The Muppet Christmas Carol Trivia
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50 free The Muppet Christmas Carol trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Muppet Christmas Carol was the first Muppet film made after Jim Henson's death, the first directed by his son Brian, the first produced by Disney and the first with a human lead. Michael Caine agreed to play Scrooge only if he could do it completely straight, as if the Royal Shakespeare Company were in the room and no puppets were. Three decades on, The Guardian has called it the greatest Christmas film ever made. These 50 questions cover the casting of Gonzo as Charles Dickens, Statler and Waldorf as the Marleys and Kermit as Bob Cratchit, the humans Steven Mackintosh and Meredith Braun, Paul Williams's songs, the Shepperton shoot, the box office battle with Aladdin and Home Alone 2, and the long saga of the cut ballad When Love Is Gone and its 2022 restoration. Easy questions stick to who plays whom; the hard end asks about chart positions, composers and which comedian nearly got the part. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation attached. Play it solo or print it for a Christmas quiz.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Michael Caine
Michael Caine told the director he would play Scrooge dead straight, as if he were with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and never wink or do anything Muppety.
Q 02Who made his feature directing debut with The Muppet Christmas Carol, two years after his father's death?
Brian Henson
Brian Henson, who took charge of the family company when his father died in 1990, was 28 when he shot the film as both its director and its producer.
Q 03The Muppet Christmas Carol ends with its narrator saying that anyone who liked it should do what?
Read the book
Read the book. Most of the narration is Dickens's own prose, lifted almost word for word, which is why the film puts the author on screen to deliver it.
Q 04Which Muppet narrates The Muppet Christmas Carol in the role of Charles Dickens?
Gonzo
Gonzo. The makers asked themselves which Muppet was the least likely great novelist, then gave him narration taken almost entirely from Dickens's own text.
Q 05Which Muppet plays Scrooge's put-upon clerk, Bob Cratchit, in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog. In the book the clerk meets the reformed Scrooge back at the office next morning; the film instead sends Scrooge to the Cratchits' door on Christmas Day with a turkey.
Q 06Which Muppet plays Tiny Tim, the Cratchits' frail youngest son, in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Robin the Frog
Robin the Frog. As Tiny Tim he leads the family in the song Bless Us All, and Scrooge is shaken when the vision of the future shows the Cratchits mourning him.
Q 07In The Muppet Christmas Carol, which duo play the ghosts of Scrooge's dead partners, the Marley brothers?
Statler and Waldorf
Statler and Waldorf. When Scrooge complains that his old partners were always criticising him, the two ghosts put him right: they were always heckling him.
Q 08Which Muppet plays Scrooge's jolly first employer, a character Dickens called Mr. Fezziwig?
Fozzie Bear
Fozzie Bear. The film happily bends the name Dickens wrote into Fozziwig to suit its resident stand-up comedian.
Q 09Which pair of Muppets play the charity collectors Scrooge turns away in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker
Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker. They were written a song, Room in Your Heart, begging Scrooge to give; it was recorded but never filmed, and survives only on the soundtrack album.
Q 10Which Muppet has a wreath hurled at him by Scrooge for singing a carol at his door?
Bean Bunny
Bean Bunny. Scrooge makes it up to him on Christmas morning, sending the same small rabbit off to fetch the prize turkey, a bird about twice his size.
Q 11Which Muppet tags along with the narrator of The Muppet Christmas Carol as his wisecracking sidekick, playing himself?
Rizzo the Rat
Rizzo the Rat. The film was his big break: he was paired with its Dickens to tell the story, and the two were teamed again in the Muppets' next two cinema films.
Q 12In The Muppet Christmas Carol, as in Dickens, the cheerful Fred who invites Scrooge to Christmas dinner is his what?
His nephew
His nephew, and his only living relative. Taken to watch Fred's party unseen, Scrooge discovers that he is the punchline of the guests' parlour game.
Q 13In The Muppet Christmas Carol, where does the young Scrooge first meet Belle, the fiancée he later loses?
At a Christmas party
Q 21Which studio chief talked the director into cutting Belle's ballad from The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Jeffrey Katzenberg
Jeffrey Katzenberg. Watching children fidget at a test screening, he argued the song was too grown-up for them; the director gave way, and has said he was persuaded rather than ordered.
Q 22What did studio archivists find in 2020 that let The Muppet Christmas Carol's cut ballad be restored?
The original film negative
The original film negative. The director had rung the studio about it month after month for years, and in 2020 staff surprised him by simply screening the missing reel.
Q 23Which of the ghosts in The Muppet Christmas Carol was filmed submerged in a tank to make it seem to float?
At a Christmas party, the yearly one thrown by his first employer. Belle is a friend of the host's family, and she walks away when Scrooge keeps putting off their wedding for the sake of money.
Q 14Which Muppet plays the stern headmaster of Scrooge's schooldays in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Sam Eagle
Sam Eagle. His headmaster was written a song, Chairman of the Board, lecturing the boy on hard work; it was recorded but never filmed, so it is heard only on the soundtrack album.
Q 15Which Muppet band supplies the music for the dance thrown by the young Scrooge's first employer?
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. They play but never speak: two of the performers behind the band had died, and for most of the 1990s it was kept to wordless musical cameos.
Q 16Which songwriter returned to the Muppets, thirteen years after The Muppet Movie, to write the songs for The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Paul Williams
Paul Williams. Newly sober after years of addiction, he called it the first song score he had written clean, and said Scrooge's overnight change was one that had taken him 49 years.
Q 17Composer Miles Goodman scored The Muppet Christmas Carol after working on which 1988 Frank Oz comedy, starring the film's future Scrooge?
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Goodman was Frank Oz's regular composer, scoring four of the Muppet veteran's comedies, and Oz was executive producer of the Christmas Carol.
Q 18Who wrote the screenplay for The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Jerry Juhl
Jerry Juhl. The veteran Muppet writer wanted Dickens's narration in the film but thought a voiceover would intrude, so he wrote the author in as a character who tells the story on screen.
Q 19Which ballad was cut from The Muppet Christmas Carol before it reached cinemas?
When Love Is Gone
When Love Is Gone. Children at test screenings grew restless during Belle's farewell to Scrooge, so it was trimmed for cinemas, then put back for the first home-video release.
Q 20Which country singer reprises Belle's ballad over the end credits?
Martina McBride
Belle's version in the film was the one that got cut.
Christmas Past
Christmas Past. The childlike spirit was first shot in a tank of baby oil, which proved costly and hard to keep clean, so the crew finished the job in plain water.
Q 24At which studios was The Muppet Christmas Carol filmed?
Shepperton Studios, England
Shepperton Studios, England. The sets were built raised off the ground so the puppeteers could work beneath the streets, which left the human actors crossing the gaps on planks.
Q 25What does Bob Cratchit watch cross the night sky after his solo song in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
A shooting star
A shooting star. It echoes a moment in The Muppet Movie, the troupe's first film, and later Muppet films have kept the tradition going.
Q 26After A Christmas Carol, which classic adventure novel did the Muppets turn into their next cinema film?
Treasure Island
Treasure Island. The Dickens formula worked well enough to repeat: in 1996 the same director cast Tim Curry as Long John Silver and again filled the parts around him with Muppets.
Q 27Before it became a cinema release, The Muppet Christmas Carol was first sold to which US network as a TV film?
ABC
ABC. The company's agent suggested the story, then rang back to say he had already sold it as a television film; only once the script was written was it bought for cinemas instead.
Q 28Which American comedian was considered for the role of Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
George Carlin
George Carlin. In the end the makers went the opposite way: the part went to a dramatic actor who promised to play Scrooge without a single wink at the audience.
Q 29The Muppet Christmas Carol's star modelled Scrooge on cheats and embezzlers he saw on CNN, from where?
Wall Street
Wall Street. He took his cue from the financial scandals on the news rather than from Victorian London, saying such men 'represented a very good picture of meanness and greed'.
Q 30Which Muppet was first pencilled in to play the Ghost of Christmas Present in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
Miss Piggy
Miss Piggy. Early drafts were a romping parody with star Muppets as the spirits, until the makers decided new, eerier puppets would keep the ghosts ominous and recast her as Mrs Cratchit.