge: he tells him that he needs to "work hard, work long, and be constructive." In the whole childhood sequence, Scrooge is only seen doing schoolwork. He even says that he saw the Christmas holiday as "a chance to get some extra work done." In the next scene, he has to be ''told'' to enjoy himself at Fozziwig's Christmas party when he worries too much about its expenses. He puts off marrying Belle because he's too preoccupied with his business endeavors. The idea of giving employees a day off for Christmas seems ''alien'' to him. And even when he does go home he doesn't seem to do much to relax, with his routine apparently just being to eat and go to bed, presumably with the expectation of starting over the next day. A big part of Scrooge's problem is that he seems to have grown up being taught that hard work is all that matters and he never really learned that it's actually okay, even healthy, to occasionally ''stop'' working. This might also add a bit more context to his attitude around Christmas, since he's come to see it as an excuse to get out of work.

** Another detail about Belle's dresses, and the other costumes in the Christmas Past sequence too. The dialogue doesn't spell out how long Scrooge and Belle were engaged; only that she broke it off "some years" after they first met. But at the Fozziwig party, all the clothes are in the style of the late 1780s or early 1790s, while in the "When Love is Gone" scene, Belle and Young Scrooge are dressed in the style of the early 1800s Regency era. That means that Belle has been waiting while Scrooge has postponed their marriage for up to ten years! It's no wonder that when he insists on waiting yet another year, she realizes there's no more hope.

* As pointed out by Cinema Sins, Bob Crachit has been working long enough for Scrooge that working on Christmas Day shouldn't be new to him. However, as pointed out on the main work page, closing down on Christmas Day only really took off after the original Christmas Carol was published. Taking these together, it could be that closing for Christmas is a relatively recent idea, and this is just the first year Bob got the courage to ask Scrooge about it, after enough other businesses adopted it to make following suit the pragmatic option for Scrooge. Could border on FridgeHorror if you consider just why he bothered asking Scrooge at all: He knew Tiny Tim likely wasn't long for this world and didn't want to miss what could be his last Christmas with him.
** Could also be that, because he knew Tiny Tim wasn't long for this world, he asked for Christmas off when he wouldn't have normally done so. However, Bob knows that if he comes right out and says "my son is very sick and not long for this world," Scrooge will either make him come to work anyway, or just throw him out faster than you can say "Jack Robinson." So he appeals to Scrooge's economic sense instead (pointing out that no one else will be doing business) to cover up the real reason he wants the day off.

* At Fozziwig's party, Belle's dress is light green. When she breaks up with Young Scrooge, her dress is orange with a leaf pattern. Even though both scenes take place on Christmas Eve, the first dress, which she wears when their love begins, evokes springtime, while the second dress evokes autumn. In ''WesternAnimation/MrMagoosChristmasCarol'', Belle describes their happiness and its ending in terms of the changing seasons in song ("No blossoms fell that fall/May didn't leave at all... Now trees with a sigh/Stand and shiver while their leaves fall and die..."); in this version, the same sentiment is conveyed through her clothes.

* At Fozziwig's party, Belle's dress is light green. When she breaks up with Young Scrooge, her dress is orange with a leaf pattern. Even though both scenes take place on Christmas Eve, the first dress, which she wears when their love begins, evokes springtime, while the second dress evokes autumn. In ''WesternAnimation/MisterMagoosChristmasCarol'', Belle describes their happiness and its ending in terms of the changing seasons in song ("No blossoms fell that fall/May didn't leave at all... Now trees with a sigh/Stand and shiver while their leaves fall and die..."); in this version, the same sentiment is conveyed through her clothes.

* When The Ghost Of Christmas Present mentions his large family, Scrooge jokes about how big the grocery bill must be - while the interaction shows Scrooge is starting to change by the very fact that he's let the spirit's joviality rub off on him, it's still very in character for him that the first thing he thought of to remark on was money.

* Why are the Cratchit children a clear-cut case of GenderEqualsBreed, with pink pig girls and green frog boys, when in other [[Franchise/TheMuppets Muppet]] media, Kermit and Piggy always imagine their possible future children as frog-pig hybrids – e.g. [[Series/TheMuppetShow "bouncing baby figs"]] or [[Film/MuppetsMostWanted a pink frog and a green pig]]? Well, it's because the Muppets are [[AnimatedActors puppet actors]]. Kermit and Piggy are just playing the roles of a married couple here, and the kids are child actors, not their actual kids: Tiny Tim is played by Kermit's real-life nephew Robin. If they were ever to really have kids, they would be hybrids.

* When PresentDay!Scrooge starts singing "When Love Is Gone" with Past!Belle, he seems to be able to match her word-for-word. A horrifying indication that, in the decades following, he ''never stopped reliving that moment''. Thus it also qualifies as FridgeHorror.

* On first viewing, Tiny Tim's {{Incurable Cough of Death}} might just seem like clichéd shorthand for "seriously ill." But a little research reveals that it's actually realistic. Some Dickens scholars believe that Tim's disease ''is'' supposed to be tuberculosis, which can make the victim develop a limp by spreading from the lungs into the spine and bones. Dickens himself had a nephew who was crippled by TB and eventually died of it, and that nephew might have inspired the character of Tiny Tim. (Another notable, fictional TB cripple: Ratso Rizzo in ''Film/MidnightCowboy'', whom the Muppets' own Rizzo the Rat is named after.) Tim's coughing in this movie is actually a case of {{Shown Their Work}}! (The problem with this theory, however, is that the plot requires Tiny Tim to be cured and TB was untreatable with Victorian-era medicine. Even worse, [[ScienceMarchesOn applying leeches was the accepted "treatment" for TB in the 1840s]].)

* This adaptation of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' provides us more foreshadowing of the potential for the redemption of Scrooge's soul than most; while Bob Crachitt is Scrooge's only clerk in most versions of the story and he has to beg to get Christmas Day off, Scrooge has many bookkeepers in this version and he gives them ''all'' the day off.

* As pointed out by Cinema Sins, Bob Crachitt has been working long enough for Scrooge that working on Christmas Day shouldn't be new to him. However, as pointed out on the main work page, closing down on Christmas Day only really took off after the original Christmas Carol was published. Taking these together, it could be that closing for Christmas is a relatively recent idea, and this is just the first year Bob got the courage to ask Scrooge about it, after enough other businesses adopted it to make following suit the pragmatic option for Scrooge. Could border on FridgeHorror if you consider just why he bothered asking Scrooge at all: He knew Tiny Tim likely wasn't long for this world and didn't want to miss what could be his last Christmas with him.

* When PresentDay!Scrooge starts singing "When Love Is Gone" with Past!Belle, he seems to be able to match her word-for-word. A horrifying indication that, in the decades following, he ''never stopped reliving that moment''. Thus it also qualifies as FridgeHorror.

* and then, of course, there's the Ghost of Christmas yet to come resembling the grim reaper, evoking thoughts of the one indifferent, certain thing about any living creature's future: that he or she will die.