Cricket on the Hearth is an animated Christmas special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. It is based on the book of the same name by Charles Dickens and premiered on NBC on December 18, 1967, as the twelfth episode of The Danny Thomas Hour.
Plot[]
The special begins in England where the chorus sing the title song. Our main character, Cricket Crocket, goes inside a house to warm up and tells us how he became a part of a family of his very own.
Once, a long time ago in springtime, Cricket was looking for a proper family to “adopt.” Just then, he spots a toy shop and meets its kindly owner, Caleb Plummer. Caleb suggests that he stay with and his family for a little while, especially since cricket are said to be harbingers of good luck, and Cricket gladly accepts his hospitality. Cricket enters and sees Caleb’s daughter, Bertha, who is weeping as she hugs her fiancée, Edward, a commissioned officer in the Royal Navy who must go to sea for two years. The two share a tearful farewell and Bertha promises to always be faithful to him. A year and a half later, Caleb and Bertha, with some help from Cricket, build toys to sell in time for Christmas. At that moment, Jeremiah Bleak, an agent of the Queen, comes to inform them that Edward is lost at sea. The shocking news devastates Bertha to the point where he tragedy renders her blind. Caleb does all he can to make Bertha feel better, but nothing works. He hires doctors to try to cure her blindness, but they cannot. Caleb loses his passion for work and takes out loan after loan, until he eventually loses. Once he’s unable to pay the mortgage, he has no choice but to pack up and leave the shop.
With Cricket and Bertha, Caleb tries to find a but of work, but no positions are available. As he’s about to give up, Cricket spies a toy factory in need of employment. Once inside, Caleb meets the factory’s miserly owner Mr. Tackleton and his nasty pet crow Uriah Caw, and urges the former for a job. Tackleton signs on Caleb and tells him that he can sleep on the premises and eat leftovers, but he won’t be paid. Caleb also discovers that he’s Tackleton’s only toymaker and that he must quadruple the usual workload on his own. In their new home, Caleb depresses the truth from Bertha so she won’t worry, by pretending they’re living with other workers and that their situation isn’t quite so grim.
Later that night, while Caleb and Bertha are asleep, Uriah appears and starts to chase Cricket around the room. But before he can eat him, Tackleton calls him back to his cage. The next day, it is exactly one week until Christmas. Caleb tries to keep up with the demands of the season, and Tackleton’s penny-pinching orders. At one point, Caleb bumps into an old man on the street and invites him to dinner. The old man curiously harbors an uncommon concern for Bertha, even to the point that he knows her name, much to the surprise of Bertha herself. Caleb declares that they are all one family and that Christmas is a time for mankind to come together.
On Christmas Eve, Tackleton and Uriah stop by and give Caleb and Bertha a Christmas bonus of four whole shillings, with one extra for Bertha. What Tackleton wants, however, is to make Bertha his wife, giving her an hour and fifteen minutes to think over his proposal. Bertha, unaware of Tackleton’s true nature and age, is honored, despite Caleb’s unhappiness about the matter. The old man arrives intending to tell Bertha something important, but Bertha happily tells him that she’s decided to marry Tackleton. The old man leaves in heartbreak.
Cricket is determined that Bertha doesn’t say yes to Tackleton’s proposal, so he calls on his friends to sabotage her meeting with him. Cricket puts black pepper in Tackleton’s tea, causing Tackleton to burst into a violent sneezing fit, and forcing him to humiliatingly retreat. Meanwhile, angry that Cricket made a fool of him, Tackleton orders Uriah to get rid of Cricket by any means necessary. Uriah goes to an animal saloon down by the docks, and meets his associates, a dog and a monkey named Strangler and Slink. They go over their plans to eliminate Cricket as a cat named Moll sings a jazzy musical number. Slink proposes an alternative solution to killing him: they can capture him and sell him to a sea captain who’s keen on capturing and selling crickets for their luck. Uriah, Strangler and Slink kidnap Cricket and bring him to the captain’s ship in a cage. The captain, however, shoots them and sets sail to China, intending to sell Cricket there for a pretty price. Eager to return home to his family, Cricket plays dead and successfully tricks the captain into throwing him out of the ship. He makes his way back to land with the help of various sea creatures.
When Cricket finally makes it back to the toy factory, it’s midnight. The toys start to come alive, which they can only do on Christmas Eve when there are no people present (they inform Cricket that crickets don’t count). Cricket asks for their help in preventing Bertha’s marriage to the evil Tackleton, which they agree to do since Bertha and her father have looked after them so well. They take Cricket to the old man, who is sleeping outside. He is revealed to be none other than Bertha’s lost love, Edward in disguise. The toy elephant explains that Edward didn’t drown when his ship went down. He built himself a raft, sailed to an uncharted island, and lived there for two years before a whaler found him and brought him back to England. Edward wakes up and Cricket demands to know why he never told Bertha and Caleb who he was. Edward says he came directly to Bertha once he returned home, disguised as an old man, to make sure Bertha still loved him. He felt guilty about stepping back into her life after what he did to her, blaming himself for her sudden blindness. So he adopted the disguise, so he could still be with Bertha without anyone knowing. He finally gathered up his courage to tell her the truth. But when she told him she accepted Tackleton’s proposal, he left without divulging his true identity, so as not to take that happiness away from her. Cricket insists that Bertha will be happy that he’s alive and wakes her. Just as he said, she is thrilled to see Edward again. The joy of this small miracle causes Bertha to regain her sight, and the two are married right away.
On Christmas morning, Tackleton is shocked to see Bertha has already been wed to Edward. He cried over how nobody loves him, but Bertha tells him there will always be a place in her heart for him. Moved by Bertha’s kindness, Tackleton’s heart melts and happily changes his ways. Caleb tells Cricket that he is the luckiest things that ever happened to anyone.
The story concludes with Cricket wishing the viewers “good health, good cheer, and a good Merry Christmas,” and to ”never be without a cricket on their hearth.”
Songs[]
- “Cricket on the Hearth”
- “Don’t Give You Love Away”
- “Smiles Go With Tears”
- “Through My Eyes”
- “The First Christmas”
- “That Was Yesterday”
- “Fish and Chips”
Voice cast[]
- Danny Thomas—Caleb Plummer (animation), himself (live-action bookends)
- Marlo Thomas—Bertha Plummer
- Ed Ames—Edward Belton
- Abbe Lane—Moll
- Roddy McDowall—Cricket Crocket
- Hans Conried—Mr. Tackleton
- Paul Frees—Jeremiah Bleak, Money lender, Uriah Caw, Strangler, Slink, Captain, Dog, Toy elephant, Rocking horse
External links[]
Cricket on the Hearth on YouTube