In my opinion, the best time to start watching holiday movies is whenever you want to start watching holiday movies. For most of my life, however, we never pressed play on one of the classics until Black Friday. Choosing that first movie is never difficult, because for me it has always been and will always be The Muppet Christmas Carol. Not only is it the single greatest thing to come from Henson Studios since Jim Henson passed, but the popularity of this film has started an annual conversation about which movie you could film with an all Muppet cast and basically one human actor.
If you plan to head to Disney Plus to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol (something you can do for a lot less with this bundle deal), beware of the trap that lies before you. The version of the movie you see when you press play on the listing is incomplete and has had a song removed, one that many remember seeing the first time it was shown to them. Thankfully, there is an easy way to get it back, and I’ll show you how right here.
Scrooge is about to break into song in this scene, but if you have not seen the full movie it is not a song you would have heard.
What is missing from the Disney Plus version of The Muppet Christmas Carol? There is a whole song missing and the scene it is contained within really does matter to the movie’s ending. In the original version of the movie, Scrooge’s time with the Ghost of Christmas Past includes a longer scene between young Scrooge and his fiancée Belle. Right after she says, “You did, once,” in response to young Scrooge claiming to love her, Belle breaks into a song titled When Love is Gone. Not only is it a beautiful yet heartbreaking scene, but Scrooge also modifies the song at the end of the film as a way to further demonstrate the character’s growth. If you watch the film without Belle’s song, this ending song lacks the emotional weight it was intended to deliver.
You can find the song in its entirety on YouTube, but if you want to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol as it was originally intended to be watched, you can access it through Disney Plus. This is how to get there:
- Search for The Muppet Christmas Carol on Disney Plus.
- Instead of pressing Play, head to the Extras tab for this movie.
- Select The Muppet Christmas Carol (Full Length Version) from the menu.
That is all you really need to know. You can now enjoy the full version of The Muppet Christmas Carol, just like everyone did when it was released in 1992. If you really want the complete movie experience, line up all the food Rizzo eats throughout the movie and eat at the same times he does. That is a wild combination of food if you don’t remember, but a fun way to connect to this holiday classic.
