Why the ‘Muppet Christmas Carol’s Ghost of Christmas Past Looks So Horrifying

Further proving that every work of literature would be vastly improved by the presence of the Muppets (the ball’s in your court, Faulkner estate), 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol adapted Charles Dickens’ classic yuletide tale for the likes of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Gonzo the Great. Oh, and also Sir Michael Caine.

As much as we all love this movie, each seasonal rewatch brings with it the moment where we suddenly remember just how disturbingly creepy the Ghost of Christmas Past looks. It’s like a Christopher Walken deepfake of a haunted porcelain doll.

I’m far from the only one who’s weirded out by this character, every year Muppet Christmas Carol viewers take to social media to share their thoughts on the unnecessarily terrifying spirit.

So what gives? Why does this otherwise perfect movie feature a dead-eyed monstrosity that most people seem to hate? 

For starters, we should say that the ghost’s ethereal look was created by filming a rod puppet that had been submerged in water. The original plan was to use baby oil, but that proved to be too costly and didn’t quite work the way that they’d intended. 

But why use a floaty mannequin thing for the Ghost of Christmas Past instead of a pre-existing Muppet character? Well, that was actually the original plan. According to director Brian Henson, the first version of the story featured Kermit’s nephew Robin as the Ghost of Christmas Past. 

In another interview, Henson revealed that Scooter was also considered for the part.

Meanwhile, Miss Piggy was cast as a “bacchanalian ghost of Christmas present,” and either Gonzo or Animal would have been the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. “We were going to do a romping parody,” Henson explained.

But then the Muppet creatives “reconsidered” their initial idea, and decided to “take a more respectful and kind of more sophisticated approach to the movie,” which meant that “the Ghosts really (needed) to stay as Dickens describes them.”

Dickens describes the first ghost as looking “like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man” noting that its face “had not a wrinkle in it.” Also, its head emitted a “bright clear jet of light.” So perhaps the Muppet version did capture the vibe of the original text — although they ignored some of the other details, like how the Ghost of Christmas Past has “very long and muscular” hands and arms.

So far no Dickens purists have petitioned the Jim Henson Company to go back and CGI the ghost until she’s totally jacked.