day 10

charles dickens never thought of this badly animated, slightly repulsive, definitely non-christmasy, bit of "holiday special":



"Cricket on the Hearth" is, of course, not charles dickens' best known christmas story (did he like this one better? hmm. don't know. i haven't heard of him having yo get completely plastered in order to read this one to audiences, though my guess is the makers of the animated film might have been...)

quick plot synopsis, of the original:
"John Peerybingle, a carrier, lives with his wife Dot (who is much younger than he), their baby, their nanny Tilly Slowboy, and a mysterious lodger. A cricket constantly chirps on the hearth and acts as a guardian angel to the family, at one point assuming a human voice to warn John that his suspicions that Dot is having an affair with the lodger are wrong.
The life of the Peerybingles frequently intersects with that of Caleb Plummer, a poor toymaker employed by the miser Mr. Tackleton. Caleb has a blind daughter Bertha, and a son Edward, who travelled to South America and seemingly never returned. Tackleton is now on the eve of marrying Edward's sweetheart, May.
In the end, the lodger is revealed to be none other than Edward. Tackleton's heart is melted by the Christmas season, like Ebenezer Scrooge, and surrenders May to marry her true love. It is suggested ambiguously that Bertha regains her sight at the end. It has also been theorized that the ending paragraph is revealing the baby as the narrator of the story, which he would have been shown by the Cricket"

the cartoon casts off much of this story, focusing more on caleb a bertha, and altering their story quite considerable. truthfully, the cartoon resembles the original in that there's a cricket, a hearth, some wacky mistaken identity (edward is now bertha's beau, not brother, whose dissappearance is what makes bertha blind), a bunch of sweet, sappy, and completely unrelated song numbers - with pretty colors! - and danny thomas (who does the voice of caleb) giving is a nice intro, claiming it to be "charles dickens classic" and then also closing the show, in live action, telling us who played who - his daughter played, well, his daughter; roddy mcdowel played the cricket - and a reminder of the true meaning of the holiday.

the character of tackelton is kept, and probably as dickens meant him - a miserly, and very visible "jewish" stereotype (no, tackelton isn't a jewish name, but that didn't seem to stop the animators.) a weird plot point with him is his pet crow, who he has kidnap the cricket with a monkey and a dog (who meet at the bar where the singing burlesque cat performs), though it's ultimately thwarted.

ummm....

honestly, i can't find a lot of info/pictures/footage. it's available as part of a christmas classics boxed set, which also has rudolph and frosty. and... yeah. i don't think i've seen it on tv - abc family aside - since i was a little kid. seeing it now - i watched it again recently - i'm not sure it's as good as i remember it being. it certainly doesn't SUCK, but between the extremely hippy-ish, late 60's songs and animation, it's quite awkward to watch it now.

and the cricket, seriously, looks like a pickle!