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Starring ... Scrooge on the small screen

Charles Dickens' classic story “A Christmas Carol” has inspired zillions of TV shows, shorts and features, including versions with Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and even Barbie.

Here are a few of the more well-known and bigger-budgeted feature adaptations:

“A Christmas Carol”(1951) Charles Dickens' classic holiday story of Christian redemption has never been better than this appropriate black-and-white classic starring Alastair Sim as the screen's definitive Scrooge. Brian Desmond Hurst directs the drama as a frightening ghost story. The special effects are ridiculous by today's standards, but that doesn't matter. The power of the film pulls you into its world and you believe everything you see. (NR) 86 minutes.

“The Muppet Christmas Carol”(1992) Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit? Miss Piggy as Emily Cratchit? The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens? Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge? What's not to like in this imaginative, engaging reinvention of the story everyone already knows? (G) 85 minutes.

“Scrooged”(1988) Sorry, but Richard Donner's comedy update of Dickens doesn't work at the end at all. Bill Murray's Scrooge stand-in, TV network boss Frank Cross, can't turn his cynicism and insincerity into a touching act of redemption because he's Bill Murray, the master of insincerity. The movie is saved by Carol Kane's dangerously goofy Ghost of Christmas Past, a lethal combination of Billie Burke's Glinda the Good Witch and the grand inquisitor, Torquemada. (PG-13) 101 minutes.

#8220;A Christmas Carol#8221; (2009) Robert Zemeckis directed this computer-animated 3-D version, starring Jim Carrey as the voice of Scrooge (and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future). The characters are rendered in that creepy process called motion capture that makes Tiny Tim look like the Bad Seed, as if he's about to stab Uncle Scrooge with a fork. (PG) 98 minutes.