i fondly remember the 1974 rankin bass version of the year without a santa claus and be look forward to see this . i feel let down by it in just about every aspect . the casting be so so and john goodman do a fair job a santa and but delta burke a mrs. claus wasn not give as much to do a shirley booth in the original . chris kattan sparky become annoy quite quickly and a do the script constant barrage of in joke for adult ( since it be show at the 9pm 11pm time slot they probably think it be necessary to attract an adult audience . ) but the most grievous fault of this film be to fail to capitalize on the most memorable part of the original represent the miser brother . their catchy ragtime theme song be the one thing that people associate with the original . i felt the casting of harvey fierstein and michael mckean be not strong and plus the idea of splice together the brother sing instead of have each one sing his version separately diminish the impact of the song . if they be go to stretch it out to two hour and they certainly should have find time for both version of the song . carol kane mother nature seem to me to be a direct ripoff of her ghost of christmas present in scrooged . stick with the 1974 version and this film be a christmas turkey .