For the Holiday Music Fest tonight, we have a lovely song that most definitely is largely unknown for a very good reason. It was cut from the film and has been lost for over 20 years. The song is "When Love is Gone," for The Muppet Christmas Carol. It was sung by Meredith Braun, who was appearing in Les Miserables in London at the time, and... Michael Caine. Yes, Michael Caine. She plays Scrooge's lost love Belle, and Caine as Scrooge comes upon her with the Ghost of Christmas Past. Director Brian Henson loved the song, as did the songwriters Paul Goodman and Miles Goodman -- as well as Caine. The issue was that executive Jeffrey Katzenberg thought that test screenings were showing that kids in the audience were getting antsy by the mature ballad. He didn't require Henson to cut it, but made a strong case, and so Henson reluctantly agreed. And so, the song was dropped from the 1992 film. Because of his love of the song, director Henson put it back in for the 2002 VHS release. But it's that pesky "VHS" that caused the next problem. Because when DVDs came along, the negative for the song was lost, and so it couldn't be added into the new DVD release. And so hasn't been seen since. Every six months or so, Henson said that he'd ask about the footage and even put together a task force of sorts to find it, but with no luck. The film was recently being remastered for re-release in 4K. And Henson showed up for a screening. It turns out that the technicians hid something from him. As he told BBC News, "I went down and they said, ‘But before we show it to you, we’ve got something else we want to show you.’ And they put up reel four of Christmas Carol with ‘When Love Is Gone,’” I was like, ‘No, you did not!’ and they said, ‘Yes we did! We found it!’ I was so happy, I was so happy.” The scene is also included in the "full extended cut" option in the Extras section for the movie on Disney Plus. And so finally, after 21 years since the VHS release -- and 31 years since the feature film was show in theaters -- "When Love is Gone" will be back in the movie. Here is the scene and song.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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