So, there, for the rest of November, and all of December, I've covered the cinematic exploits of the metaphysical progeny of Hugo Danner, now we creep right up on Xmas, so, why not do...
Santa Claus!
Hey, he wears red, flies, and lives at the North Pole, sounds kinda like Superman to me...;)
Santa Claus The Movie (1985)
The film-
From the producer of Superman, and the director of Supergirl, comes this gem.
No, I'm not being a dick, it actually is.
I mean, sure, it's a "reboot", but c'mon, Santa's been reboot as much as...well...Superman.
Another similarity...they keep piling up....
But, anyhoo, you got Dudley Moore as the lovable misunderstood sidekick to gets led astray, you've got John Lithgow as the Lex-y sorta villain of the piece, it's a cute little flick.
Introduce it to your kids.
The history-
9-10 year old me dug it. Saw it at the theater, and had the novelization even.
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians
The film-
There ya go, this settles the argument, hell, it levels it flat.
Santa Claus is a superhero because of this.
He saved the planet from extraterrestrial enslavement with the magic of capitalistic materialism.
Ho-ho-hoooo!!
To fuck with the mystery of Chewbacca's medal, where the Hell is Santa's medal for saving the Earth?
Ha?
Where's that medal ceremony?
Been over 50 fuggin' years, Santa didn't see squat for his ultimate duty to king and country.
Oh, right, right, I get it, Mars doesn't have oil...
Plutocratic bastards...
The history-
Like the rest of you, I saw it first on MST3K.
But, I got this baby on VHS unfiltered too.
Santa Claus (1959)
The film-
Santa Claus and Merlin team up against Satan.
Yeah, you heard me, fuckin' Satan.
Prince of fuckin' Darkness.
Eat that, JLA.
So, Mars, The Devil, WTF has a guy got to do?
Shit, all Batman does is throw jagged bits of metal at the mentally ill.
The history-
N/A, but man, I wish....
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
The film-
Well, we've all got this woven into our quarks at this point, so, do I really gotta describe it?
But, anyway, as far as I know, this is the first onscreen Santa origin story.
Santa Claus The Movie is a reboot, and this is what it's a reboot of.
Mickey Rooney played Santa up to...well, shit, he's still playing him, there was a crummy Disney Channel CGI Rudolph sequel, and he was in that....
Yeah!
Go Mickey!
The history-
You're kidding, right?
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
The film-
Beyond quarks, this one is twisted into our superstrings.
Like, you could always get back to your home dimension with the resonant frequency of the Rudolph Special in your blood sample.
Anyway, Santa is in this, but he's not Mickey yet (since SCICTT is a prequel) so, he's a bit of a prick here.
Well, that, and everyone has to be shitty to go with the story of the song...
The history-
No, really, you're kidding, right?
Frosty The Snowman
The film-
I've always been a bit troubled with how Santa has such a casual familiarity with the alchemy of reanimating dead snowmen.
Has this come up before?
When, exactly?
How, exactly?
One presumes the Burl Ives snowman....
Who was his teacher in these matters?
One would have to assume, the Winter Warlock.
Shit, what other creepy stuff is in his icy Necronomicon?
What black arts did they practice?
I think it demands a whole other movie, don't you?
The history-
Come on now...
'Twas The Night Before Christmas
The film-
Always been my least favorite of the bunch.
Could never warm up to that Amish Santa.
Always gave me the willies.
It's got some catchy tunes..."even a miracle needs a hand", is cute, and gets stuck in your head.
But, overall, nah, never loved this one.
And...aside from Disney/Hallmark marathons, it doesn't seem to be anyone else's favorite, it's always Rudolph, Frosty, Grinch, Charlie Brown, right down the line.
Also, I don't think Mickey did this one.
Matter of fact, Amish Santa barely ever speaks, he's a creepy bastard.
The history-
Really now...
The Year Without A Santa Claus
The film-
"The one with Heat/Cold Miser", to every human on the planet.
The real title just doesn't leap to mind for some reason, does it?
Aside from the Misers each doing their numbers, it's um...yeah, not that memorable.
Oddly enough, the clip of Cold Miser in Batman & Robin seems to have lit the fuse for a resurgence of this one.
The history-
Meh.
Rudolph And Frosty's Christmas In July
The film-
Wow...this one is something.
This is The Avengers of the Rankin & Bass specials.
Santa, Frosty, his wife, Rudolph, Jack Frost, the clock whale from Rudolph's Shiny New Year, they're all there, and all tied together in their origins via retro-continuity that would make a DC writer green with envy.
It's a fucking epic.
Rankin & Bass said goodbye to the Christmas specials (in this continuity, anyway) with a fucking bang!
The history-
Seriously...
The Life And Adventures Of Santa Claus
The film/history-
Um...well, this is tricky.
Film canon wise, this is a reboot after "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town",...BUT...it's based on the book by L. Frank Baum, written at the turn of the century, so...SCICTT is the reboot to this....
Anyway...Franky did a good job, but this special only covers the first hunk of the book.
The book takes it all the way up to the 20th century patterns of the Santa mythos, including the "twas the night before Christmas", poem, the Thomas Nast cartoons, the rise of mall Santas, and that they're "Santa's helpers", all that shit.
Meticulous fella, Baum.
Dwarfed only by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The film/history-
And, this ties it back again to Halloween!
Heehee!
Whee!!
Yep, Santa's in this, of course...
See here for review...
And...that's all I feel like doing.
Those are the core Santa Legend.
I'm aware there are literally hundreds of other Santa related movies.
A minimum of 5 barf out every year.
It'd be a crushing labor for one man to keep track of, and...I'm sure some other site somewhere probably does just that.
AAAnyhoo.....TIS the night before Christmas.
Tomorrow, compilation, and some other goodies.
(BTW, this comes after this)
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Superhero Flicks, Part 25: Santa Claus
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4 comments:
Oh, good. If you were gonna start diggin' into 'Elf' and all the 'Santa Clause's' . . .
Actually, that sounds like it would've been pretty hilarious, from a venomous bile choked sneerathon perspective . . .
Nerts. Now I want it! >P
OH. And, sweated it for a second there, as you were getting all chronological with it, but I lost the sweats once your clear familiarity with the Rankin Bass was in evidence . . .
SO glad 'The Life & Adventures Of Santa Claus' was in there. LOVE that one. Personal fave out of the whole damn cannon.
:D
I aaalmost threw in "Ernest Saves Christmas", cuz, I liked the Santa in that, and I dug the bit with "Santa", being a job, and passing it along...but...then that woulda put me on the hook to do the Tim Allen ones, cuz that's sorta the same thing.
And, I aaaalmost threw in "A Christmas Story", cuz the evil mall Santa in that is a hoot, but...that's "not canon".
And, I aaalmost threw in "one magic Christmas", cuz that's dark as a muthafucka, and that woulda been good "sneerfest", fodder...but, toward the end, I didn't wanna ice the jolly vibe I had going.
Meh, I had enough of a sneerefest on those shitty game movies, I figure...
Oh, and hell YEAH "the life and adventures..", goes in.
That keecks ahss.
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