Poor Ebenezer Scrooge… Yes, he was a horrible old miser, the boss from hell and an all-round obnoxious misanthrope but there was something about him suggesting that was worth saving, or at least the three ghosts of Christmas believed so. When one watches enough eccentric A Christmas Carol variations, it’s hard to shake the thought that film and television makers weren’t so sure he was worth it. How else to explain the myriad dreadful takes on Dickens’ story? There have been many atrocities committed in the name of A Christmas Carol, but few have been quite as wilfully strange, inexplicable and torturous as Scrooge’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas.

This awful television special, directed by veteran US television director Lou Tedesco, and first broadcast on 23 December 1984, is little more than a glorified music show, a sort of Top of the Pops or American Bandstand with Ebenezer clumsily and unnecessarily inserted into the tedium. A young woman, never named (Lee Benton), appears in the shabby dwellings of Scrooge (played by, of all people, Jack Elam) having apparently arrived there from the 20th century, mistaking it for a record shop. Whether she’s travelled back in time or Scrooge has moved forward is never explained but you really won’t care either way. She has a magical snow globe with her that she uses to show Scrooge various pop music acts from the 1980s though even this most appalling of all curmudgeons doesn’t deserve this treatment.

The acts featured in the snow globe are a strange lot, mostly acts where had already seen better days by 1984 (Three Dog Night, The Association, Paul Revere and the Raiders), 60s relics who were holding on to a devoted cult following (Mike Love from The Beach Boys and Dean Torrence, one half of Jan & Dean) or who may have been someone once but you’ll have trouble remembering if you’ve ever heard of them (Merrilee Rush, Mary MacGregor, Bobby Goldsboro). The singularly named Bridget gets an “introducing” credit as if someone involved in the special was grooming her for future stardom, but this seems to have been her one and only public sighting.

Elam blusters his way through his role without even attempting an English accent and is one of the very worst incarnations of Scrooge, while Benton’s character is so thinly sketched that she doesn’t get a character name and is so annoyingly perky her attempts to instil Scrooge with the ever-elusive Christmas spirit (“no-one should be this grumpy at Christmas”) will drive you insane. The acts in the snow globe lip-sync their way through an anodyne collection of Christmas “favourites” (Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Winter Wonderland et al) with Three Dog Night at least looking suitably embarrassed by it all – you can almost see them wondering where it all went wrong.

Between the musical numbers, most of them staged in some anonymous snowbound location, Rex Sparger’s script gives Elam, Benton and Love (who also shows up at Scrooge’s to murder Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas) nothing to work with but some ham-fisted stabs at humour. So far as can be told, it was his only writing credit and that really is the best for everyone. It’s simply awful, a cynical attempt to whip up some seasonal jollies that turns out to be quite the opposite, a tiresome, soulless, fun-averse and painfully bad misfire that will leave you wondering who thought this was ever going to be a good idea.

Mercifully, it only runs for 44 minutes – and that’s 44 minutes that will feel like your entire life is passing you by as you watch it. It was shown in syndication in the USA, may not have travelled anywhere else and may well have been repeated at least for a couple of years until the already long-in-the-tooth bands and singers became irredeemably passé for contemporary audiences. Had you wanted, for some insane reason, to relive the horror, a soundtrack album had been released in the States by Hillbound Records, though it was quickly re-released very quickly as simply Christmas Party – presumably in a desperate attempt to distance it from the special once everyone had seen it… And, while it’s there, if you really want to subject yourself to this, the full thing is available on YouTube and linked below.