In the "Christmas Carol" segment, imagine that Scrooge sounds like Tony Jay, Bob Cratchit looks like Charles Finster, Jacob Marley sounds like Tim Curry, the Ghost of Christmas Past looks like Tommy Pickles, the Ghost of Christmas Present sounds like Brian Blessed, and Tiny Tim looks like Chuckie Finster.

It was in December 1973, only a few days before Christmas vacation, when a fateful event in the life of Stu Pickles was to occur.

During this time, Stu, still dressed in his matador costume, still carrying his red blanket around, was attending an invention convention with Chas. Among the inventions were an automatic bottle washer, a ping-pong ball server, and, from one Italian exchange student, a kids' toy powered by a cold fusion generator.

Chas turned to Stu and said, "I don't know, Stu. Maybe this cold-fusion generator thing isn't such a good idea."

"Are you sure, Chas?" asked Stu. "All ideas for toys are good ideas!"

Presently, Stu shouted, "Hey, look!"

And an honors student named Willie Warp came to the stage with something large under a sheet. He stepped to the podium and said, "Ladies and gentlemen! Have you ever wondered what life was like in the distant past?! Well, wonder no more! I present to you…" As he pulled the sheet he uncovered, as he called it, "…the Wee Willie Warp Time Translator! It's a real working time machine!"

Some of the teens snickered.

Willie then said, "Allow me to demonstrate! I'm gonna need two volunteers from the audience."

At that point, most of the teens remained silent…

…except for Stu, who cried out, "Ooh! Check it out!" And he grabbed Chas by the wrist and dragged him to the stage.

"How about a nice big round of applause for two great sports?" said Willie as the teens applauded for Stu.

"Hail to the non-weeper!" they cried. "Hail to the Eternal Child!"

Stu said to Chas, "You see, just as Rome is the Eternal City and God is our Eternal Father, so I am the Eternal Child!"

"So tell me," said Willie to Stu and Chas, "when would you like to go? My Time Translator is in demo mode, so you only have three options: Ancient Greece, Medieval England, or Victorian London."

As Stu pondered his options, Chas said to him, "I-I just don't know, Stu. Is Willie sure this time-travel stuff is really safe?"

"Course it is, Chas!" Stu replied. "Just as long as we don't disturb the past!" He then turned to Willie and said, "Two tickets to Victorian London, please!"

"Ah, the time of Charles Dickens," sighed Willie. "Just step into the machine, and I'll pull the switch. And within a few seconds, you will be in London in the year 1843!"

And so, once Stu and Chas were inside the Time Translator, Willie set the dial to "London, 1843," and with a few beeps and many bright sparks, both Stu and Chas had disappeared.

Now, everyone was concerned. One teen asked, "Will Stu ever come back?"

Willie replied, "Worry no more. Stu and Chas will be back in a few hours. This will give them enough time to meet up with Charles Dickens, the author of A Christmas Carol."

At this point, everyone cheered. Stu the Non-Weeper was going to visit the Charles Dickens!

Meanwhile, in 1843, Stu and Chas were roaming the streets of Victorian London, looking for Charles Dickens. Chas was dressed in authentic Victorian costume (sharp suit, bow tie, top hat, etc.), but Stu was still in his matador costume, still clinging to his red blanket.

Chas was miffed at Stu, and he said, "Is this really necessary, Stu? If you're gonna visit Christmastime in Victorian England, you gotta get with the program and wear the right costume!"

"I need this!" retorted Stu.

"Well, just because you still haven't wept yet doesn't mean you can just swagger around looking like Escamillo all the time!"

"Chas, I happened to see Robert Merrill sing the Toreador Song on TV when I was six-and-a-half! Who are you to judge?"

As Stu and Chas were thus bickering over costume choice, they bumped into a man who at 31 years old was still young.

As soon as Stu and Chas got up, Chas said to the man, while affecting an English accent, "Pardon me, sir. My poor friend and I didn't mean to bump into you."

The man raised an eyebrow upon seeing Stu's matador costume and asked, "Your friend?"

"Yes, he really is a bit of a nutter. He thinks he's a great bullfighter from Spain."

Stu was annoyed at Chas' story.

The man said to the two teens, "Well, why don't you young men follow me to my house? It's rather warmer there."

And the man led Stu and Chas to his house.

There, Stu and Chas were drinking some hot tea, when they noticed that the man was writing something.

"Gee, I wonder what he's writing?" said Stu to Chas.

Chas said, "Goodness, Stu, you're always so curious!"

"Well, let Uncle Stu do the talking!"

Chas muttered with a deadpan expression on his face, "I'm 18 months older than you."

Stu approached the man and asked him, "Excuse me, sir. What are you writing?"

The man replied, "Only my latest work in a string of previous successes."

"Uh, what's it called?"

The man paused, and he said, "I'm not quite sure what to call it yet, but it will be a ghost story of Christmas."

Suddenly, it came to Stu, and he asked Chas, "Does he mean A Christmas Carol?"

"Uh-huh," Chas replied.

"Then… this man is…" Stu was so enraptured he gave a good long scream! Then he greeted the man as, "Charles Dickens! I'm delighted to meet you, sir! I am a huge fan! Huge, huge fan!"

Charles Dickens was surprised. "Then, you've read my Oliver Twist?"

"Oh, sure, sure," said Stu, "but it's your…"

Before Stu could continue, Chas interrupted him, saying, "Now, now, my friend." Chas turned to Charles Dickens and said, "I'm dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dickens. My friend rather is quite mad."

This made Stu mad. "Chas!" he cried out. "I am talking to the single greatest author in human history, and you go ahead and call me 'mad'?"

"Well, I don't want you messing up with the past," said Chas.

"Come on, Chas. At least let me read the manuscript."

"Go ahead," said Charles Dickens. "I can't quite figure out how to end it properly."

"Oh, come on," cried Stu as he grabbed the manuscript to read it. "How hard can it be to end a good story?"

And as Stu read, he envisioned the characters in his mind. Scrooge, the grouchy Christmas-hating cheapskate, was standing by the window. Bob Cratchit, his long-suffering clerk, was writing at his desk.

Scrooge muttered under his breath, "Bah, humbug! What is it but a time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer? If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should."

Bob Cratchit then said, "Um, Mr. Scrooge?"

"What is it, Cratchit?!" snapped Scrooge.

"Would you mind if I took Christmas Day off?"

"What on earth for?"

"Well, because it's Christmas Day."

Scrooge thought it over a while, then he let out a frustrated sigh. "A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December, but I suppose so."

As soon as the tight-fisted, covetous old sinner left the counting house, and as soon as Bob Cratchit was sure his boss was gone, Bob Cratchit cheered and ran along his merry way home.

Stu read on, and once he got to the part with Jacob Marley's ghost, he thought he heard a terrible sound, like the rattling of chains. Suddenly, the ghost of Jacob Marley burst in, covered with chains, padlocks, cash boxes, even a piggy bank or two.

Scrooge looked up and said, "Jacob, is that you?"

Marley replied, "Do you doubt your senses?"

"The slightest disorder can make them cheat! You may be a bit of undigested beef, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato! There's more of gravy than of grave about you!"

Stu couldn't help but snicker in spite of himself.

But Marley let out a howl that snapped Stu out of his laughter and Scrooge out of his doubts. And he cried out, "Business! Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. But I did none of these."

Shuddering, Scrooge stuttered, "You are in chains. Tell me why."

"I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?"

Scrooge was still shaking when Chas asked Stu, "Why are you reading Charles Dickens' manuscript?"

Stu shushed Chas and replied, "I'm at the part where Scrooge is haunted by three spirits."

Indeed, as Stu read the manuscript, he could visualize the Ghost of Christmas Past in front of Scrooge, who simply said, "Tell me who you are."

The Ghost replied, "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." This Ghost then led Scrooge to the window and said, "Follow."

Scrooge replied, "But I'll fall. I'm mortal and liable to fall!"

"A touch of my hand will give you flight…"

And as Scrooge held the Ghost's hand, the Ghost led him out the window and into the memories of Scrooge's past. These memories included his lonely childhood at a boarding school and his young adulthood as an apprentice under the genial Mr. Fezziwig. He even had a girlfriend. Unfortunately, he slowly lost interest in her as soon as he took up a job at the counting house.

Stu could also visualize the Ghost of Christmas Present, a jolly giant who bore a glowing torch and held it up to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping around the corner.

"Come in, and know me better, man!" he shouted.

"Who are you?" asked Scrooge.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present!"

"Excuse me, but – why all this… produce?"

"These are the gifts of abundance, of good will and generosity."

"Excuse me?"

"Of course, you wouldn't understand much about that, would you? Unlike these good people."

And the Ghost of Christmas Present showed Scrooge a dining room, where Bob Cratchit and his family, including a little boy named Tiny Tim, were having a modest Christmas dinner of roast goose, mashed potatoes, gravy, and applesauce.

Lifting his glass, Bob Cratchit shouted merrily, "A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. And may God bless us."

And said Tiny Tim, the smallest of them all, "God bless us every one!"

And Tiny Tim laughed with joy until he became racked with coughs. This concerned the whole family, especially his father, Bob Cratchit, who held the poor boy in his arms.

Scrooge, who witnessed this scene unnoticed, was moved. "No one told me he had a sick son," he uttered.

"Didn't you ever think to ask?" asked the Ghost of Christmas Present.

"He's my clerk. I don't pay him to tell me about his personal life."

"You hardly pay him at all."

"Fifteen shillings a week."

"For a man with a family? Not to mention a sick child."

"That is the market rate."

"Do you really believe that every inch of existence is a bargain across the counter?"

Scrooge was at a loss for words.

Then the Ghost continued, "Observe this family. They don't have much, and yet they're happy, grateful and contented with the time. Whereas you are miserable and content with nothing…"

Stu noticed some differences in the manuscript, but he knew where this is going, so he said to himself, "Only if these shadows remain unchanged will there be an empty chair where Tiny Tim once sat and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. Only if these shadows remain unchanged will the little kid die." Stu then chuckled, "Yeah, right! A child, dying before he comes of age. Like that'll ever happen in real life!"

Stu was laughing his head off at what he thought was a ridiculous notion, when suddenly, he came to the part with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a shrouded, silent figure. Stu and Scrooge exchanged fearful looks, then Scrooge asked the being, "Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?"

The Ghost nodded.

Scrooge asked, "You are here to show me the shadows of the things that have not happened but will happen, is that so?"

The Ghost then took Scrooge by the hand and dragged him to poor Bob Cratchit's house and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

"I have a bad feeling about this," muttered Scrooge.

Then Bob came to the door. He looked very weary, and Stu noticed that Tiny Tim was nowhere to be found.

"You went today, then Robert?" asked Mrs. Cratchit. "To the cemetery?"

Bob replied, smiling through his tears, "Yes, my dear. I wish you could have gone to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday."

But soon, Bob Cratchit's true emotions came forth, and his voice cracked as he uttered, "My little child. My little, little child!" And he buried his face in his arms and wept bitterly.

Stu looked particularly sad as he read this portion of the manuscript… and noticed that the manuscript ended there.

"That's where I left off," said Charles Dickens. "How to end this story…"

Stu replied, "You could let Tiny Tim live, right?"

Charles Dickens sadly shook his head. "The poor boy will die."

Stu was devastated. "Oh, no!" he gasped, for Tiny Tim had been his favorite character in the novel.

Stu was staring to space. His mind was playing the song the student body of Eucaipah High School would sing every time they saw him swagger by:

"He is a freshman, yet he's still a boy!
He's never wept! Ah, what a joy!
Yet he looks just like a manly stud!
We could be his best bud!
Although his chest is wide, and his voice is deep,
He'll never weep!"

What bitter irony! As Stu stood frozen with grief, he dropped his old red blanket, a symbol of his now-lost childhood innocence. Finally, he tossed his cap to the ground, collapsed to the floor, and began to weep, his first manly tears.

And how heartbreaking a sight it was! All the times his friends had seen him sad or crying during his long childhood—when his big brother Drew tore the ears off his Tony Bow-Wow toy (Stu was two-and-a-half), when Stu himself contracted chicken pox (he was five), when he felt sorry for a weeping Melinda (he was nearly eleven), and countless other cases—paled in comparison to this moment. What emerged from Stu's quivering body was the soul-crushing weeping that only occurs in a man when his beloved child has just died before his eyes.

Needless to say, Charles Dickens was saddened to see Stu looking like this. "What's wrong, young man?" he asked.

Stu replied, sobbing, "Must Tiny Tim be really dead?"

"Well, he was very ill, and the family has no money for a doctor."

"Then Scrooge must save him."

Charles Dickens was taken aback. The thought had never occurred to him. "But he wouldn't. He's too selfish."

"He can change. There's good in him somewhere, I know it."

"He's been this way for a long time. I'm not sure he can change."

"Of course, he can. He's not a monster. He wouldn't let Tiny Tim die. He has a heart, doesn't he? It would be too wicked, even for him."

When Chas saw this, he smiled and gasped, "I-I don't believe it! Stu's actually weeping?"

He said to Charles Dickens, "My word! Looks like my friend isn't mad after all! Heh! He just needed to have a good cry. That's all." Then he took Stu along, grabbed his cap and blanket, and said to him, "Come along, my friend."

And Chas led his weeping friend out of Charles Dickens' room, while Charles Dickens himself was left to ponder on what Stu had said to him.

Back in the streets of Victorian London, Chas was trying to comfort Stu. "There, there, Stu. Let it out. Everything will be fine."

Stu turned to Chas and said with tears rolling down his face, "You don't understand, Chas. When I entered high school, I was the last of my class to retain my childhood innocence, and I took pride in it. I became popular because I hadn't wept yet. But now that I'm fifteen years old, now that I know that a kid could die before coming of age, I've finally wept. What will the student body think of me, who they thought was the Eternal Child?"

"You know, Stu," Chas replied, "I wondered what my non-weeping classmates would think of me when I first wept. Of course, that was back when I was in sixth grade."

Stu looked at Chas. "Really? No wonder you were acting funny on the Monday after we went to the Multiplex Opera House."

"But when I told your brother Drew about my situation, instead of laughing at me, he wept in sympathy."

Presently, a portal opened right next to them.

"Well," said Stu sadly, "there goes my popularity."

And he and Chas entered the portal… which led them back to Eucaipah High School in 1973. There, the student body, who was eagerly awaiting the re-arrival of Stu "sans Pleurs" Pickles and his best friend Chas Finster, was met with a sad surprise.

Chas was holding Stu's cap and blanket, but Stu himself had his hands over his eyes and looked very unhappy. He had to explain everything to the hushed student body: "It had to come sometime. While I was in Victorian London with Chas, Charles Dickens let me read his original manuscript of A Christmas Carol. He wasn't finished with it, and soon, I knew why… he was planning to kill off Tiny Tim… for real! Now that I have learned that, I am no longer the Eternal Child, but now, I'm just a young man. I wept as bitterly as a father who had lost his child."

And at once, Stu took his hands from his eyes, revealing his tear-stained face and his eyes red and puffy from weeping. He looked terrible. When the student body saw this, they all felt sorry for him and began to weep. Even Betty, who had longed for Stu to "man up" ever since the seventh grade, found herself wiping her own tears from her face.

As for Melinda, she rushed up to Chas and tearfully embraced him, crying, "I'm sorry you had to see the Eternal Child become a man!"

Chas embraced Melinda in turn as tears ran down his face. Now, he and all of his friends—Melinda, Betty, Howard, Charlotte, Drew, Didi, and Stu—had wept like adults and were now emotionally mature.

The next day, which was a Saturday, Chas decided to go Christmas shopping. Although he had always found his Christmases disappointing, he had longed to give someone else a Christmas present.

And at the bookstore, he saw it, a new copy of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. But he was afraid to even pick it up, thinking, "If Stu and I messed with the past, this story might be altered drastically! There's only one way to find out…"

And so, he picked up the book, and after he opened it, he began to read its final lines: "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father…"

"…who did not die!" Chas cried out with joy. "Wait 'til Stu reads this! We didn't mess up the timeline after all!"

And so, Chas purchased A Christmas Carol, had it wrapped up for Christmas, and delivered it to the Pickles' residence for Stu.

And on Christmas morning, Stu read the story to the end. He quivered with fear at the sight of Jacob Marley's ghost, he guffawed at the "more of gravy than of grave about you" line, he smiled as the Cratchit family sat down for Christmas dinner, and he wept when the future segment showed Bob Cratchit grieving for Tiny Tim.

Both Drew and Lou noticed this, and they were amazed. "That's weird," said Drew. "Stu is actually weeping like a man!"

"Well!" cried Lou. "It looks like Stu has finally become a man! And he's fifteen years old!"

"Oh, pop…" moaned Stu, the tears rolling down his face. He didn't dare tell his father and brother that he had gone back in time and wept upon finding out that Charles Dickens had planned on killing off Tiny Tim.

But before long, Stu got to the ending:

"Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die…"

Upon reading that, Stu was pleasantly surprised as though he had been reading it for the first time. Then, he continued:

"…he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew… and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"

Stu smiled through his tears as he said, "Then we haven't changed the past! Thank you, Chas. Merry Christmas."

And he thought he was in the streets of Victorian London, where he saw Ebenezer Scrooge, now reformed, carrying Tiny Tim on his shoulder, with the boy's father, Bob Cratchit, by his side.