Big news out for fans of Muppets, Charles Dickens, pretty songs and restored cinematic masterpieces. Brian Henson, son of Jim and director of the beloved The Muppet Christmas Carol has announced that the movie’s long lost central song “When Love Is Gone” has been found and is being put back into the movie for a new remastered edition that’s in the works. That means that the best ever film version of The Christmas Carol starring Michael Caine, Kermit, Gonzo and the gang will finally get a new version with its emotional lynchpin.
OK, a bit of history here. When The Muppet Christmas Carol first released, it included the song sung by Belle (Meredith Braun), explaining to a young Ebenezer Scrooge (Ray Coulthard) that she didn’t love him anymore and would not be marrying him. It’s very pretty and surprisingly sophisticated, like a lot of things in this movie. In fact, it was so sophisticated that then-Disney producer Jeffrey Katzenberg said he didn’t think kids would like it and asked Henson to remove it from the theatrical release, which Henson did. You can see the missing song below but have some tissues ready!
The song did end up on some early VHS copies of The Muppet Christmas Carol but became sort of an urban legend among Muppet fans after the master of the film was lost and all future releases of the movie had to be done without “When Love Is Gone.” Or, at least, it used to be lost. Henson revealed that a couple intrepid editors started working on a new remastered edition of the movie and stumbled across the original footage, including “When Love Is Gone.” They surprised Henson with the footage earlier this year.
“I was like, ‘No, you did not!'” Henson told the BBC. “And they said, ‘Yes we did! We found it!’ I was so happy, I was so happy. They are all set with the full-length version again. I don’t know if they are going to get it up on Disney Plus in time for Christmas because they have all these processes. But it is coming back, the full-length version is coming back.”
Hurrah! God bless us, everyone!
