A long-lost song from “The Muppet Christmas Carol” has been found and will be reinserted into the holiday classic.
“When Love Is Gone,” a ballad in the Muppets’ version of the classic Charles Dickens Christmas tale, was removed from the 1992 film, Entertainment Weekly reported. Director Brian Hensen believed the melancholy ballad, sung by Meredith Braun, would not appeal to young viewers.
Hensen, the son of Muppets creator Jim Hensen, and Disney, which distributed the film, wanted to put the song back in the film but the original footage needed to restore it had been lost, the website reported.
The love song, sung to a young Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine) by his fiancee, Belle, remained in the VHS copies of the film, but were not included in the DVD versions, the BBC reported.
“They always say, ‘It’ll show up. Negatives never permanently get lost, they just get put in the wrong place,’” Brian Henson told Entertainment Weekly. “For years and years, I’d call them every six months and see how they were doing. And they actually even put together a team and a little budget to try to find it, and they still couldn’t.”
Two weeks ago, Henson said he received a call telling him the film was being remastered in 4K, and he was asked to view the new version. Hensen was not told the lost piece of the film had been found and was pleasantly surprised, the BBC reported.
“I was so excited. They actually hid it. ... So 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,’” Henson told BBC Radio 2 in a program that will be broadcast on Christmas Day. “I was like, ‘No, you did not!’ and they said, ‘Yes we did! We found it!’ I was so happy, I was so happy.
“They are all set with the full-length version again. I don’t know if they are going to get it up on Disney+ in time for Christmas because they have all these processes but it is coming back, the full-length version is coming back.”
“The Muppet Christmas Carol” is currently streaming on Disney+ with an unrestored version of “When Love Is Gone” available as a bonus feature, Entertainment Weekly reported.