Carface Remembers He Has a Heart in An All Dogs Christmas Carol

I was browsing around Netflix yesterday when I discovered that there was an All Dogs Go to Heaven Christmas movie – and that, even better, it was available to watch online. While I raised an eyebrow over the existence of this second sequel to the animated Don Bluth film about a rough-and-tumble dog with a heart of gold, I loved the original, so I figured it would be worth a shot. As I expected, An All Dogs Christmas Carol is a cute enough, if wholly unnecessary, adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic.

After the second (rather abysmal) All Dogs Go to Heaven movie, there was evidently a television series starring these characters, and I get the sense that this movie is in line with that series. It doesn’t seem to pick right up from where the movie left off; I tried not to remember too much about that shoddy sequel, but there seemed to be some continuity issues that maybe could have been ironed out through the TV series. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt there. Still, this movie, at a scant hour and fifteen minutes in length, basically screams “quick moneymaker” to me. It’s nothing but a retelling of A Christmas Carol, and considering the fact that the original movie was a fairly powerful story of redemption itself, giving us another redemption story here that is such an obvious rip-off doesn’t feel nearly as compelling. I mean, you could take any number of shows or movies and make the resident grouchiest / meanest character into Scrooge and use side characters as the ghosts who help him or her recover the Christmas spirit. It’s been done over and over again. One of my all-time favorite television episodes, M*A*S*H’s Dear Sis, has an element of A Christmas Carol about it. But it isn’t just a straightforward rehash, which this is.

The villainous canine gangster Carface (Ernest Borgnine) is up to his old tricks. This time, he’s got a magical gizmo that hypnotizes any dog within hearing range, allowing him to make out like a bandit when they march up to him in a daze and give him all their stuff. He and his faithful assistant, Killer (Charles Nelson Reilly), have had it with these little gigs, though. They want to pull off something truly impressive, so Carface makes a deal with the devil, or at least a truly demonic canine named Belladonna (Bebe Neuwirth). If he holds up his end of the bargain, Christmas will be ruined forever. But Charlie (Steven Weber, the third actor to voice the character), his ladylove Sasha (Sheena Easton) and his best friend Itchy (Dom DeLuise) have a plan to stop Carface. With some help from another magical gizmo, this one provided by goody-two-shoes angel Annabelle (Neuwirth), they will take a page out of Dickens’ book and try to show Carface the error of his ways.

Charlie literally hits upon the idea of essentially reenacting A Christmas Carol, so the plot is derivative even within the world of the movie. And for as vile as Carface is – much worse, really, than Scrooge, who was cranky and cold but didn’t go around trying to kill people – it sure doesn’t take long for his heart to start melting. It happens a little too quickly. Then again, I got whiplash from him going back and forth between feeling really emotional over what he was seeing and closing himself off and flying into a violent rage.

I did rather like the first two segments, though. The Christmas Past part features the only decent song in the movie, in which he sadly remembers the little boy he loved who always made excuses for his bad behavior until, one fateful Christmas, he didn’t. Which, he realizes, is why he hates Christmas so much, not to mention why he would rather use others than get attached to them. In the Christmas Present section, I love the fact that Sasha guides Carface while dressed as Santa Lucia – especially since I happened to watch it on Santa Lucia Day. The Christmas Future part, usually so terrifying and desolate, is the weakest of the three, with an annoying centerpiece of Charlie singing a gospel-tinged song about how Carface has to mend his ways.

As with A Christmas Carol - as well as All Dogs Go to Heaven - it’s a youngster in trouble who is really the deciding factor in bringing about the change in heart. In this case, it’s a puppy with a bum leg who reminds Carface of his younger self. That element is sweet enough, though one wonders why Anne Marie, the little girl he abused in the first movie, didn’t have the same sort of effect on him. Additionally, it’s not enough for Carface to awake on Christmas morning wanting to be a better dog. No, he has to decide whether or not to participate in the nefarious plan that seemed so appealing to him hours before, and this aspect of the movie is pretty goofy, since he keeps changing his mind as to whether or not to throw the all-important switch that will hypnotize every dog in San Francisco.

A Christmas Carol is a powerful story, so even though this is nowhere near the best version I have seen, it’s still reasonably touching from time to time. And it’s certainly not the worst version out there. But this is one edition of A Christmas Carol I don’t expect to turn into a Christmas tradition.

Grace Overcomes Grief in Prayerful The Lord is My Shepherd

I was saddened to open the paper yesterday and read of the death of Dabbs Greer, an actor whose career spanned more than half a century. He played all sorts of roles over the years but was probably most famous for portraying Rev. Robert Alden on Little House on the Prairie. Among the most memorable episodes in which he appeared was The Lord is My Shepherd, the emotional first-season two-parter in which the Ingallses welcome, all too briefly, a sixth member into their family.

The first half of the episode is a roller coaster of emotions as Caroline (Karen Grassle) informs Charles (Michael Landon) that a baby is on the way. He's ecstatic, not least because of the prospect that after three girls, he may be about to get the son he's always wanted. He's so invested in this possibility that he refers to the baby as "he" throughout the pregnancy, to Caroline's gentle disapproval. When it turns out he's right, though, nothing can stem his exuberance, and he's reluctant to take his eyes off the boy for a moment, so eager is he to revel in this fourth foray into fatherhood.

The town rejoices with Charles and Caroline, but little Laura (Melissa Gilbert) isn't so thrilled to see her father so enamored of this baby when she's always shared an especially close kinship with him. Suddenly she feels cast aside, and as hard as she might try to do everything a boy can do, she'll always be a daughter, never a son. She's so bitter about Charles' lack of attention to her that when Charles, Jr. takes a turn for the worse, she refuses to say a special prayer for him, horrifying Mary (Melissa Sue Anderson). When he fails to recover, Laura blames herself for his death and is utterly miserable until a conversation with Rev. Alden convinces her that she can accomplish a miracle if only she can manage to get close enough to God.

This is a powerful episode, and Landon and Gilbert give especially moving performances as Charles and Laura struggle through the wrenching pangs of jealousy, grief and guilt. It's even more overtly religious than most episodes in the series, with the psalm-inspired title a strong undercurrent throughout as the characters turn to God for help in their darkest hour. (Incidentally, this psalm, generally seen as the most beloved of the 150, also provided the title for a second-season LOST episode rich in religious imagery.) Both Rev. Alden and kindly Dr. Baker (Kevin Hagen) are deeply frustrated by their helplessness in the face of the Ingalls' tragedy, but the way the community rallies around the grieving family is admirable, particularly the very practical help Mr. Edwards (Victor French) provides when Laura goes missing.

The second half of the episode takes considerable creative license, but it's such a compelling emotional and spiritual journey for both Laura and Charles that it's hard to mind. While Charles frantically searches for Laura, riddled with guilt over the fact that he unwittingly neglected her in his excitement over the new baby, she stubbornly scales a nearby mountain in order to be as physically close to God as possible so she can convince Him to swap her life for her brother's.

Once she reaches the top, she falls in with an enigmatic vagabond by the name of Jonathan (Ernest Borgnine). Though Laura is initially reluctant to accept his help, he assures her that he and God are old friends and that whatever answer she's seeking, she may just have to be patient for it, and she might as well have something to eat in the meantime. As he looks after her, he cleverly sets the stage for her father to find her, never letting on to Laura that this is his intention. When the inevitable reunion occurs, Jonathan is nowhere to be found, and we are left to wonder whether this man might just have had a touch of the angelic about him. I find it interesting that his first name is the same as that of the celestial main character in Landon's later series, Highway to Heaven.

Little House on the Prairie was a consistently excellent show, but few episodes packed the emotional whallop of this bittersweet but ultimately comforting two-parter. If you only watch one episode of Little House, it should probably be The Lord is My Shepherd.