What better way to celebrate Christmas than a 1979 made-for-TV version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” starring The Fonz himself?

This drama has Henry Winkler playing the “Scrooge” character named Benedict Slade, a depression-era New England businessman. You already know his type: lonely, miserly, greedy, uncaring for others. How else would Scrooge–uh–Benedict be?

You already know the story. Benedict gets visited by three ghosts who take him to the past, present and future to show him what his life was like, is like and will be like if he doesn’t straighten up. Except Benedict’s ghosts are portrayed by his debtors, which is a cool twist on the story. Another twist is that instead of just giving his clerk (Thatcher) Christmas day off, he actually fires him for not helping him tear apart leather-bound books that he got from one of his debtors. He fires him! On Christmas Eve! Scrooge himself never even did that! Benedict is a badass (and I mean that in a bad way).

On Christmas when Benedict awakes he is a new man, ready to forgive his debtors and returns their possessions. He also adopts a boy from the very orphanage where he grew up.

I love that Gerard Parkes plays Jessup, the manager of the orphanage and one of the debtors/Ghost of Christmas Present. Because who doesn’t love Doc from “The Fraggles”?

If you flip around the old telly enough during the Christmas season, you should be able to find this gem somewhere to watch. It’s probably on YouTube as well. Worth a view, if only for Henry Winkler alone.