The story should be familiar with anyone who's read the original Dickens story or experienced any of the various other adaptations or retellings. Our lead character is cruel, selfish moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge (voiced by Walter Matthau), who's so tight-fisted, he keeps a careful eye on how much coal is being used to warm his office, his clerk, Bob Cratchit (voiced by Sonny Melendrez), having to wear his coat inside to keep from freezing. He scorns goodwill and charity, particularly Christmas, regularly declining offers from his nephew Fred (voiced by Dennis Day) to celebrate the holiday with him.
However, this particular Christmas Eve, Scrooge receives a series of ghostly visitors, first of his business partner Jacob Marley (voiced by Theodore Bikel), who reveals his miserable afterlife, wishing he had been more charitable in his life. Following that are the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present (both voiced by Paul Frees), who show him visions of his past, and how his actions affect people right now, particularly Bob's little family, including his crippled child Tiny Tim (voiced by Robert Rolofson). Finally, there is the Ghost of Christmas Future, who shows him a very near future in which Tiny Tim has died and Scrooge has also died, with no one caring about anything he'd ever done.
Returning to his bedroom on Christmas morning, Scrooge anonymously sends a nice Christmas dinner and presents to Bob's family and joins Fred to celebrate the holiday. The next day, Bob arrives a little late for work, and Scrooge tricks him into thinking he'll be punished, before revealing he's giving him a raise and help him get Tiny Tim cared for. Scrooge becomes a more charitable man, his past misdeeds being erased by his new reputation.
The historical context of the story isn't well delved into, but more annoyingly, this is narrated by an animal character, particularly one named B.A.H. Humbug, an insect (voiced by Tom Bosley) who also leads several of the songs. One about how stingy Scrooge is at the start is even sung by a chorus of cats and dogs. Given how A Christmas Carol is about our humanity, it's odd to give narration duties to a non-human character.
The songs are all right, being lifted from the previous live action production. There's been other musical adaptations of the story, and I think their songs were better. These aren't bad, they're just not particularly great.
Overall, not going to be surprised if people continue to reach for Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, The Muppets Christmas Carol or Scrooge over this one. It's not that this is a particularly bad version of A Christmas Carol, it's just that there are so many other options that this had to do a lot to stand out and it didn't.
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