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Derivative Works / A Christmas Carol
aka: Scrooge

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A Christmas Carol is a novella written by Charles Dickens published in 1843. It has became one of the most widely-adapted stories ever made. As such, this page provides a list of such adaptations as well as the common tropes found in adaptations.

Note: The list will be formatted as year of release and actor playing Scrooge (or The Scrooge-like protagonist) in parentheses and sorted by release date.

Adaptations of A Christmas Carol include:

Comic Books

Film — Animation

Film — Live-Action

Live-Action TV

Podcasts

Tabletop Games

Theatre

Video Games

Web Videos

A Christmas Carol's adaptations provide examples of:

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    #–C 
  • Accidentally Broke the MacGuffin: Scroogical has the Ghost of Christmas Past attempt to use a magical orb to spirit Scrooge around... but he ends up pushing it out of his hands and it smashes on the floor.
  • Adaptation Distillation:
    • In the book, the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to see the Christmas celebrations of an isolated group of miners, a pair of lighthouse keepers, and the crew of a ship at sea. These scenes are rarely included in film or television adaptations, though Scrooge (1935), the 1971 animated short, the 1999 Patrick Stewart TV version and the 2001 animated film have them, the 1951 Scrooge has the miners while the 1982 animation has the lighthouse.
    • Several adaptations exclude Scrooge confronting his shrouded corpse. The exceptions are the 1935, 1938, 1971, 1982, 1984, 1999, 2001 and 2009 versions. Though some have him witness people robbing his corpse as in the 1977 tv film, 1997 animation and the 2004 musical. In the book, he sees people selling his possessions and then his shrouded corpse.
    • Another scene from the book that is rarely included in adaptations is the scene where Christmas Future shows Scrooge the family that was in debt to him celebrating his death. The 1977, 1999, 2001 and 2009 versions include it, however, and the Albert Finney version takes that aspect further with the coffin-dancing "Thank You Very Much" song.
    • Christmas Past is often portrayed by a woman in adaptations, possibly due to the Ambiguous Gender nature in the original text. If the adaptation plays up the gender-neutral nature of the spirit, it will usually be played by a woman anyway, though others will go for it being played by a child or man instead.
    • Another common change used is having Scrooge visit the Cratchits on Christmas Day to reveal his change of heart to them, when in the original story he spent the entire day at Fred's and Bob did not learn about his attitude change until the day after. Some versions work in ways to justify this - in the 1938 version Scrooge had previously fired Bob the day before, so he went to the Cratchits' home to rehire him, while in Mickey's Christmas Carol Bob originally only had half a day off so Scrooge was visiting him before he attempted to head to the office later on.
  • Adaptation Expansion:
    • One of the most common changes kept in, that was not in the original work, is Scrooge meeting or dancing with Belle at Fezziwig's ball. In the novel Belle is only introduced in the next scene which is their breakup. Some adaptations do keep it like the story where Belle isn't introduced until the breakup, such as the Mr. Magoo version and the 1997 animated version.
    • Scrooge's past and Jacob Marley's death are often expanded on, with novels dedicated to the pair and several stage adaptations and films delving into how their partnership began and ended.
    • Some versions, such as Mickey's Christmas Carol, the 1999 version, and the 2009 version, have Scrooge thrown into his grave after he learns that it's his gravestone, usually to provide one last scare before he wakes up. The 1970 Scrooge film takes that further by not only featuring him getting thrown into his grave, but ending up falling all the way into Hell. And speaking of which...
    • Scrooge (1970), its stage version, a concert adaptation, and a pantomime have Jacob Marley reappear to welcome Scrooge to Hell should he not change, the latter even having a song-and-dance number.
    • Most versions have Bob timidly ask for Christmas off, even bringing up half-day or starting late. In the book, Scrooge himself is the one who asks if Bob is expecting the whole day off first.
  • Adaptation Name Change: Scrooge's fiancee has had her name changed from Belle to Alice, Emily, Claire, and Isobel, among other names.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: Tiny Tim, who somehow has even more Incorruptible Pure Pureness in some adaptations than in the book. In the book, quite understandably, he's as enthusiastic about toasting Scrooge's health as his mother and siblings, with the narrator saying "he didn't care twopence for it". Many versions, including the Mickey and Muppet versions, decide that's just not saintly enough, and have him as the one Cratchit except Bob who drinks the toast sincerely.
  • Adaptational Heroism: Since Scrooge is even worse in the present day than Jacob Marley was at the time of his death, some adaptations show how Marley realized the error of his ways on his deathbed, show how he procured the chance to save his friend, or show him to have had a little heart compared to Scrooge. Scrooge's Long Night has one of his friendliest portrayals, having him be generous in life with no need to wear chains.
  • Adaptational Villainy:
    • Scroogical has the Ghost of Christmas Present double as a broker for God and the devil, who makes a bet with Marley over Scrooge's redemption and is furious when Scrooge proves he's able to change.
    • Some adaptations go this way with Marley, particularly pre-death. Jacob T. Marley shows how he was indirectly responsible for Scrooge's sister Fan dying and corrupted Scrooge to be worse than he was, and only realized what he'd done after it was too late to fix it.
    • Some adaptations make the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come more villainous, especially in works where an established villain plays it. Others have it be The Grim Reaper that will collect Scrooge's soul.
    • Scrooge himself, though a Villain Protagonist; in the novel, he becomes sentimental immediately upon being shown his childhood, and soon regrets not giving anything to the boy who was singing carols earlier. In many adaptations, he shows less sign of repentance in the early stages of his journey, even up to the point of his visitation from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
  • Adapted Out:
    • The scene where the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge the Creepy Children Ignorance and Want living under the Ghost's robes is left out of many of the more family friendly versions. It is very rare to find an animated version featuring it, with the 1971, 1982, 2001 and 2009 versions being some of the exceptions. Some of the lighter live-action versions also exclude it, such as The Muppet Christmas Carol and the 1938 film with Reginald Owen.
    • Marley's Ghost Exaggerated - it's so short that the other ghosts don't appear and it falls to Marley to show Scrooge the past, present and future.
    • The Magoo version removed Scrooge's sister and nephew. This actually serves to make Scrooge even more sympathetic, as he really is all alone in the world.
    • Many adaptations reduce the Cratchits' six children (Tiny Tim, Martha, Peter, Belinda, and an unnamed boy and girl) to just five, four or three, with some completely excising the children except Tim.
    • Several other bits from the story are usually left out of adaptations, such as Scrooge chasing away a boy carolling in front of his office, Marley’s face appearing on the tiles of Scrooge's fireplace as well as his jaw falling down onto his chest when he unties the bandage around his head, the crowd of spirits similar to Marley that Marley shows Scrooge in the street outside (Scrooge recognizes a couple of deceased business acquaintances), the ghost driving a horse and carriage before Marley appears, Scrooge remembering the storybook characters he loved in the Past sequence, Belle married to another man and with children, Scrooge extinguishing The Ghost of Christmas Past with a giant candle snuffer or the Ghost of Christmas Present sprinkling magical Christmas cheer from his torch.
    • Almost none of the adaptations include the brief Author Tract about how unkind it is to close bakeries on Sunday, likely because the Blue Laws aren't really used anymore. The 2009 Disney production is the only known exception.
  • Affectionate Parody:
    • There is a Seussified version where everybody speaks in rhyme.
    • Scrooge's Long Night is a family-friendly version that's heavily comedic with frequent audience participation.
    • invokedThe Yet Another Christmas Carol trope lists scores of shows that have all done their own affectionate parody retellings of the story.
  • Age Lift:
    • Adaptations and the popular image of the story often do this with Ebenezer Scrooge in order to emphasize that this is his Last Chance to become a good man, casting him as a geriatric grumpy old man, while an close read of the book puts him at most in the mid-to-late fifties (his nephew, whom Scrooge is distant to because he reminds him too much of his beloved sister who died young, possibly in child-birth, is in his mid-twenties). He is also stated to be spry enough to live long enough to become "almost an second father to Tiny Tim".
    • The 2001 Animated Adaptation depicts Scrooge as middle-aged to young, rather than elderly.
    • In the book Scrooge's sister Fan is younger than he is, but some adaptations make her older, so as to attribute their father's neglect of young Ebenezer to his blaming the boy for his mother's Death by Childbirth.
  • Anachronism Stew: Adaptations of A Christmas Carol almost universally portray Scrooge and his employees using quill pens, which were virtually extinct by the 1840s, with steel pens being standard from the 1820s onward. Notably, the book makes no mention of quills at all.
  • Ascended Extra: Some adaptations give Jacob Marley, Belle, Bob Cratchit, Fred, or Tiny Tim larger roles than in the book.
  • Audience Participation: Several live adaptations have characters requesting input from the audience to varying degrees, with the Flanagan Collective's dinner theatre version having the audience be all three Christmas Spirits.
  • Catchphrase: In "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol", there's Tiny Tim's fondness for "Razzleberry dressing".
  • Chain Pain: Some stage productions, particularly the Alan Menken musical version, have Jacob Marley and the other chained souls tie Scrooge up, strangle him with the chains, or let him see firsthand how heavy they are to emphasize their points.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Jacob T. Marley has Scrooge's unbelief in ghosts be so strong Marley has to really work to make him accept he's there before he's closed off, and the Ghost of Christmas Past looks insubstantial to him because of this rather than it being part of its normal appearance.
  • Composite Character:
    • In the Christmas Episode of the Animated Adaptation of Back to the Future, Marty posed as a Christmas Spirit to trick Ebiffnezer Tannen. When Tannen asked if he was Past, Present or Yet to Come, Marty said he was all of them.
    • In the 2021 Nottingham Playhouse production staring Nicholas Farrell and Mark Gatiss, The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is revealed to be Jacob Marley

    D–Z 
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    • Scrooge in some versions.
    • Marley in one stage play version:
      Scrooge: (to the Ghost of Christmas Past) Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?
      Ghost of Christmas Past: I am.
      Marley: Does he take this to be a vision of his green grocer?
  • Death by Adaptation: Some adaptations move Scrooge's future death date to the night of the ghostly visits, meaning if he doesn't change he'll die that same night.
  • Death Equals Redemption: Some adaptations have Marley realize where he went wrong on his deathbed and appeal to Scrooge to change, only to be ignored, leading to his visit seven years later as a final chance to help Scrooge.
  • Disneyfication: Some lighter adaptations leave Ignorance and Want out, add animal companions, or play the ghosts for comedy.
  • Downer Ending: The musical prequel Ebenezer ends with Jacob Marley dead and doomed, and Scrooge rejecting everything and everyone with a "Bah, humbug!"
  • Dynamic Entry: Several versions of Jacob Marley enter dramatically through Scrooge's door, but the 1949 TV version has Marley bang on Scrooge's door to get his attention before crashing through it like the Kool-Aid Man.
  • Evil Mentor: Some adaptations have Marley teach Scrooge what he knew about business, corrupting him into being worse than he was.
  • Fan Sequel: Several fan sequels and prequels have been written, with some focusing on Jacob Marley while others focus on Scrooge, Tiny Tim, or other characters.
  • Gender Flip: Many adaptations will do this for the characters, particularly the Scrooge character.
    • Susan Lucci in Ebbie.
    • Cicely Tyson in Mrs. Scrooge. There is also a sibling Gender Flip and her brother dies in the Vietnam War.
    • Tori Spelling in A Carol Christmas.
    • Barbie in a Christmas Carol makes almost everyone a girl.
    • The 2009 Rod Espinosa comic has Eliza Scrooge, but is still set in the Victorian era, requiring a few other changes.
  • Genre Shift: Some adaptations switch genres depending on the story. The novel Scrooge: The Year After is a mystery novel, as Scrooge investigates how his sister Fan died.
  • Happily Ever Before: Inverted. A theatrical adaptation added Book Ends that showed Marley and the Spirits talking to an unseen figure, presumably God. This shows that rather than being sent back, Marley begged for a chance to help Scrooge, knowing no one else would. At the end, seeing his selflessness, the spirits ask permission to remove Marley's chains. God says no... He will do it Himself!
  • Hilarity Sues: The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge is a play set one year after the story, where Scrooge sues Jacob Marley and the ghosts for kidnapping and emotional distress.
  • Hollywood Atheist: In Scrooge and Marley starring Dean Jones, Scrooge is completely over-the-top in his disbelief to the point of kicking a Nativity like a football.
  • Hollywood Costuming: Some adaptations inaccurately depict period clothing during flashbacks of Scrooge’s past, which would logically be set in the late 18th/early 19th century, but the people are dressed 1840's style.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Soylent Scrooge is a radio parody inspired by Soylent Green and A Modest Proposal, where Scrooge and Marley run a factory where the poor are made into foodstuffs.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: Scrooge's sister is alternately named Fan, Fran, Fanny, etc.
  • Informed Poverty: Several adaptations show the "poor as churchmice" Cratchits living in a house that actually looks like a pretty nice, middle-class home.
  • Ironic Hell: Jacob - A Denouement in One Act has Marley be sentenced to a lonely eternity in the counting house, endlessly counting the same stack of coins.
  • Large Ham: The Ghost of Christmas Present, since Christmas itself is supposed to be an obviously joyful time. Depending on the actor, Scrooge and/or Jacob Marley may be this as well, particularly after Scrooge's redemption.
  • The Musical: Countless musical versions exist. Among them are:
    • The Stingiest Man in Town (A 1956 TV production adapted into a Rankin/Bass Productions animated special in 1978)
    • Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962)
    • Scrooge (1970) with Albert Finney; later became a successful stage musical.
    • The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
    • An animated direct to video film in 1997 starring Tim Curry had 8 original songs.
    • The 2004 TV movie starring Kelsey Grammer, which was an adaptation of a stage musical production that ran at Madison Square Garden from 1994-2003; music by Alan Menken.
    • Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022), starring Luke Evans contains 11 original songs.
    • The Dallas Theater Center's annual production of the show, using traditional carols.
  • Pretty in Mink: For a touch of Costume Porn many of the adaptations will have at least one or two furs, like a muff or fur-trimmed cape. The most common is the fur-trimmed robe worn by the Ghost of Christmas Present.
  • Show Within a Show: The framing story of "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" is of Magoo playing Scrooge on Broadway. On stage, he plays the role straight; offstage, he the same old, nearsighted Magoo.
  • Spared by the Adaptation:
    • One play adaptation stops the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come's Bad Future vision with Tiny Tim's death, removing the scene where Scrooge comes across his own headstone.
    • Both versions of The Stingiest Man in Town do the opposite; there is no mention of Tiny Tim at all in the future segment.
    • The retelling in Adventures from the Book of Virtues keeps Tiny Tim alive, but it's made clear that if the Bad Future comes to pass, he'll remain a cripple for the rest of his life.
    • In BKN's adaptation of the story, Tiny Tim lives to old age in the bad future, but he becomes just as bitter as Scrooge.
  • Terrible Ticking: Some adaptations play up the ticking clock aspect to show Scrooge is getting on in his years and the limited amount of time he has to change.
  • True Meaning of Christmas: Varies depending on the adaptation. Some, like the 1951 version, plainly mention Jesus and the Nativity, along with other Biblical references. Others, like Scrooged, barely acknowledge it at all. Nearly all versions include the line "...who, upon Christmas Day, made lame beggars walk and blind men see". It's a more subtle reference, but its meaning is pretty clear.
  • Twice-Told Tale:
    • Louis Bayard's Mr. Timothy details the story and what follows from Tiny Tim's perspective.
    • The novel Jacob T. Marley details the original tale from Marley's perspective, with Marley having caused Scrooge's Start of Darkness and looking to make amends posthumously.
    • Chris Priestley's The Last Of The Spirits is about Ignorance and Want, imagining them as two homeless children named Sam and Lizzie who encounter Scrooge on Christmas Eve, with Sam deciding to kill him and being shown his own past, present, and future.
    • The novel The Life and Times of Bob Cratchit gives Bob backstory, detailing how he came to work at Scrooge and Marley's, how he got married, and other events before the story began.
  • The Voiceless: The common depiction of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Exceptions are when established characters in a show are playing that ghost.
  • Wham Shot: One of the most famous in history—Scrooge's grave. One stage adaptation changes it so he looks at his own dead body, instead of the grave.
  • Yet Another Christmas Carol: If it's not an adaptation it will be a Whole-Plot Reference.
  • You Mean "Xmas": Scrooge's Long Night deliberately took out most references to Christmas so people who celebrate something else or not at all could still enjoy it, with the ghosts being the ghosts of non-specific holidays.

Alternative Title(s): Scrooge

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