Originally aired on NBC on the night of Friday, December 10th, 1993. Ratings for the movie were relatively high during the first hour because on ABC, episodes of Family Matters (1989) and Boy Meets World (1993) were preempted in some markets by a sermon delivered by Billy Graham. After Graham's special ended, rating for the second hour of this movie dropped significantly.
Major characters from Charles Dickens' 1850 novel such as Mr. Creakle, Dora Spenlow, and Uriah Heep were omitted from this adaptation.