Love is found! A long lost song from the VHS and LaserDisc versions of The Muppets Christmas Carol has now been recovered. The song, When Love is Gone, was recently discovered again and will now be included when the film is released in 4K.
Apparently, the ballad was thought to be too boring for young audiences at the time of the theatrical release in 1992, so it was cut from the movie with promises to add it back in after theaters.
“The agreement was we would remove it from the theatrical release but then put it back in for all of the television and video releases from then on,” Director Brian Henson said in an interview with BBC.
But the song got pushed aside and lost after appearing on the VHS release, until just recently when Henson received a call that the original film negative with the song had been found and was being restored for 4K quality release.
“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’. 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.”
The song fits into the scene where Scrooge visits his past and sees his younger self with Belle, his then-fiancee. She fittingly sings When Love is Gone after Scrooge chooses his career over his life with her. The long lost song aids in helping the finale track make more sense since it completes the story when Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchet and the entire cast sings When Love is Found as the finale to The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Now, the elves at Disney+ are busy working their magic to see if they can get the full version up and streaming before Christmas.
“They are all set with the full-length version again,” Henson added. “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.”