A Christmas Carol . . . starring pretty much all of NPR

Posted at 12:31 PM on January 6, 2009 by Sanden Totten

Maybe in all the holiday excitement (or in your rum and egg-nog induced haze) you forgot to tune into NPR last week. I certainly did. But oh did I miss out. Fortunately some one sent me a link to what may be the best holiday special since Star Wars.

Tiny Ira says, "may our listeners, who contribute more than 50 percent of our income . . . may they bless us everyone!"(photo by kuer90.1 via Creative Commons)

So do yourself a favor and check out A 'Car Talk Carol'. It's dog-pile of notable NPR voices doing a send up of the old Dickensian classic. There's Click and Clack as the Scroogiozzi Brothers, Robert Cratchit Siegel and of course Tiny Ira. Tiny Ira's crippling disability is that he is tragically too sincere, believing that any story can have meaning if enough acoustic guitar is played underneath it. Ira's monologue on the Teletubbies is genius.

The one really grating thing about the special though is the constant laugh track provided by Click and Clack. It's like their studio ventilation system is 50% nitrous oxide. They laugh at the sound of their own laughter. What's with that guys? But overall, it's worth a listen.

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