Long-Lost The Muppet Christmas Carol Song That Was Cut From the Original Has Been Found

If you saw The Muppet Christmas Carol on VHS as a youngster then you were in luck as that was one [...]

By Spencer Perry

If you saw The Muppet Christmas Carol on VHS as a youngster then you were in luck as that was one of the only versions of the movie that included the song "When Love Is Gone," a sequence cut out of the theatrical version and absent from most modern methods of watching the movie. In what might have been considered another example of The Mandela Effect, which saw many debating a chance in the name of "The Berenstain Bears" children's books a few years ago, the song was definitely real and was previously thought lost by The Jim Henson company, until now!

Speaking in a new interview with BBC Radio 2, director Brian Henson (son of Jim) previously revealed that the video master and original camera negative for the song had been lost, but has now been recovered and will be put back into the movie in the near future. Henson was told recently the film was being remastered for 4K and was asked to check the new copy of the film to make sure it looked okay, where it was revealed to him that they'd recovered the sequence.

"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,'" Henson revealed. "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."

He continued, "They are all set with the full-length version again. I don't know if they are going to get it up on Disney Plus in time for Christmas because they have all these processes but it is coming back, the full-length version is coming back."

Henson went on to explain that the reason the song was cut from the theatrical version was executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg (now famous for the implosion of Quibi) believed that the song was "sophisticated emotionally" and kids in the audience wouldn't like it. The director "reluctantly agreed," making a deal to put it back in for the television and home media versions.

The film's many releases were pretty hit or miss with including the song. VHS and Laserdisc copies did feature it but when it came to DVDs only full-screen versions of the film featured the song and eventually that ended up with no DVDs or blu-rays including it in the main cut. "When Love Is Gone" could be found in many bonus features sections for these releases, and can even be seen on Disney+ in the Extras tab. It's unclear when the version of the film that includes the song in its runtime will be available for purchase or streaming.

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