Scrooged is a 1988 American Christmas fantasy black comedy film directed by Richard Donner and written by Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue.

Murray returned to acting for the film after taking a four-year hiatus following the success of Ghostbusters, which he found overwhelming, although he had a minor role in Little Shop of Horrors.

That night, Frank is visited by the ghost of his mentor Lew Heyward, who died an unloved miser and regrets not performing good deeds while alive.

Meanwhile, Frank's erratic behaviour leads his boss, Preston Rhinelander, to assign Brice Cummings, an ambitious acquaintance, to assist with the production.

Transported to 1968, a young adult Frank works through the IBC office Christmas party but also meets and falls in love with Claire.

When Claire offers to help him, Frank mocks her work and the homeless individuals she assists, including a man named Herman.

Having since been left by his wife, who took their child, a despondent and armed Eliot arrives to kill Frank, who flees into an elevator, where he is met by the Grim Reaper-like Ghost of Christmas Future.

With Eliot's help, he takes over the production set, locks Brice in the control room, and interrupts the live broadcast to share his newfound appreciation for life and his belief that it is never too late to change.

Frank leads the crew and audience in singing "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, Future, Lew, and Herman look on with approval.

Scrooged features several cameo appearances, including: Lee Majors,[1] John Houseman, and Robert Goulet portraying themselves, Miles Davis, Paul Shaffer, David Sanborn, the Solid Gold Dancers, Buddy Hackett as Scrooge,[2] Mary Lou Retton (as "Tiny Tim" Cratchit),[3] Jamie Farr as Jacob Marley,[4] Larry Carlton,[5] and Anne Ramsey and her husband Logan Ramsey.

Producer Art Linson justified the figure by saying that for each year Murray stayed away from films, his audience draw and therefore fee potentially increased.

Wanting a central acting moment, however, Murray gave an emotional and intense performance, deviating from his marked positions and improvising his speech.

Donner said that Murray was always in a professional mental state on set, believing it made him stressed, so the crew would do "silly things" to improve morale.

[4] Comedian Sam Kinison was considered for the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past before it went to musician David Johansen, a personal friend of Murray's.

Robert Mitchum cameos as Frank's boss Preston Rhinelander; the actor was not interested in the small role, but Donner asked him to meet with Murray, who convinced him to take the part.

[33] The rendition of "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" by Al Green and Annie Lennox spent 17 weeks in the U.S. music charts, peaking at number 9 on January 14, 1989.

edition with images of a custom DVD case and a retail price as late as September that year, it missed its release date and it remains unreleased.

[51] Empire's William Thomas called it a slick and cynical update of Dickens’s tale, but that it is only funny when Murray's character is being a "complete bastard".

Brown said that Scrooged was unlikely to become a seasonal tradition like It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947), considering that it would age poorly and either scare or be too adult for child audiences.

[53] The Hollywood Reporter said that the story was uproarious and sometimes vitriolic, labeling it a scathing satire of the entertainment industry, that was a "wild and wooly holiday feast that should scrape off the competition".

[54] The Radio Times's John Ferguson appreciated the film, calling it a "joyously black Christmas treat", but once the "sentimentality starts seeping in", it seems like a misstep.

[55] The Hollywood Reporter called him "hilariously convincing" and "impressively sinister" as the TV executive, saying that his hip and sassy performance gives the film energy, nuttiness and charm.

Their review said that his deadpan, cutting style was hilarious, but that he layers the character's histrionics with inner sensibility that makes his eventual redemption believable and uplifting.

[53] Carol Kane was praised for her performance, with The Hollywood Reporter referring to her as a "certified hoot", and Entertainment Weekly's Sara Vilkomerson saying that she "steals the show" from Murray.

[52][53] The Hollywood Reporter said that Elfman's music is "full blast with holiday spirit", and singled out J. Michael Riva's production design, calling it "dead on the mark funny".

"[22] Make up artists Thomas R. Burman and Bari Dreiband-Burman were responsible for the film's single nomination at the 61st Academy Awards for Best Makeup, losing to Beetlejuice.

Pastorek said that the film is "both crude and sentimental, resonant and ludicrous...Scrooged is the perfect holiday movie for bitter, reluctant, closet Christmas lovers".

[66] Contemporary review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes offers a score of 71% based on 51 reviews—an average rating of 6.1/10, which provides the consensus: "Scrooged gets by with Bill Murray and a dash of holiday spirit, although it's hampered by a markedly conflicted tone and an undercurrent of mean-spiritedness.

[69][70][71] That same year, Collider named it the fifth-best adaptation of A Christmas Carol, calling it is easily the best non-traditional translation of the story, and saying that it uses "a classic tale of redemption as the framework for a satire of modern culture's desire to embrace the irredeemable".

[72] In 2018, The Ringer said that even 30 years after its debut, the film represented the perfect Christmas movie, saying it is "loud, cartoonish, and misanthropic, but... remarkably well-suited for our fraught present moment".