521 - SANTA CLAUS

Don’s Review:  Bizarre Christmas movie that is pretty laughable, although the fact that this was actually shown to children does put a bit of a chill down the ol’ spine.  This film is so amazingly bad that a major plot point is a drawn out scene where Old Pitch trees Santa with an attack dog and Santa can’t get down because he’s out of sleepy dust!  Despite all the bizarre goings on, the riffing on this feature is outstanding, as M&tBs deliver quite a few zingers to make this an enjoyable experiment. The Holiday-oriented host segments, while not quite on the same level as the ones in ep #321, are good too.  I especially like the final segment when Santa walks in on the Mads and Old Pitch.  Like ep #321, this is another episode that should be a holiday tradition and could be rotated annually with ep #321 – watch that one on even years, this one (appropriately) on “odd” years.

Don’s Rating: 

Forrest’s Review:  I’ve always loved this episode, and have always thought it was one of the best, but as I re-watch it, I’ve come to realize that it arguably may be THE very best episode ever.  Although for me, this episode would have beat The Final Sacrifice as far as how hilarious the riffs are, and unfortunately, while most of the riffing is the very best seen on the show, it slows up at the last eight or so minutes, while for me, The Final Sacrifice was funny beginning to end.  Therefore in my opinion, Santa Claus is the second funniest episode ever.  The movie, while it’s cheesy and funny on its own, it’s a billion times funnier with Mike and the ’Bots.  Some of the very best riffs ever heard on the show are in this episode.  Santa Claus may as well be the weirdest movie they have ever done on the show, or at least it’s up there with Jack Frost and Pod People.  It has weird mixed-up religion stuff, where Satan battles Santa Claus, and throughout the entire movie, though they mention Jesus every now and then, there seems to be no moral or Christian stuff that most Christmas movies try to pull off.  Merlin the Magician is Santa’s advisor, a three year old boy named Pedro is Santa’s second in command, and there are no elves, only child slaves, and I’m not even going to mention the infamous Laughing Reindeer scene.  This movie is out there, and the fact that it’s a children’s’ movie is a bit alarming, if just for the fact that it would be enough to give some children nightmares. And while Santa Claus Conquers the Martians may have had a very light appeal to very young children, and I mean when it first came out (children nowadays would run for the closet), Santa Claus would give a child goosebumps and make them scared for Santa to visit their house on Christmas.  Even though the devil Pitch, while he wouldn’t even be scary for even the youngest child, the thought of even adding Satan and demons to a children’s’ movie is pretty odd, whether the intentions are good or not. Bottom line: this movie is just plain wacko.
     As for the SOL crew, as I said before, the riffing is brilliant, and although all MST3K episodes make me laugh (well, except for a few later episodes and most of KTMA and Season One), this episode had me gasping for air at times, the riffing really is that great.  The host segments are, overall, excellent. The one in which M&tBs are the rock band Santa Klaws is very good, as well as the very good segment featuring the song “Merry Christmas, If That’s Okay” – while I still like the Road House inspired song “A Patrick Swayze Christmas” better (from episode 321) – and if you pay very close attention to the movie, you will catch a few movie related jokes in its lyrics.  For instance, when Lupita asks her mom “what is Christmas good for?”  The mother says something that sounds like “to celebrate the birth of Greg.”  While she said Christ, the way she said it, it sounded like she said “Greg” and in the song for “Merry Christmas If That’s Okay” there’s a part that goes like this “Maybe you worship and abstract being that is kinda vague/ or perhaps you worship a guy whose name is Greg”. I never caught onto that until a third repeat viewing of this episode.
     I felt that the segment where the “wrong” Nelsons visit the SOL, while it was amusing, MiSTies in general seem to like that segment a bit more than they really should, because I believe it’s about as funny as one of the poorest Sci-Fi segments. The end segment where Santa battles Pitch, while it is funny, MiSTies in general seem to give that segment more credit than deserved, because while it is funny, it wasn’t great. Despite these few mediocre host segments, the prologue where Mike accidentally spills hot cocoa on Crow, the segment with the Santa Klaws rock song, and the segment with the song “Merry Christmas If That’s Okay” are all excellent. And also, though many television shows that have Christmas specials never seem to capture the Christmas spirit, bot the MST3K Christmas Specials completely capture the spirit of Christmas.  Rhino really, really needs to release this episode along with Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, because these two episode are episodes that most MiSTies love, and as a holiday MST3K boxed set, thousands will be sold in a heart beat. COME ON RHINO!

Forrest’s Rating: 

Related Links:
    (1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)
    (2) Ator’s MST3K Review Site (Episode Review)
    (3) Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension (Humorous Movie Review)