Too Many Clauses

The Santa Clause

Director: John Pasquin

Cast: Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, David Krumholtz

Released: Novemer 11, 1994

The Santa Clause 2

Director: Michael Lembeck

Cast: Tim Allen, Elizabeth Mitchell, David Krumholtz, Spencer Breslin, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd

Released: November 1, 2002

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Director: Michael Lembeck

Cast: Tim Allen, Martin Short, Elizabeth Mitchell, Alan Arkin, Ann-Margaret, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, Spencer Breslin

Released: November 3, 2006

Oh, boy. This is a Christmas trilogy that gets considerably worse with each movie. I saw that they were all on Netflix and watched all of them in a span of two days. I had only seen the first one, but it had been a very long time since I had revisited it. All I had remembered was that Tim Allen kills Santa Claus (accidentally, of course, as this IS a Disney movie) and becomes him. There are a lot of unanswered questions and things that don't make sense, but they just brush over all of these.

The movie begins on Christmas Eve where Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is spending the day with his six-year-old son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd). His ex-wife, Laura (Wendy Crewson) and her new psychiatrist husband, Neil (Judge Reinhold) drop him off. Scott is upset because apparently Neil has told Charlie that Santa isn't real, but Scott tells his son that he IS real and, just to humor his son, tells him he believes in him too. This movie would have made more sense if it had been Scott who told his son there was no Santa Claus. 

While there are no funny moments in the sequels (well, there are, but none of them made me laugh), there were some funny moments in the first movie. One of them is when Scott is reading his son "The Night Before Christmas" and when he sees Charlie is (seemingly) asleep, he yada-yadas through the last few pages. However, since it's Christmas Eve, of course Charlie is still awake. They both hear something on the roof and go outside to check it out. Scott sees a man dressed as Santa and yells at him. The man slips and falls off the roof with Charlie exclaiming, "You killed Santa!" Scott pulls out a business card from the man that says "Santa Claus North Pole" and there's a little riddle on the back telling the person who finds the card whoever puts on the suit will become Santa. There's also some very fine print on the border of the card that goes into more detail. Scott, like any sensible adult, is trying to make sense of it and just thinks it was some dude dressed up as Santa. I think he's more concerned that there's a dead guy on his front lawn than that it was actually Santa. However, he can't explain how a sleigh and eight reindeer (why does Rudolph always get the shaft?) and the body somehow seems to disappear.  He doesn't want to put on the Santa suit, but his son convinces him to do so and he becomes Santa Claus, delivering the rest of the presents. Apparently, it looked like the previous Santa was 99.9% done with delivering his gifts because Scott only goes to about three homes before the (scary CGI) reindeer take him and Charlie "home" to the North Pole.

None of the elves (who are all played by children, in fact, there's even a shot of a baby dressed in an elf costume at one point!) seem upset that the previous Santa had died. They welcome their new Santa with no questions. I thought for sure they were going to be upset that their Santa had died and wouldn't be accepting of the new guy, but nope that isn't the case. They just go on with business as usual. I had just assumed the Santa Claus who fell off the roof had been Santa for eternity, but we don't discover until the third movie that there have been thousands upon thousands of Santas throughout time. We know this because Santa Scott shows his ex-wife's daughter who she had with her new husband (the little girl refers to Scott as her uncle) a room filled with thousands of snow globes and tells her each one represents every Santa Claus that has ever been. Does this mean that being Santa Claus is like being a Vampire Slayer? When one dies, the next one takes its place? What if a Santa dies, but is revived? Does that mean there are two Santas? (Actually, that wouldn't be a bad idea...one could do the Northern hemisphere and the other could do the Southern. Why am I asking such stupid questions?) Also, why have there been so many damn Santas? No way Santa didn't exist back in the cave man day. Also, we know he has a long life span. We meet one of his elves who tells Santa Scott that she has been perfecting her hot cocoa recipe for twelve hundred years. There shouldn't have been thousands of Santa...unless the original was the only magical one who could live for thousands of years and when he did finally die, he passed on his powers to just mere mortals who only lived out the rest of their lives. But what happens if a woman puts on the suit? Or a child? I'm so confused. Why do I have so many stupid questions about this movie?

Anyhoo....Santa Scott (btw, notice Scott Calvin has the same initials as Santa Claus) and his son land at the North Pole and he meets Bernard (David Krumholtz), the Head Elf. He explains to him about the Santa Clause, showing him the fine print on the card. He also tells him that he's free to leave tomorrow to get his "affairs in order" and is due back at Thanksgiving to get ready for the holiday season. Now in the sequels, he lives at the North Pole year round, so I guess when they're making the transformation, they're allowed to go back to their real lives to make changes.

Scott wakes ups the next morning in his own bed and just thinks he had a crazy vivid dream. Okay, that does make sense, but shouldn't it send warning signals that his son is also talking about visiting the North Pole and his dad turning into Santa? It's pretty funny when Laura and Neil come to pick up Charlie the next morning who's blabbering on about this and they're just giving Scott a strange look.

Scott goes through some physical changes he can't do anything about on his first hiatus as Santa. For one thing, he gains a lot of weight. So much so that he can only fit into sweatpants and sweatshirts and even goes to an office meeting in a sweatsuit. Nobody believes him when he tells them he's all bloated because he got stung by a bee. And especially not after he orders a bunch of desserts when he's giving his lunch order. Supposedly in this universe, Santa loves his sweets. A LOT. When he goes to the doctor about his weight gain (among other changes), he tells the doctor that he's only been eating cookies and milk. Okay, real talk: If you visited billions of homes once a night (oh, and by the way, in case you really care, they explain how Santa is able to visit so many homes in one night by saying there's a space-time continuum) and ate all the cookies and milk the kids left out for you, would you want to eat cookies any other time of the year? No, I don't think so! I would think Santa would get so damn sick of all the sugar, he'd want to only eat vegetables the rest of the year! But, nope! According to this Santa lore, he loves the sweets! I like cookies too, but, ugh! Even Cookie Monster would get sick of all them cookies! Another physical change is that no matter how many times he keeps shaving, a beard keeps growing on his face and eventually turns into the snowy white  beard we all associate with Santa. There's even a scene where he has just shaven it, looks in the mirror and pats his face dry, and the beard automatically grows back. His doctor dismisses it as "a hormonal imbalance".  But even more concerning is that his doctor also dismisses the fact that when he listens to his heartbeat, he hears it thumping to the tune of Jingle Bells. Uh, you should have this man on the operating table, STAT!

Fed-Ex sends Scott a ton of boxes filled with the names of all the children in the world and whether they're on the naughty or nice list. While it's a funny visual gag because we see his house is just filled with all these boxes, from floor to ceiling, it just doesn't make sense. This is a world where Santa has magic so shouldn't it just be a magical scroll that has every name of all the children on it? (Also, wouldn't it be a pain in the ass to update that sucker every year?) And is Fed-Ex in on this?

The movie takes a bit of a weird, dark turn when Charlie's mom and stepdad are worried that he truly thinks his dad really is Santa Claus and want to take away his visitation rights. I had totally forgotten about that part. They also think Scott is intentionally changing his appearance so he does look like Santa. Someone made this great trailer of The Santa Clause as a horror/thriller and it's super creepy considering that they used footage and dialogue from the actual movie, a Disney family comedy! Now if they had made this movie, it would have been way more interesting! Click here to watch.

So clearly this is set in a universe where Santa does exist. I have no problems with movies like this, but if that is the case that he DOES exist, then why are people, like in this movie, so skeptical that he does exist? How do they explain the presents under the tree the next morning? Unless Santa skips the houses where he knows they don't believe in him because he knows the parents have the presents covered? Or do the parents just assume their spouse put the gifts under the tree while they slept? I am so confused by this. Also, over the course of the three movies, a lot of people find out about Santa, so they're not keeping him top secret or anything.

Scott seems to accept his duties as Santa without question and is fine taking on such a big responsibility. It's too bad there's not some way he can get out of this job he never asked for in the place...oh, wait, we'll get to that later! By the time next Christmas comes along, he does much better than last Christmas. There is a funny moment the first time he's Santa he tells a little girl he's lactose intolerant, hence why he doesn't drink the glass of milk she left out for him. The next Christmas she has soy milk for him because she remembered what he told her.

Laura and Neil realize that Charlie was telling the truth about his dad being Santa all along and give Scott (even though he is now Santa, he still goes by Scott throughout the movies...only the kids and elves seem to call him Santa) back his visitation rights. They now believe in Santa because Laura gets her Mystery Date game she always wanted and Neil gets the "weenie whistle" he always wanted when he was three, but never got, hence the reason he doesn't believe in Santa. A few things:

1. If there REALLY is a Santa, wouldn't he know what Laura and Neil wanted when they were kids? Duh.
2. Neil's parents couldn't splurge for a stupid "weenie whistle?" (BTW, if you don't know what that it, it's a whistle in the shape of a hotdog).
3. Isn't a whistle a choking hazard for a three year old? This one is especially small. That's probably why you didn't get it, Neil! Although, that doesn't explain why Laura never got her board game.
4. Who stops believing in Santa when they're three?
5. Who even remembers anything when they're three?

I did laugh at the end of the movie when Charlie says he wants to go into the "family business." Um, is he going to kill his dad so he can be Santa? Oh, one more thing. This movie came out during prime Home Improvement time so of course we get a scene of Tim Allen grunting "Ho, ho, ho" like he did on that show. No kid watching this movie today or in the future will get that at all. Also, in an early scene before he turns into Santa, we see a store in the background called something Timone. This is a cute little Easter egg (um, Christmas cookie?) because Timone is a character from The Lion King, another Disney movie from 1994 and it stars Allen's TV son, JTT!

Okay, it's time to move on to the second movie. The third one is probably the worst in the trilogy, but this one might be my least favorite. The main premise of this one is that Scott can't continue on being Santa unless he gets married because he needs a Mrs. Claus! Ugh! Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and this was a movie about a woman who couldn't keep her job unless she got married? Also, um, I don't remember the previous Santa being married because we never met his wife in the first movie! Unless, when you die as Santa, Mrs. Claus automatically dies as well!

Santa Scott goes back to wherever he was from in the United States for two reasons:
1) to find a wife
2) his son, Charlie, now in high school, is now on the naughty list because he's been spray painting around the school. And he's super surprised when Bernard tells him this (or maybe it was Spencer Breslin, who plays the next-in-line elf, who told him...I don't remember). Um, you're Santa Claus. You're the one making the naughty or nice lists! Shouldn't you know this? Especially your own kid?

There is an amusing scene where Scott's ex sets him up with one of her friends (Molly Shannon in a terrible blonde wig) who is obsessed with Christmas. She wears a sweatshirt with a huge print of Santa's face and shows him her Christmas charm bracelet. Nevertheless the date is a bust. While Scott is in "the real world", he begins to look like his old self and thus looses weight and gets rid of the awful beard so he no longer looks like a Santa doppleganger. This is probably only for him to attract a mate, because, let's be honest: Who would be attracted to Santa Claus?

Guess who he ends up falling for? The principal of Charlie's school, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell aka Juliette from Lost).  They bond over Christmas or something...IDK. I could really care less. Scott ends up telling her, after their first date that he's Santa Claus, but she doesn't believe him. Not until Charlie shows her the snow globe that makes her believe. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the damn snow globe. It's kind of an important thing in the movies. Get this: whenever Charlie wants to see his dad (since he lives so far away in the North Pole), all he has to do is shake the snow globe and his dad will appear. However, in the third movie we find out the snow globe is locked in a special room in Santa's workshop. So why is it there and not with Charlie? Did he give it back when he got older and didn't care about seeing his dad that much anymore? These movies make no sense.

While Scott is gone, he makes this really creepy clone of himself (played by Tim Allen with a weird plastic head) because they still need to have someone in charge of the elves since it's so close to Christmas and they need to continue making toys. Why didn't he just put Bernard in charge? All of these elves are really stupid because they believe he's the real Santa. He slowly becomes a dictator and it's a really weird B plot line and it's just best to forget about it.

Somehow Carol goes back to the North Pole with Santa Scott and, after, like a month of dating, he asks her to marry him and she's like, "Of course! Yes!" Excuse my langague, but what the f**k? Who decides to marry someone after only knowing them for a month? And who would uproot their whole entire life to move to a cold, remote location with the only company being a bunch of elves and a jolly fat man who eats sweets all day? No, thank you! I would much rather live on the Lost island! They are married right there on the spot and Scott automatically turns back into Santa. You know, I never really thought of this, but I was listening to a podcast and someone pointed out while Scott physically turns into Santa, Carol (haha, I almost typed Juliette) doesn't become a Mrs. Claus type: elderly, plump woman with gray hair and round glasses, but rather she stays young, thin, and blonde. So yes, they are married on Christmas Eve, exactly the deadline he needed to be hitched by, and hooray! Christmas is saved! Ugh!

In the third and (hopefully!) final movie, we learn there is an Escape Claus where, if in the event the person who assumes the role of Santa, does NOT want to be Santa, all he has to do is hold the super special Snow Globe and say "I wish I were never Santa" and everything goes back to the way it was. Gee, they conveniently left this out of the first movie! They never told Scott there was a way out of this. Of course, by this time, twelve years later, Scott loves being Santa and blah, blah, blah. He is now married to Carol and they are expecting a baby, and eww...I don't want to think of Santa procreating. Besides, it seems really unfair that Santa has his own child. You just know this kid is going to be the most spoiled kid in the world! He has every single toy right at his fingertips! What kind of bs is that?

In the second movie we were introduced to the Council of Legendary Figures (or whatever they were called) which includes Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, Mother Nature, and Father Time. (Hey! Where is the Hanukah Armadillo?) In this movie we are introduced to Jack Frost (Martin Short) who wants to take over Christmas and become Santa. I know "jack frost" is mentioned in The Christmas Song ("jack frost nipping at your nose"), but I don't think of it as a legendary holiday figure. Apparently he's the one who gives children their runny noses. He ends up tricking Santa into making him not be Santa anymore (and it takes awhile to get there) so he can take over the job. Scott is now back to his old self and we learn that he and his son are no longer close, his ex-wife divorced her new husband (yet their daughter was still born...I thought for sure in this timeline she wouldn't exist) and everything and everyone is so miserable. We also learn that Jack Frost as Santa Claus has made the North Pole into a theme park, charging everyone to come and visit. Scott tricks the Santa Frost into saying he wished he never became Santa and they go back in time to when Scott first became Santa. I thought for sure Scott was going to find a way to save the original Santa, the one who fell off the roof in the first movie, so he would continue on being Santa and Scott would remain himself and still maintain a good relationship with his son and ex-wife AND marry Carol, but live a nice, normal life in Wherever, USA. But no. He was destined to be Santa Claus.

There's also this stupid subplot where Carol's parents (played by Alan Arkin and Ann-Margaret) are coming to visit for her upcoming birth. They, of course, have no idea she's married to Santa Claus and think her husband works at a toy company in Canada. To trick them, they make signs all over saying they are in Canada and everyone says "Eh!" at the end of every sentence. Santa Scott brings the Sandman with him so he can make Carol's parents fall asleep while they're riding in the sled.

Yeah, these movies are terrible. Maybe I would have liked them better if they came out when I was a kid. The first one has its moments and is the most interesting so I would slightly recommend that one as a movie to watch around the holidays, but definitely skip its sequels!

Here We Come a Netflixin'

The Christmas Chronicles 2

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Darby Camp, Jahzir Bruno, Julian Dennison, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Tyrese Gibson, Darlene Love

Released on Netflix: November 25, 2020

It's December! That means it's time for reviews of Christmas movies, yay! Two years ago I reviewed The Christmas Chronicles and today I will be reviewing its sequel. If you had asked me, I would have told you the first one came out last year, but no, it came out two years ago. Where did the time go? I would have also told you that Chris Columbus directed that movie, but no, he was a producer. He did, however, direct this movie, and I did notice some nods to some of his other holiday fare.

Many of the same characters from the first movie come back for this one (Kurt Russell as Santa is an obvious one!) and there are also some new characters. We are reacquainted with Kate and Teddy Pierce, who went on the adventure with Santa in the first movie. Don't get too reacquainted with Teddy, though, because he's only in the beginning and the end. He has aged out and has been replaced by a younger, cuter kid. I had no idea how old Kate was in the first movie and still don't know how old she is. They do mention the events of the first movie took place two years ago so this does follow real time. If I had to guess, I would say Kate is in the 11-13 range, but if she's 13, that would mean she would've been 11 in the first movie and I can't see an 11-year-old still believing in Santa. Yes, I realize that in this universe, Santa IS real, but even before they knew that, she still believed in him. Teddy was about to tell her, but decided against it. I looked up to see how old Darby Camp, the actress who plays Kate, is and she is currently 13, so she was probably 11 or 12 when she filmed this. 

Kate and Teddy are in Cancun with their mother, Claire (played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley). They were all brought there on a holiday vacation by Claire's boyfriend, Bob (played by Tyrese Gibson...the name "Bob" does not suit him at all) and his son, Jack, who is the younger, cuter kid who will be joining Kate on the new adventure. I would estimate Jack's age to be between 7 and 9. Kate is not happy at all. She hates being on a sunny beach so close to Christmas and would rather be ice-skating or drinking cocoa or Christmas shopping. I'm with Kate. Christmases in warm weather climates just seem strange to me. While it doesn't always snow every Christmas where I live, I can always count on it to be cold. Christmas is the holiday where you sit around the fire wearing your favorite cozy sweater and sipping a mug of cider or hot cocoa. It just makes more sense in cold weather! Kate is also not happy because she still misses her dad, who had died as a firefighter only a few years ago. She thinks Bob is going to propose to her mom and she's not ready for that. I can kind of see where she's coming from because if your mom's boyfriend invited her, both her children, and his kid on a trip to Mexico during Christmas vacation, that does seem like he's in it for the long haul. We know Claire and Bob have been dating for ten months and have known each other before they started dating, but we don't know where they met. Work? A support group for widowers? As it turns out, Bob's wife also died. You'd think Kate and Jack would bond over having a dead parent, but no, doesn't really ever come up. 

Kate is so upset she makes a Christmas Wish to Santa. She decides she doesn't want the electric scooter (from going over my review of the first movie, I was reminded that in this universe, kids only get ONE present from Santa, so you better choose wisely!), but would rather "get out of this place." She's worried "it's gonna feel like Dad never existed" if her mom and Bob get married. She even threatens (to literally nobody) that she'll run away. The next day she'll get her opportunity to do so when Bob discovers some tickets "complimentary from the hotel". Teddy and some girl go snorkeling. I wasn't sure if this was his girlfriend he brought along on the trip or a girl he met there (I have reason to believe it's the latter), but all he talks about in this movie is going snorkeling with this girl. Claire and Bob get to spend the night at Tulum with a private tour of the Mayan ruins. Meanwhile, the two youngest kids will get to go to a "kids' club slumber party" complete with all the ice cream they can eat. As a kid, that would have been my worst nightmare. Not the all the ice cream you can eat part (though I'd probably eat too much and get super sick), but being in a foreign (quite literally in this case!) place with a bunch of hyper kids (you know they'd be all buzzed on sugar!). Honestly, Claire and Bob, if you wanted to have your own romantic trip to Tulum, why didn't you just go on this trip without your kids? 

I need to interject with a weird fashion choice that I believe that was missed by the wardrobe department. There's no way this could have been intentional. So when the group is all gathered saying their good-byes before they go their separate ways, I notice that Claire and Teddy are wearing VERY similar shirts. They're both blue and peach buttons-ups. The designs are different, but both have some kind of pattern, kind of like a Hawaiian shirt. I have a hard time believing a teen boy would wear a shirt so similar to his mother's. 

Kate sees this as a great opportunity to run away since the adults have conveniently been painted out of the picture for the time being. I love that Claire and Bob just leave Kate and Jack in the lobby of the hotel; they don't even go to the kids' club with them. You'd think they'd want to check out where they'll be leaving their children overnight. Also, what about Teddy? They're leaving him alone overnight with no supervision with some girl he met? Like I said, Claire and Bob, why didn't you just go on this trip alone? But I digress...Kate tells Jack to head to the room where the slumber party is being held (seriously, what are they doing at this "kids' club" besides eating ice cream? Well, I guess we're told there's a slime-making station) and tells him she needs to go to the bathroom and she'll meet him later. Earlier she had called the airport who had told her she could book a flight home there (um, she has a phone...couldn't she just do it on there? Not that it's an important part of the story), so she heads outside and hitches a ride on a golf cart that will take her to a shuttle to the airport. Sensing that she's up to something, Jack sees this and hops on the back of the tram. He makes himself known a little while later and while he and Kate are arguing, they get flung through a portal that leads them to the North Pole. 

Confused? Let me explain.

The Pierce kids aren't the first characters we see, no, the first scene is of a character we've never met before. In the South Pole we see some kind of cave/hideout with lots of "Get Out!" and "No Trespassing!" signs. (Dude, who's going to be trespassing in your South Pole hideaway?) We see a young man with an Australian accent (I guess technically it's a New Zealand accent because I looked up the actor and that's where he's from, but honestly, I can't tell the difference) who is glowering as he looks at a picture of Santa and Mrs. Claus, stating that they "ruined everything" and that they "were the first humans I ever trusted and the last." My goodness, laying it on a little thick there, aren't we? So I didn't catch this the first time, but he's in the picture with the Clauses' in elf form. Yes, this human person used to be an elf and is now a human and has somehow been wronged by Santa and the Mrs. (By the way what is Mrs. Claus's first name?) We don't know the story, but don't worry, we will. 

He needs a "ticket" to get to the North Pole and he believes the answer is Kate. An elf that switched allegiances (either that or maybe there are also elves in the South Pole) has brought him the knowledge of Kate, a friend of Santa's. Somehow, he finds out that Kate is in Cancun (must still have some of that elf magic) and he happens to overhear Kate on the beach when she's making her Christmas wish. He's the one who leaves the "complimentary tickets" and he's the one who's driving the golf cart, thus the reason they go through a portal because he has a device that he throws that opens the portal. I honestly don't understand why Kate and Jack just don't jump off the cart that's only going about ten mph. They see the portal way before they enter it, so just jump off! I know, I know, they need the to go through so there can be a movie. But they could have easily escaped, that's all I'm saying.

Once they're in the North Pole, Kate figures Santa must have heard her wish about wanting to escape and granted it. Since she and Jack came from Cancun, they are wearing t-shirts and shorts and soon find themselves victim to the cold. Luckily, Santa spots them and puts them in his sleigh. By this time they are both pretty blue and unconscious. All they need is a little hot chocolate to warm them up! That's exactly what Mrs. Claus (Goldie Hawn) gives them and they wake up and are back to their normal selves. 

Kate thanks Santa for granting her Christmas wish, but Santa tells her he hasn't given her the scooter yet, so she knows that she didn't get to the North Pole via Saint Nick. When Jack figures out where they are, he is in awe. He exclaims, "I must be dreaming!" Santa tells him, "You're not dreaming, Jack. You're in Santa's Village: the real one!" The Clauses give the kids a tour of Santa's Village and boy oh boy, it is a more magical place than Disney World. (They use REAL magic at Santa's Village!) It's too bad this place isn't open to the public because Santa would make a fortune! We learn that the village houses over a million elves and Santa tells the kids this fun fact: "If you combine Amazon, FedEx, the postal service, and UPS with every manufacturing company in the world, and they quadrupled their output for an entire year, you just might be getting close to what we can accomplish here in Santa's village in a single day." Ha. Okay, yeah, I'm impressed! 

If you add up all the shops on Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive, the Magnificent Mile, and the Champs-Elysées, you're still going to get a better shopping experience at the North Pole. There are over 300,000 shops! We get to see a few of them, including a candy cane factory, a toy shop, and the place where they make video games (Santa knows how to code games...of course he does!). When the kids learn that Mrs. Claus designed all the shops, they point out the center should be called Mrs. Claus's village. Again, does Mrs. Claus have a first name? Santa agrees that it might be time for a change since it's been called Santa's Village for over a thousand years, but he's pretty reluctant about changing it. 

One of my favorite aspects of the village was the Polaris Cinema where Elf was playing and the admission was free. They also see the Hall of Letters, which is the place where Kate found herself in the previous movie. Kate mentions she's been there and Jack wants to know why she never told him. Good question, Jack. Kate replies, "There's a lot of things I haven't told you." Um, if you had met Santa and been to the North Pole, wouldn't that be something you'd want to tell everyone you met, especially a fellow kid?

Mrs. Claus prepare "dinner" which is a tableful of sugary desserts. Despite there being cookies, candies, pie, cakes, and brownies on the table, she tells the kids that all the food is actually "super healthy", but it tastes and look like desserts. Look, I am all for that. I would love if you could eat a cheesecake that was healthy for you AND tasted like real cheesecake. However, even if all these desserts were good for you, ugh, I could not eat all that sugar for every meal. No, thank you. That's why they call it a treat. If kids could have dessert anytime they wanted, I don't think they would be as coveted as much as they are now. I was very confused as to why Kate was eating Halloween brownies - they had orange frosting on them; they totally screamed "Halloween", but Santa told her it was lima beans and carrots and that's when I noticed it had green specks too. Jack eats "broccoli" which was a white and green layer cake. That did look pretty good. 

Jack and Kate want to stay overnight because their parents won't return to the hotel until the next afternoon anyway. Mrs. Claus says how wonderful it will be to have children, if only for one night and she and Santa look wistfully at each other. This makes me wonder: did they want children, but could never have any? They did this as a plot in the second or third The Santa Clause movie and Santa having a kid always felt weird to me. First of all, he's super old (in this one, we learn he's 1700 years old, so if he did have children, they'd all be very old too (assuming they're still alive with Christmas magic). Well, we do learn that time stands still in the North Pole, so nobody ages, so I suppose if they did have a baby, the baby would remain a baby forever? That's super...weird. Also, Santa having a kid just seems...unfair to both the kid and Santa. The kid would resent Santa for paying more attention to all the other kids in the world (remember this...this theme will pop up later) and all the kids in the world would be jealous of Santa's kid because they would pretty much get everything for Christmas. 

Now would be a good time to explain why the human-who-used-to-be-an-elf needed Kate to help him with his plan. Where Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves live, it is protected under the shield of the Veil of Borealis, which keeps them hidden and protected from the outside world. The veil is created by light from the star of Bethlehem which is also connected to the Christmas star tree topper that sits atop the massive Christmas tree in the center of the Village. (I think I got that right?) Santa is the only one who knows how to get in and out of the veil safely; remember that scene in Finding Nemo where Nemo and Dory go through the jellyfish waters (when they should have been staying above them) and they're dodging all the jellyfish? Well, in this case, when Santa goes through the veil he has to dodge a lot of electrical currents or something. He's the only one who knows how to weave in and out of them and when he gets the kids in his sled, the human/elf hitches a ride on the back and that's how he finds his way there. 

When the kids are getting ready for bed in their adorable matching red and green plaid pajamas, Jack discovers a set of books titled "The Christmas Chronicles." Mrs. Claus offers to read them a bedtime story. She starts with the first one which is called "The Origin of Santa Claus." Even Santa Claus has an origin story! Here we get a lot of exposition that will tell us that back in the day, WAY back in the day of 312 AD, he was "a local hero and his legend spread" to the Forest Elves. We learn that elves are "an ancient species of very magical and wild creatures." It gets super dark, but never really explored when we are told that they "were hunted for their magical powers" and were "captured by humans to the brink of extinction." Yikes! Anyway, the story goes on to say that the elves knew about a man who would be "King of the Elves" and "lead them to safety." This, of course, was Santa Claus. As we are told by Mrs Claus, "He led the elves on a mystical journey to an unknown land, where Christmas would truly endure." In the story, there is one particular elf who comments how much he hates humans. His name is Belsnickel and he is the elf who turned into a human; yes, the very same one who needed Kate (and Jack) as bait to get to Santa. Why is an elf who hates human now a human, you ask? Well, luckily, we're about to get some backstory on Belsnickel! He was "a precocious and brilliant elf"  who was taught the "art of magical potion-making" by Mrs. Claus and "the art of invention" by Santa. Mrs. Claus makes a comment how she and Santa loved him "very, very much", but don't they love all their elves the same? I would assume the elves are almost like children to them. Why does Belsnick get special treatment? As we're going to soon find out, Belsnickers was a little sh*t. By the time he became a teen, (elves can become teens? I kinda assumed they were all kind of one age), things started to change: "The spirit of Christmas had grown around the world. Santa had less time for Belsnickel. He became resentful of Santa and more rebellious." Yep, see, there's no way Santa could have ever had children - if an ELF, who WORKS for Santa becomes resentful of him, can you imagine how his own child would feel?

The Elves live by the ELVES' Code which stands for Ego, Lying, Viciousness, Envy, Selfishness. I'm guessing this is a list of things that elves strive NOT to be! As Mrs. Claus tells the kids, "If an elf commits every single one of those, they become cursed." Well, guess who broke all five? I'll give you zero guesses because you don't need any. 

We get a few examples of what a little sh*t weasel Belsnot has turned into. He places a whoppee cushion on a chair in a room with a handful of other elves and when one unexpected elf sits on it, he makes a big scene, pointing and laughing at the elf, who is clearly embarrassed and humiliated. And it's not like a "Haha, Flouflou farted" ribbing in a friendly kind of way, no, he is maliciously laughing at and mocking him. F**k you, Belsneeze. We see him tip over a gum ball machine outside one of the 300,000 stores, so when one elf comes out of that store, he slips on the gum balls and drops his packages. While elves seem to have a high threshold for physical pain (they go through a lot in this movie, but always seem to be fine in the end), this elf could have seriously injured himself. Again, f**k you, Belsnoopy. The only actually funny prank he pulls is when he puts his image on cans of "Rik Cola", when they are usually reserved for images of Santa. (Much like the holiday Coke cans...hey, remember those commercials?)

When Santa asks him what he's doing, he replies, "I build all the best toys around here. It's about time I get some of the credit." Now he says this in English, and not in Elvish. While we sometimes hear the elves maybe say a few words in English, mostly they are talking in their native language, so is speaking quite fluently in English a sign of his intelligence? Also, if he hates humans so much, why is he speaking one of their languages? The last thing he does that sends him over the edge is when he commits vandalism by spray painting his name on the side of Santa's sleigh. When Santa asks him why he would do that, he replies, "Because you care more about children all over the world than you care about me." I mean, Santa can easily just get rid of the paint with a little bit of magic, so Belsnivel's acting out here is pretty weak and lame. Also, shut the f*ck up, Belsnoodle, like seriously. In case you can't tell, I really don't feel sorry for Belsnitch. He's a whiny-ass elf who needs constant attention and praise and can't stand not getting any of the glory when I'm sure the other 999,999 elves (remember, one million elves live in Santa's Village!) are just as accomplished at making toys as he is and they're actually decent elves who don't cause mischief and mayhem. I'd be like, "Bye, Belsnipper, don't let the door hit you on the way out". Well, after breaking the Elves' Code, "he transformed into the thing he despised the most, a human." To quote Nelson from The Simpsons, "HA, HA!" Belsnoozy is so ashamed of his new form that he runs away and never returns...until now. While Mrs. Claus is reading the kids a bedtime story, we see Belsnorkel looking things over in a sly way and says, "In a few hours, this entire village will be nothing but a distance memory." Geeze, he really hates Santa, doesn't he?

I did laugh when Mrs. Claus is done reading the book and claps her hand to turn out the lights. It's done with magic as you can tell from the sound and visual effects, but I love the nod to the Clap On/Clap Off lights. (I feel like my grandma had one of those, but I could be remembering that wrong. Maybe I'm thinking of the commercial...it was always an elderly woman who used those things). 

Once everyone is asleep, Belscooter can now hatch his plan. He has a pet yule cat named Jola who he tells to "take care of the reindeer" so they won't bother him while he gets the star. Oh, yeah, did I tell you that's his plan? To get the star tree topper since it powers the entire village. But first, I must interject with something that doesn't make sense. When Belsnap became a human, he went to live in the South Pole. I'm not sure how long he's been living there...maybe a couple years? Who knows. When we are first introduced to Jola (we meet him before we know he and Belsnail are chummy), Santa is chasing him because he keeps trying to take one of his reindeer as a snack. Obviously Jola lives in the North Pole. So why is he Belsnout's pet? I'm so confused. But Jola goes to the stable where Dasher seems to be the head reindeer and is the one who stands up to Jola, protecting the seven other reindeer, but also gets attacked by Jola. Because this is a children's movie, we only see shadows of Jola about to attack Dasher and when the humans find Dasher lying down in the stable (brought to their attention by an elf), there is no blood anywhere. I did like that when the Claus's (is it Claus's or Clauses'?; now I'm confusing myself even more!) are told, they are watching It's a Wonderful Life in Elvish. I'm not really sure why they would have that in that language, unless they have a magic TV that can dub movies in non-human languages. 

To cause havoc, Belsnipper drugs the elves with Elf Bane which turns them from sweet and friendly elves into mean and mischievous elves. It's very similar to when Mogwais (don't ask me what the plural of Mogwai is...) turn into Gremlins. And I'm sure that wasn't accidental since Chris Columbus wrote that movie. One elf is even tied up in lights before it breaks free, much like that poor dog. Also, there's a scene that is VERY similar to the one where the gremlins are in a bar just going crazy. In the movie, the scene involves elves dancing to "Who Let the Dogs Out?" 

So while Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the kids are fretting over Dasher, who is apparently dying (this movie goes to some dark places!), Belscooby nabs the star, but Santa catches him before he can make his getaway. When he finds out what happened to Dasher, he does look remorseful (I guess a sign that he can be redeemable). He says that Jola was only supposed to scare the reindeer so they would run off into the forest. The kids out the human elf as the guy that drove the shuttle that took them through the portal and Belsnow thanks Kate for helping him get back to Santa's Village, making though as this is all her fault. Belsnub's plan is to take the star back to the South Pole and start his own village, aptly named "Belsnickel's Village" (doesn't roll off the tongue like "Santa's Village") where he's going to gather his own elves and invent "really cool stuff" that "will make everyone forget that the North Pole and Santa Claus ever existed." But that's not the only reason he's taking the star. It will stop him from aging so he can have time to figure out a way to "break this awful curse." When Kate asks him what's so bad abut being human, he responds in a very teen human whiny way: "Humans suck! Elves rule! And I am tired of being a human." Yeah, that's some weak sauce. And YOU suck, Belsuckle. 

So he just wants to become an elf again and as Mrs. Claus tells him (and the audience), the only way for him to break the curse is to come home and embrace his family. Dude, you're right there. Just say you're sorry and I don't know if that means to literally hug his family or accept them the way they are, but just do whatever you need to do and you'll be a stupid elf again. This movie could end now, but we still have an hour and eight minutes to go! Belsnuff's response is "Bah humbug!" and Santa scolds him, "You watch your mouth, young elf!" I admit that got a chuckle out of me. 

Santa and Belsnickerdoodle get into a brouhaha over the star and end up breaking the veil, which makes everything go dark. Belsneedle ends up with the star and flies off with it in his homemade flying contraption. Santa exclaims, "Without the star, the North Pole, the village, Christmas itself, is doomed!" Kate asks, "Like, for this year?" and Mrs. Claus replies, "Like, forever." Gulp! 

It is decided that Santa and Kate will go to Turkey to get a new star, which can only be made by the Forest Elves while Mrs. Claus and Jack will stay behind to take care of Dasher and find a cure for the elves. The excuse they give for Kate joining Santa is that he doesn't think he'll be able to get his sleigh off the ground with only seven reindeer. So a pre-teen girl can hep with that? Really, Santa? It's a very contrived way to get Kate to go with him. When they do start flying away, there's an empty spot in the front where Dasher would have been. Wouldn't it be better to move one of the reindeer from the middle to the front so the missing spot is in the middle so at least the front and back are both loaded with reindeer? I'm no expert in physics, but this just makes more sense to me. 

So Santa and Kate get to Turkey, but they don't know that Belsnood has also hitched a ride on the bottom of the sleigh. They talk to the Forest Elves, a new star is made, Belsnapper tries to stop them, yada, yada, yada, they fly back to Santa's Village.

Meanwhile, back at the Village, Mrs. Claus has given Jack the task of finding an arctic flower that "only grows in one place" (which isn't exactly close to where they are). It is the only thing that will cure the elf bane and she needs to stay with Dasher. She gives him a map and some cookies that will help him: a gingerbread man cookie will explode when he throws it and a snowman cookie will give him courage if he eats it. There are two of each cookie on the platter, but he only takes one of each. I mean, why not stock up on more ammunition? There's also two Christmas tree cookies on the plate, but we don't find out if they have any special powers. Naturally, Jack is worried about frost bite, but Mrs. Claus tells him not to worry because she's "an expert at reattaching fingers and toes." You'd think a place brimming with magic, they'd have some kind of heating installation in their winter clothes (btw, Mrs. Claus "magically" changed the kids' resort clothes into winter garb). 

Jack has to climb a mountain to get to the antidote so he takes a bite of the snowman cookie to give him courage. Luckily he didn't bite the exploding cookie. He almost did, but then realized that was the wrong one. He does use the exploding gingerbread man cookie when he gets attacked by Jola and they both fall off the mountain. He throws the cookie at the yule cat who runs off and Jack has to climb the mountain again, but finally reaches the flower which he brings back to the stables. 

In order to distribute the antidote to the elves, he has to go to a certain spot in the village. The scene where he's fighting through the slew of elves who is making this very difficult for him is quite funny. Mrs. Claus has armed him with a Nerf crossbow and we see slow motion scenes of him shooting at the elves and running and taking cover like this is a war movie. At one point, when the elves are closing in on him, he grab a large lollipop and just smacks the crap out of them. Talk about elf abuse! I love that while the elves turn "bad", the movie at the Polaris theater has turned from Elf to Bad Santa. Personally, I think they should have gone with Gremlins as an inside joke, but they probably wanted to go for a joke that kids would have gotten since it literally says "Bad Santa". 

So Santa has dropped Kate off (literally) at the tree so she can reconnect the star to it, but that won't be without any problems. In the air, Santa and his reindeer are about to have a standoff with Belsniffles whose flying contraption is being pulled by a jackal and coyote hybrid called jackalotes. Santa tells him that it "doesn't exactly scream aerodynamic." We see them charging at each and Mrs. Claus throws a gingrbread man cookie that explodes, causing Santa, Belskittles, and all the animals to come crashing down to the ground. The gingerbread man's mouth turns into an "O" expression which got a laugh out of me. 

Kate has managed to restore the power of the star and the elves have turned back to their happy, helping, healthy elves selves. The movie is almost over, but we just need to close up Belstar's story. He and Santa share a moment when Santa shows him the first toy they built together. When Belstickle tells the Claus's he's always loved them, he turns back into an elf. All the other elves cheer and are happy, but I'm not sure why. When he WAS an elf, Belsnag was a massive jerk douche to them. I certainly wouldn't be welcoming him back with welcome arms. But, whatever.

There's a nice moment when the kids are saying good-bye to Mrs. Claus as they get in the sled with Santa so he can take them back to their resort in Cancun and she reveals to Jack that the snowman cookie he ate that supposedly had magical powers to give him courage was actually just a regular old cookie and that "the hero was always inside you." Aww. 

I did have to laugh when Belsnare jumped into Mrs. Claus's arm and you can tell Goldie Hawn was probably holding a cookie jar or something before they replaced it with the CGI elf. 

Kate and Jack are returned to the beach where they meet up with Teddy and he's like, "Oh, cool, you got to see Santa again" and they fill him in on what they did with one sentence each. The adults have returned from their getaway and they are hugged by their kids as though they've been gone for a thousand years and Kate surprises Bob when she seems to have accept his and her mother's relationship. The movie ends with the five of them outside on the beach singing "O Christmas Tree." (This is why I don't think the girl who was always going scuba diving with Teddy was his girlfriend; she wasn't a part of this singalong). While the mere mortals are singing on the beach, we see Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves are also singing the same song in Santa's Village. Of course Belsnagglepuss has to be the center of attention. I'm sorry, what did he do again to deserve the Best Elf of the Village title and Santa's and Mrs. Claus's favorite elf? Oh, right, he was a total asshat who whined about being a human when he was one so was rewarded by turning back into a whiny bratty elf. While they are singing this song, it struck me that I never knew the words to it. I could hum it, but I couldn't tell you the words besides the obvious "O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree..." I think there are different variations of it. I feel like this is a song you don't hear a lot on Christmas albums. I honestly couldn't tell you any artist who has covered it. They get a surprise from Santa when he magically makes the words "Merry Christmas" appear in the sky formed by the stars. I'm sure Claire and Bob though it was some sort of special effect the resort put on, but the kids know better. 

This was a cute movie and I can see it and its predecesser being holiday staples in peoples' homes. After all, they're both on Netflix, so it's pretty easy to come upon. 

HOWEVER, that being said, they could have gone a completely different route with this movie and I, personally, think it would have been more interesting. So there was a part I literally yada-yadaed over earlier in my review and I want to go back to that. It's when Santa and Kate now have their newly minted star and Belsnarl is ready to snatch it from them. He rams into their sleigh which makes the star fall and he throws a device at them which makes them enter a vortex and they find themselves flying above Logan International airport in Boston in the year 1990. Kate is from Boston, but she definitely wasn't around in 1990. I was confused by the year, but it soon becomes clear why it's that particular year. 

Their sled loses power and Santa tells Kate that is due to "the lowest Christmas spirit" that people have at airports during the holidays. Their plan is to make people happy at the airport which will power up their sled again and Kate needs to find batteries for the time twister device that made them enter the vortex. I would think this thing would be powered by magic that they would get from lifting peoples' Christmas spirits rather than batteries, but we do get an amusing scene of Kate buying batteries at a newsstand and the woman thinks she's using counterfeit money and notices the bill is from 2020 (I NEVER notice the year on paper money!) and says people "probably won't be using paper money in thirty years." I mean, she isn't totally wrong. 

All the flights have been cancelled due to bad weather so that's why everyone is in a bad mood. A woman goes to the ticket counter and demands, "I want a flight to Chicago right now." She totally reminded me of Kate McCallister from Home Alone when she's begging to get on a flight to Chicago to get to her son. It can't be coincidental the same city was used! 

Santa uses his magic to have the woman who's working the ticket counter to belt out, "Now wait a minute...!" When she sang those notes, I was like, is that holiday song legend Darlene Love who sang "All Alone on Christmas" from the Home Alone 2 soundtrack and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", the opening song from Gremlins, coincidently, both movies Columbus worked on as a director and writer, respectively? Obviously he loves Darlene Love. Oh, by the way, just this year, I learned that she was the original singer of "Baby Please Come Home". I honestly had no idea and never really gave it any thought. There are so many artists who have covered this song (it IS a great song) that I just figured the original just got lost in the shuffle. I was always aware of her version and knew it was one of the best versions of that song and now I know why! It's so good; no wonder so many artists cover it. It also makes SO much sense when she sings the line, "Do you remember sleigh riding in the snow; dancing all night to 'Baby Please Come Home'?" in "All Alone on Christmas?" (Another great song that sadly gets overlooked).

Anyway, Darlene Love can add another Christas song to her repertoire: "The Spirit of Christmas" which she sings with Kurt Russel. It's a catchy little ditty, but it doesn't hold a candle to her other Christmas songs. The song gets everybody in the airport dancing and singing and their Christmas spirits are lifted so much that all the flights are able to be boarded and everyone will be able to be home for Christmas. (I guess Christmas spirit also helps clear up bad weather!) 

So while all that is going on, Kate strikes up a conversation with a boy about her age who tells her he's flying to Miami to spend Christmas with his grandparents. Immediately I knew that was her dad; immediately. Later it is confirmed that her dad was 13 when she met him in 1990, so I wonder if she is supposed to be 13 too? :::shrug:: Because the kid doesn't give his name until she and Santa are about ready to leave, she doesn't realize who it is at first. Young Doug is absolutely adorable and if I were a pre-teen girl, I would have a crush on him and I was a little worried that Kate would get a crush on him and this would be a reverse Back to the Future, but this is a family movie, so I figured they wouldn't go there. When she does figure out it's her dad as a thirteen-year-old, she gives him a tearful hug goodby and thanks him. I do have to laugh because they want to make sure the young kids who are watching it know that he is her father as a kid. You would think when he tells her his name is Doug, that would be the obvious clue. But then Santa clarifies that his name is Doug Pierce and when Kate hugs him goodbye, she calls him "Dad" but quickly corrects herself. It just made me laugh that they wanted to make it very clear that this is her dad! 

But I think it would have been a more interesting movie if she had spent Christmas with her dad in 1990. Maybe his flight to Miami was cancelled (despite all that Christmas spirit), so she was invited to his house and also got to see her grandparents when they were around her mom's age. Maybe, just maybe, Kate could inspire young Doug to go into a different profession other than a firefighter. Not that I think 13-year-old Doug knew he wanted to be a firefighter, but maybe he and Kate make Christmas cookies and she inspires him to be a pastry chef (do pasty chefs even make cookies? IDK) or maybe they play with Lego bricks and she's impressed with his designs and tells him he should be an architect. I don't know, just something that inspires him so he has a profession that is't so dangerous, so when Kate returns to present her dad is still alive! (Poor Bob). I think they could have had a really cool idea for a movie, but instead they went with the Belsnuffleupagus plot line. Oh, well, at least I had fun making up different names for him and I hope you all got a kick out of that too.

Sibling Rivalry

Fred Claus

Director: David Dobkin

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti, Kathy Bates, Miranda Richardson, Kevin Spacey, Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks

Released: November 9, 2007

This is a weird movie that doesn't exactly work. The titular Fred Claus (played by Vince Vaughn) is the older brother of Santa Claus (played by Paul Giamatti). The movie begins in the Middle Ages (according to Wikipedia, but I'll rely on it since we aren't given a certain time period) where young Frederick's mother (played by Kathy Bates) gives birth to a very fat baby whose first words right out of the gate is, "Ho, ho, ho." He is named Nicholas Claus. At first, young Fred is enamored with his baby brother and promises to be the best big brother, but over time he becomes jealous of his perfect brother. Nicholas wants to give all his birthday presents to "the poor orphan down the road" and his mother calls him "my little Saint Nicholas." He likes to be "inventive" and slide down the chimney because "the door was locked" and made himself a red outfit.

The movie explains how it went from olden times to present day by telling us Nicholas fulfilled his mother's prophecy by becoming a saint: "It's a little known rule of saint hood, but when you become a saint, you freeze in time, eternally ageless. The rule apples to the family of the saint and spouses, as well." Oh, that seems convenient. So that means Fred has been around 35 for centuries and centuries. You would think he would have some jokes about all the historical events he's witnessed through all the centuries he's been around, but there are none. It's just a way to explain how Santa's been around all the time and how the movie is set in the present. 

Fred lives in Chicago and Vince Vaughn has a couple scenes with kids where he's doing his Vince Vaughn thing where he's just talking a mile a minute, obviously doing his improv thing. He gets into arguments with these kids about Santa. A little girl tells him Santa brought her a TV for Christmas and in return he tells her that Santa's not looking out for her and she should be outside "playing kick-the-can." A young boy called Slam (his real name is Sam) often drops by to visit him in his apartment. He tells Fred that he asked Santa for a puppy, but he doesn't know "how [Santa] will know where to bring [him] gifts this year, because [he doesn't] know where [he'll] be on Christmas morning." Fred asks him if he's ever really though about Santa Claus and tells him how Santa likes the spotlight and craves the attention and adds, "Don't be a cheerleader for Santa...don't drink the Kool-Aid, you're better than that." I did laugh when Slam replies, "I like Kool-Aid."

Apparently, Slam is living alone because his father died and CPS comes to collect him. I'm not sure if Fred knew about this (he did seem surprised when he hears this news). We will check in on Slam a bit later. 

Fred has been dating a beautiful British woman named Wanda (played by Rachel Weisz) for the past three years and he has forgotten that it's her birthday tomorrow. He tells her he didn't forget, that he has a special surprise planned for her. She's a little skeptical because the last time he told her he had a surprise for her, he told her to brush up on her French and she thought he was taking her to Paris, which she's always wanted to visit but instead he took her gambling on a riverboat in Indiana. They get coffee and she asks him to tell her what the surprise is and he says it won't be a surprise if he tells her. It's so obvious he forgot and doesn't have anything planned. Outside, he sees a sign behind her advertising for a new restaurant called Bonsai Palace and tells her he's taking her to this great new place and names the restaurant. It's funny when she says that sounds familiar (probably because she's seen the huge billboard for it!). I'm surprised we didn't see her seeing it when they left the coffee shop, but they cut from the scene while they're still there. She obviously had to see it when they eventually left!  

Fred is involved in some kind of project involving casinos and real estate. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but he needs $50,000 by the 22nd, which is about a month away. It's not really important what the project is (because, spoiler alert, it will never happen); the main takeaway is that he needs the money. He also needs an extra five grand for bail money because he's been arrested for impersonating a Salvation Army Santa and gets into a huge fight with all these Santas.

Fred calls Nick and at first, it seems like a courtesy call, then he tells his brother if he wanted to send him a gift, he could "send $5,000 to the police station on Michigan Avenue in my name." Nick's wife, Annette (played by Miranda Richardson), doesn't want him to do it, but he tells Fred he'll send it to him. Fred tells his brother he's going to give him a gift in return: "I'm gonna give you $10,000 for Christmas in cash." Of course this confuses Nick because how can Fred give him ten grand when he needs five grand? He points this out and Fred just starts babbling, then adds, "Go ahead and send me $50,000 on top of the five." What the hell? How did we go from five to fifty thousand? It sounds like Fred's done a few scams in his (very long!) lifetime! Nick is firm and tells his brother he'll pay the five thousand for his bail, but if he wants the rest of the money, "then you're just gonna have to come up here" where he can earn the money. Fred isn't so sure, but Nick reminds him he's never come to visit. Really? In ALLLLLLLLLLLL that time, in all those centuries, not once he's ever been curious to check out the North Pole and Santa's Village and see how it all works? 

Fred asks him what he would be doing and Nick replies, "Shave reindeer, sprinkle the doodads on the cookies, put the stars where the little guys can't reach." I'm sorry, but this sounds like stuff that won't make him fifty grand! Fred agrees, but tells him he needs to leave by the 22nd and Nick is fine with that. 

While he was in jail waiting for the bail money, Wanda was waiting for him at the restaurant and breaks up with him because he never showed. Or maybe she didn't break up with him, but just said she needed a break. I'm not really sure because (spoiler alert:) they will get back together. 

Santa's head elf, Willy, has come to pick up Fred in the "company car", which, of course, is the sleigh powered by eight reindeer. When
they land in Santa's Village, the Northern Lights are very prominent and there are many elves running around, wearing greed outfits with red and white striped stockings. Fred meets Charlene (played by Elizabeth Banks) who is also known as "Santa's little helper" and she's the one who keeps Santa on schedule. Her nickname is ironic because she's not an elf and a fully grown person. I would love to know her backstory. She's not an elf, so how did she end up there? Is this a Buddy the Elf situation?  There's a weird storyline where Willy has a crush on her, but she never remembers her name and Fred teaches him how to dance and he ends up wooing her and they're a couple by the end of the movie. It's a very unnecessary plot line and Charlene is really not needed in this movie. There's a million elves that live and work in the North Pole; one of them can't do her job? And at least the title "Santa's little helper" would make sense if it was attached to an actual elf! 

Fred is sharing a room with Willy, no, I take that back. He's sharing a bunk bed with Willy. He's on the top bunk and Willy asks him if he would be more comfortable on the bottom bunk, but Fed tells him it wouldn't make much difference. We see his legs hanging from the end of the bed. I can't imagine how uncomfortable that would be! 

The next morning, Willy gives Fred "a full orientation of the gift giving process" (which was ordered by Santa). They enter the work shop which is full of elves working on and making. toys. Willy explains that kids write to Santa to tell them what they want, then the letter are delivered to the North Pole Post Office, "The busiest in the whole world" (and kids can just write "Santa Claus, North Pole" and they're good to go!). The letters are sent to the toy factory where "each and every toy that a child asks for is handmade by the elves...once built, the toys make their way to packaging...the toys are stored until Christmas Eve when Santa delivers them." I loved Fred's dry reply: "Good to know, thank you, Willy."

Nick shows Fred the "Naughty / Nice Department" which "is the key to the whole process, the nerve center of the entire operation." There's a huge crystal snow globe where you can say the name of anybody in the world and their image will appear at that moment. 

There's a "Ten Most Naughty List" with the names of the kids and what they did. I paused to read some of the reasons for these kids being on the top of the Naughty List:

-bit his dentist and his father

-made her teacher cry every day

-gave mother a nervous breakdown

-got teacher arrested at trip to White House 

-toilet papered house of his vice principal

-stole piggy bank from his best friend

-wore same underwear for 17 days

-poisoned fourth grade class hamster 

-locked little brother in closet 

-changed report card grades

I feel like a couple of these should be higher than the kid who bit his father and dentist, who, at this moment, is the most naughty kid in the world. I don't know, maybe the boy who locked his brother in a closet or the girl who (intentionally?) poisoned her class hamster or the girl who got her teacher arrested? What the hell would she be doing to cause her teacher to get arrested? Biting your dentist seems par for the course for a little kid...a dentist sticks their fingers in your mouth, it seems something a little kid would do. 

Nick tells Fred that sometimes kids are both naughty and nice (duh, I feel like that's the majority of kids) and they do "an up-to-date determination." He demonstrate how the snow globe works by saying a name of a random kid and his location. We see a kid in his sister's room just smashing everything with a plastic bat. I think we all know what list he's currently on! 

Fred's job is to review files of kids and either stamp them as "naughty" or "nice." These files also include the letter they sent to Santa. An elf brings him a tall pile of files and he asks if that's it and the elf replies, "Yeah, right. That's just Bethesda, Maryland." As you can imagine, there will be piles upon piles of files all around the room. 

Nick and Annette (remember, that's Santa and Mrs. Claus) are visited by an "efficiency expert" named Clyde Northcutt (played by Kevin Spacey), who has a backstory of hating Christmas and is trying to ruin it for everyone else. He shows the Clauses (Claus's?) a graph of how "the average size of a child's wish list has grown substantially in the last 200 years." The x-axis shows years and the y-axis shows the number of gifts kids ask for. By "present day" 2007, it's up to 25 gifts! Clyde explains, "In the 1800s, children rarely asked for more than one item and usually these items were of an intangible nature - something like a family member's health or the end of war or famine....today, the average child asks for 15 gifts per letter." He tells Nick that his toy line operation is getting "further behind each year...it's simply not good enough." Nick reminds him he doesn't give every child every toy they want as "part of Christmas is being grateful for the things that we can have." Clyde threatens that he might have to shut him down and a new operation will be "based at the South Pole." He tells Santa that he has three strikes. If he can make it through Christmas without three strikes, he'll keep his job. If he gets three strikes, "the entire operation will shut down permanently."  Well, guess what Strike One is? Oh, wait, you wouldn't know because I haven't set the scene up yet.

So while the Clauses were visiting with Mr. Northcutt, Fred was getting tired of hearing "Here Comes Santa Claus" which is the only song they play while the elves are working. Even though they play different variations of it, I would also get tired of the same song being played over and over again. (And they can't play other Santa Claus themed songs like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" or "Up on the Rooftop"?) Fred tells DJ Donny (yes, there is a DJ elf whose only job is to play the same song) that he needs to stop playing the same song because it "becomes like mental torture." Donny refuses to change the song, saying it's catchy. Fred puts him in "the naughty cabinet" and plays a different song. He plays "Rubberneckin'" by Elvis Presley, a song I wasn't familiar with, so I don't know if it's a deep cut in Elvis's discography. 

At first, the elves don't like the song and they're covering their ears, but then they soon find themselves getting into the groove and soon start dancing and cheering on Fred when he starts dancing, front and center. DJ Donny gets out of the cabinet looking mad, but even then he starts to get into the music. 

Clyde and the Clauses are on their way to the workshop as Santa is telling Northcutt the elves are hardworking and dedicated. Now do you see where this is going? When they enter the building, all the elves are cheering on a dancing Fred while all the toys and gifts are getting ruined because nobody is there to work on the assembly lines. It was pretty funny when Fred (a rather tall man) jumps into the sea of elves and crowd surfs. 

Clyde gives Santa his first mark and later we will see him shredding many of the files and letters to Santa the children wrote in a way to frame Fred and for this he gives Santa his second mark.

The next day, Fred tells his brother he didn't do anything with the files. Nick tells him how important they are because without them, they "have no idea what the children want, or whether they've been marked "naughty" or "nice" and how it was Fred's responsibility to keep track of them." 

When Clyde gives Santa his second strike, he feigns concern about Fred and asks Nick if he's "asked for large sums of money recently" or if he's "gotten into trouble with the law?" Nick confirms this and Clyde says Fred is crying out for help and that someone needs to step in and help him. This results in an intervention with the family. Even Wanda is there. At first I was wondering if she knew about Santa being Fred's brother, but my question was quickly answered when he tells her, "My brother is Santa Claus" and she replies, "Yeah, I can see that. The whole thing's been a little bit unusual." For someone who found out Santa Claus is real (and is the brother of her boyfriend) and had to travel to the North Pole (how did she even get there? Did an elf pick her up in the sleigh?), she seems pretty chill about the whole thing. The only slightly funny thing about this scene was Annette saying that her husband was "dangerously overweight" and Nick's mother saying there was nothing wrong with him. 

Fred reminds them that tomorrow is his last day on the job and then he'll go home and be out of their lives forever.

A new kid has taken over "the number one Most Naughty spot" and wouldn't you know it, it's Slam. Fred uses the snow globe to check in on him and we see him in the orphanage with other young boys. One kid asks another kid what he wants for Christmas and he replies, "A family" and the other kid says he's asking for one too. This makes Slam get up from his bed and tell them Santa's not brining them families and that "Santa Claus is a clown. He's a fame junkie." He's basically repeating everything that Fred told him earlier. He proceeds to get into a shoving match with the other boys. One of them tells him he's never getting adopted because he's mean. While not great behavior from Slam, does he really warrant the #1 spot for the Most Naughty Kid? I think Santa is a little incensed that this kid is telling other kids unflattering things about him and that's why he made the #1 spot. 

Fred looks at Slam's letter to Santa (luckily it wasn't one of the ones that got shredded, but really, how many files could get shredded out of the millions and millions of children who have files?) and it's a really cute one asking Santa for a puppy. Fred stamps his file as "nice", then starts stamping all the other letters as nice as well. 

Nick finds out about this and demands to know why Fred marked every nice child as "nice and says they cannot make enough presents for all the kids with three days left and deliver them. This results in him getting his third strike and Northcutt hands him a "notification of termination" card as he says, "You're fired." 

Apparently, Fred was paid fifty grand for stamping a bunch of papers (get me a job in the North Pole!) and he's back in Chicago. He finds a present from his brother and unwraps it to reveal a bird house like he used to make when he was a child. Nick apologizes for cutting down his tree where he hung the birdhouse, which smashed it. Of course, all of this happened centuries ago, but I guess it's the thought that counts.

Fred goes to a support group called Siblings Anonymous which felt like it could be a skit on SNL. In fact, this would make more sense to have it condensed to an eight minute skit rather than trying to make it into a two hour movie. It's basically a group of people (I think they were all men) who have a sibling (they all seemed to be brothers) who is very famous. There's Frank Stallone, Bill Clinton's brother, and one of the Baldwins...I think Stephen. I did laugh when Fred introduces himself: "I"m Fred Claus. I'm Santa Claus's brother" and everyone is just looking incredulously at him. This scene is here for Fred to realize he needs to get back to the North Pole and help his brother. He spends all his money he earned to get back. We see him take a plane, a boat breaking through the ice, being pulled on a sled by huskies, then he snow shoes the rest of the way. Was he not allowed to have Willy pick him up in the sleigh? Did he not tell anyone he was coming because he wanted it to be a surprise? It must have taken him a week just to get there that way when riding in Santa's sleigh probably only takes an hour, if that. (Just speculating.)  

Okay, I guess it didn't take him a week to get there because he returned to Chicago on the 22nd and he's back in the North Pole by the 24th. That's gotta give you some jet lag whiplash! He has all the elves gathered in the workshop and tells them they "gotta make as many presents as they can in ten hours." Ten hours? WTF? He asks what would be the easiest toys to make and they decide on baseball hats for boys and hula hoop for girls. Hmm...are baseball hats considered "a toy"? I would say no. Charlene tells him it's possible to do, but it's not what the kids asked for and he says what's most important is that all the kids get a toy and that someone is thinking about them. 

Nick is in bed because he's thrown his back out and can't drive the sleigh (great timing, Santa!). Fred tells Willy he can deliver the presents, but the elf says he can't because the rule is that "only a Claus can deliver the presents." I'll give you three guesses who delivers the presents.

Fred and Nick have a heart to heart where Fred tells his brothers there are no naughty kids, just that "some are scared and some of them don't feel listened to and some of them had some pretty rough breaks." He convinces his brother that every kid deserves a present on Christmas which is a nice sentiment. 

Northcutt sees the sleigh and tries to stop them from going, but they ignore his orders. Once they begin their descent, Willy tells Fred (wearing the Santa suit, of course) they only have ten hours to deliver and they need to be done "by 5.39 a.m. North Pole time", which is sunrise. That doesn't seen like enough time to me. 

Willy gives Fred Claus a few pointers and advice like it won't be pleasant going down the chimneys and to eat the cookies because "it hurts people's feelings if you don't eat the cookies." I can confirm this is true. I feel like there was one Christmas where the cookies were still on the plate when I woke up in the morning  and I'm pretty sure my feelings were hurt! Fred delivers all the presents in a Christmas montage sent to "Christmas Wrapping" (underrated Christmas song if you ask me). 

When they get to Chicago, he stops to chat with Slam. He's sitting so he's not facing Slam and the floppy part of his hat is covering his face so Slam can't see him. Although you would think Slam would be able to recognize Fred's voice. It's a nice moment when Slam says, "Santa, you found me" and "Santa" replies, "Yeah, I found you. I find all the good kids." He takes a puppy out of his bag (hmm, if I were one of the kids who got a baseball hat or hula hoop I'd be a little irritated that this kid gets a puppy!). "Santa" tells Slam he got some advice a little while ago and that he shouldn't heed it and gives him new advice: "The world is what you make it...I want you to believe in yourself, Slam, cause you got a lot to believe in."

Slam will have a happy ending and by the next Christmas he will be spending it with a family who adopted him. 

We also find out Clyde has a backstory where he made the Most Naught List in 1969 because he would get into fights with kids who called him "four eyed Clyde" (because he wears glasses, you see) and he was mad at Santa because he had asked for a Superman cape the year before that he never received. I feel like the whole Christmas-hating Clyde was unnecessary. Fine, he can still be the efficientcy expert and he can still threaten to shut down operations, but have Fred be the cause of Santa getting all three strikes (he already was the reason he got two strikes!) and then Fred makes it up by delivering the presents and saving Christmas. 

There's a very sentimental scene at the end where all the elves and Mr. and Mrs. Claus are watching the kids open their presents the next morning on the snow globe. It's set to a melancholy "Silent Night" sung by Sinead O'Connor. It's a sweet scene, but the tone doesn't seem to match the movie. Fred also joins to watch and Nick tells him, "You are the best big brother anybody could ever ask for." 

Fred surprises Wanda with the trip to Paris she's always wanted and they take Santa's sleigh around the Eiffel Tower. Everyone is happy. Whoopty doo.

The sad thing is, I gotta couple more Christmas movies to review and this might be the best one of the bunch which is saying a lot! 

Worrell Peace

Ernest Saves Christmas

Director: John Cherry

Cast: Jim Varney, Douglas Seale, Noelle Parker, Oliver Clark

Released: November 11, 1988

Oh my God, how does Vern allow Ernest to come into his home and just destroy it? I would have been screaming at him to "Get out, get out, GET OUT!" Ahem, anyway...

So I have a somewhat vague memory of seeing some of the Ernest movies when I was a child. I'm pretty sure I saw this one, Ernest Goes to Camp, and maybe Ernest Scared Stupid, but I'm not sure about that. What's funny is that when I saw these, there was no adults with us. I was usually with my brother or friend or both, but never an adult in sight except to drop us off at the movie theater. And good God, I don't blame them at all. Considering I outgrew these movies once I turned 12, it had been a very long time since I've seen a movie from the Ernest P. Worrell universe (the EPWU?) and I totally understand why no adult would want to watch these! 

In this movie, we follow three characters: there's Ernest (of course), Santa (of course), and a runaway teen girl (er, of course!) Our story begins on the afternoon of December 23 as a plane lands in Orlando, Florida (because when you think of great Christmas locations, Orlando is the first to come to mind). We see two elderly men get off the plane, talking to each other. (I guess they were seat mates? Why didn't they have this conversation while they were on the plane? I'm pretty sure they flew in from Toronto, so they had plenty of time to talk while they were on the plane). One of the men is Santa Claus (played by Douglas Seale). Now he's not wearing his usual red suit with white fur trim and black boots and he's not even portly like your typical image of Santa, but we know he's Santa through the verbal exposition he gives the other man. Plus, he has a white beard! The man asks if this is his first time in Orlando and he replies he flies in every year, though he "usually comes in a different way." When asked where he's from, he replies, "Up north." When asked what line of work he's in, he says, "Toys, mostly." The man asks him if he's here on business, and he tells him he's here "to appoint a replacement; someone to take over my duties." He says there was once a time when he could remember every name on his list and the businessman takes it as he has lots of contacts. 

As he's walking through the airport, he attracts the attention of kids who seem to know who he is even though he's not wearing his usual uniform. As he's waiting for his luggage, a big velvet red bag comes out with a white rope tied around it. All he needs to do now is hail a taxi to take him to the Orlando's Children Museum where he will find his replacement.  

Lucky for him, Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) is a taxi driver for the city of Orlando and he's headed to the airport right now with a passenger. When we are first introduced to Ernest, he's being his usual annoying self as he sings "O Christmas Tree". He knows the medley, but he doesn't know the words, so he just keeps singing the words "O Christmas Tree" over and over to the medley. To be fair, does anyone know the words to that song anyway? Once Ernest has picked up Santa, he tells the man that he looks like Santa Claud and he probably gets that a lot, but Santa tells him that's to be expected since he is indeed him. Ernest just laughs him off, so he doesn't believe him right away. 

A truck full of Christmas trees is driving in front of them and one tree falls off into the road. Ernest decides he needs to stop in the middle of a busy road, back up, and get out to retrieve the tree. This causes other cars trying to avoid hitting him and they all end up crashing into each other or driving off the road. Once he has the tree, he opens the back door and tells his passenger to hold it as he throws it into the backseat, breaking the window on the side where Santa is sitting. I can only imagine the reviews this guy would get if he was an Uber driver! 

We next meet the runaway teen girl (Noelle Parker) who has just dined and dashed with a waiter chasing after her. (C'mon, would a waiter really chase after someone like that?) As she's crossing a street, Ernest just happens to be there and he slams on his breaks to avoid hitting her. She gets into the front and tells him to "go, go, go, go", then proceeds to make up a story about how the guy chasing her is her mean uncle who "makes [her] work in that restaurant like a slave" and "keeps [her] locked up in the basement...and [she] just escaped." Now, if you heard this story, your first incliantion would be to call the cops (or maybe your first inclination is that she's telling you a bs story), but Ernest is all like, "You can hang out with us now for the rest of the movie." The girl, who is probably 15 or 16, introduces herself as Harmony Starr and tells them to "remember that name, because I'll be famous someday." Yeah, sure you will. Also, very orginal with the name there, honey. 

We need to pause here for a minute to talk about Harmony's outfit. If you were watching this movie and didn't know when it came out, just looking at Harmony, you would know it came out in the '80s as it looks like the '80s threw up all over her. She's wearing shorts with a turquoise sleeveless top over a pink tank top. But to me, the best part of her outfit is the accesories. She's wearing a ton of black and yellow plastic bracelets, clock earrings, and half of her hair is tied up in a red scrunchie and she has tiny braids, each with one of those plastic, colorful barrettes holding the braids in place. It is so ridiculously '80s and I absolutely love it.

When Santa introduces Ernest, then himself to Harmony, she pretty much has the same reaction as Ernest and clearly doesn't believe him. When they reach the Children's Museum, Santa doesn't have any money to pay for his fare (all he has is pretend children's money), so Ernest lets him have a free ride. 

Santa is looking for a man named Joe Carruthers who was on a local children's show called Uncle Joey's Tree House. It was cancelled three weeks ago so now he has a gig at the Children's Museum where he puts on puppet shows about dinosaurs. I guess this guy is destined to be the next Santa because he likes to entertain children and he has a beard. If you want someone who has a children's show, why not go for someone who's a little more nationally (or internationally!) known, like Mister Rogers? Having a beard really isn't that much of a necessity since Santa can magically make a beard appear on his successor. I don't understand why this random fifty-year-old dude from Orlando is destined to be the next Santa Claus; it makes absolutely no sense to me. Also, why is Santa waiting for the last minute to tell Joe about this new job opportunity? He needs a new Santa by seven on Christmas Eve; shouldn't he have been giving his replacement a little bit more notice? When Santa approaches Joe to try to tell him about his new job opening, he says something about a bunch of names were on a list, but many were crossed off until he was the only one left. Maybe I've been listening to one too many true crime podcasts, but my mind went to a completely dark place as to why these men were disqualified from being the next Santa. 

Santa never has the chance to tell Joe about his exciting new offer because Joe's agent, Marty, interrupts him and tells him he's "got a shot for the lead in a movie". It's a Christmas movie, which I assume will be aired on cable in the middle of the night. This thing ain't getting a theatrical release! When Santa tries to tell the men his name, Marty hears it as Santos and refers to Santa as Mr. Santos. 

Santa realizes he's forgotten his bag and that it's still in Ernest's taxi. Meanwhile, we learn that Ernest has been fired for giving Santa a free ride. (Technically, he also gave Harmony a free ride, but that's never really addressed). Personally, I would have fired him for that near pile up he caused with all those cars! Harmony is still with him and they're talking like they've known each other for years. Ernest decides he's going to give the Christmas tree he picked up off the road to his buddy, Vern, who, of course, we never see (or hear, for that matter). He and Harmony go to Vern's house which is set up for a Christmas party. Ernest comes into the house, carrying the tree and knocks vases and porcelain figures off shelves. After struggling with the tree, which is clearly too tall for the room, he sees some "party punch" and proceeds to pick up the large bowl and drink from it! Ugggghhhh! And if that's not bad enough, he's trying to pull a cord out of a socket, but instead of pulling at the base, he's pulling on the cord a few feet away from the socket. There's a cord inside the wall (which is connected to a wall lamp) and he ends up ripping that cord and one side of Vern's wall just gets completely obliterated and he blows a fuse. This is what I was referring to at the beginning of my review. If I were Vern, I would not let Ernest into my house! Though to be fair, Vern did slam the door in Ernest's face the first time he opened it after Ernest knocked. 

When Ernest goes out to his truck to get some bolt cutters, he sees Santa's red bag in the back of his truck (which got transferred from the trunk of his taxi), and hears jingling sounds coming from it. When he opens the bag, he hears giggling and a glow emits from it. This is the moment when Ernest realizes his elderly passenger from earlier was actually THE Santa. He reveals his theory to Harmony, but she doesn't believe one guy could fly around the entire world in one night and tells him, "It just doesn't quite correspond with the laws of time and travel." Ernest tells her it is possible: "Take the international dateline, multiply it by the time zones, divide it by the accelerated rotation of the earth...carry the one. Allowing for the vernal equinox of the tropic of cancer, he might just pull it off!" OMG, what IS he talking about? Harmony asks if he really is Santa, why is he riding around in planes and cabs? Where's his sleigh and reindeer? 

Ernest and Harmony may know not the answer to that, but the viewing audience does. We know that Santa has shipped the reindeer (in huge wooden, enclosed boxes! You'd think Santa would have them shipped in a more humane way!) and they are still at the airport in animal control waiting to be picked up. They are being watched by two morons who think they're Latvian goats. 

Ernest and Harmony go to the Children's Museum to see if Santa is still there, but it's closed by now and nobody is there. Ernest shows Harmony Santa's bag. Her exclamation is, "Ooh, groovy Tuesday!" (The hell?) When he opens it, you hear children giggling, plus a train engine, and animals sounds (almost like the jungle). Ernest reaches into the bag and pulls out a glowing orb. It changes into a plastic flamingo with a wreath around its neck. He pulls out more orbs and they turn into cheap and gaudy items. I guess Santa is the only one who can change them into what they need to be. It's too bad none of the orbs turns into a slinky (say, a slinky dog) but this movie does pre-date Toy Story, after all. 

Meanwhile, since Santa keeps insisting that he's Santa Claus, everyone thinks he's a kooky old man and he is taken by the police where he's put in a jail cell. His fingerprints are taken and the patterns show up as different snowflake designs. Now they would never put an elderly gentleman who seems to have memory problems in a cell with dangerous inmates. One of his fellow inmates is wearing a shirt that says "I eat 'm raw" that's cut up to his nipples and his hairy belly is showing. I can only image how great he smells! Lucky for Santa, though, he's able to tame these dangerous and hardened criminals and has them singing "The 12 Days of Christmas" in no time (with a guy in solitary confinement singing the "And a partridge in a pear tree!" part). 

It's the next morning and Harmony has spent the night on Ernest's couch. Cuz a fifteen-year-old girl spending the night at the home of a forty-year-old man she just met isn't weird at all! They plan to go back to the Children's Museum again to see if they can find Santa. I don't know why they would think he's still there. The stupidity of this movie confuses me at times. Ernest is making pancakes for breakfast and he tells Harmony he's gong to ask Santa how he got into his house as a kid because they didn't have a chimney. His theory is that Santa "got in through the forced-air heating system." After Ernest gives Harmony a stack of pancakes, he places both hands right on the hot skillet (cuz he's a moron and I guess he forgot there was a hot skillet right in front of him). He doesn't even scream, just gasps and tells Harmony, "I like lots of butter with mine, don't you?" as he places his hands in a huge bowl full of butter and lathers them up. My question is, why does he have that much butter in a bowl, anyway? In case he puts both of his hands on a hot skillet?

Harmony waits in the truck while Ernest goes into the Children's Museum to ask the old woman who works there if she knows where Santa is. She realizes who he is talking about and tells him the police took him yesterday and Ernest's response is, "Santa Claus got busted?", which, I admit, made me laugh. We see Harmony trying to see if she can wish for something from Santa's bag. She says, "What I really want for Christmas is one million dollars in small, unmarked bills." Before she can untie the bag, Ernest comes back and tells her, "Santa's in the slammer!" (Another line that made me chuckle). Harmony quickly tells Ernest that she was just guarding the bag, but he doesn't seem to notice she was messing with it. 

To retrieve Santa from jail, Ernest poses as a man named Oscar Clementh who tells the chief he's with the "governor's state correctional institutional prisoner fair treatment task force." and that "this is a surprise inspection." He's dressed in a suit and tie, wearing glasses, and his hair is slicked back. This won't be the first time Ernest will disguise himself in this movie. He introduces Harmony as the governor's niece, Mindy, and says that she's writing a school paper on "how government really works." Harmony is wearing a white blouse with a plaid jumper, sort of a school uniform look going on, and her hair is in pigtails. For some reason, she speaks in a baby voice which is odd...I guess she's trying to pretend to be younger than fifteen? 

The chief takes them to the cell with the most recent offenders and lets both of them in. WTF? They're letting a teen girl into the same prisoner with a bunch of adult men who are in jail for god knows what? I mean, they shouldn't be allowing anyone to go into the cell, but it baffles me they would even let a minor back there. What kind of prison were they running in 1988 Orlando? "Oscar" tells "Mindy", "Be sure to take copious notes! And watch that penmanship!" They see Santa Claus who tells them who he is and Ernest takes this to tell the chief he needs to be isolated and just takes him out and leads him out to their truck. Not sure exactly how they really get away with that, but whatever. They have Santa in their possession now, so it's all good. 

Harmony goes back to wearing the outfit she had on before and it makes me laugh that she would take the time to braid her hair in those tiny braids again. 

Ernest is going on about how Santa is the most famous person he's ever met, but Harmony still doesn't believe it's him and tells him, "Nobody believes in Santa Claus." Santa tells Ernest, "She's been this way since that Christmas when I brought her a doll instead of a baseball mitt. Haven't you, Pamela?" So now we know Harmony's real name is Pamela. Also, I have a question: if Santa knew she wanted a baseball mitt for Christmas, why didn't he give her that? It's not like she was asking for something outrageous. No wonder she has issues with Santa! 

Santa tells them he took over the position of Santa Claus in 1889 "from a German chap", so he's been Santa for the last 100 years. We know he's 150 years old, so he became Santa when he was 50. I guess the starting age to be Santa must be 50 since we'll find out that Joe Carruthers is 50. Santa tells them someone new needs to be Santa because "with the passing of time, the magic fades", but "it's recharged through the passing from one person to the next." He needs to make Joe the next Santa Claus before 7 tonight or else "the magic of Christmas will be gone forever." DUN DUN DUN! Again, why didn't he see to this task sooner? 

To try to find out where Joe is, they go to Superior Talent Inc. where his agent, Marty works. Ernest dresses up as an old woman with a walker in a green dress, white shawl, gray wig, pearl earrings, and neck brace. It is quite the getup. He pretends to be Marty's mother and this is how he finds out where both Marty and Joe are. 

While Ernest is doing his thing, Pamela and Santa are waiting outside. We find out that Pamela has run away and that she's been gone for a month which seems like quite a long time. You'd think her parents would have called the police and they would have found her by now. She's been out in public in broad daylight, for God's sake. Santa tells her, "Your mother must  be worried about you." Pamela denies that she's not who he's thinking of and tells him everyone thinks she's really young, but she's 22. Santa tells her he must have "mixed [her] up with someone whose parents had some problems last year and they got so wrapped up in themselves that they forgot that she needed a little attention, too." Pamela replies, "Sounds to me like she ought to wise up to the way things are, and just start looking out for herself."

Ernest and Santa drop Pamela and the bag back at Ernest's place (for plot's purpose as we will soon find out), then head on to Diamond World Pictures where Joe is working on the basic cable movie which he landed the part for. We see him on a set of a living room with a Christmas tree with two young kids, who are supposed to his character's children. He tells the children to go to bed and they go off screen. He hears a knocking on the front door and when he opens it, a guy in a swamp thing costume with tinsel wrapped around him pops into the set and Joe is supposed to grab a gun (that's just lying conveniently nearby) and say, "Die, you son of a b*tch," but he can't say "b*tch" because the child actors are in ear shot. The director tells him, "It's nothing they haven't heard before," but Joe says they're never heard him curse before. 

So the big reveal is that the movie is called Christmas Slay and Marty even reveals the name of the movie earlier when he's talking to Joe with Santa around them. Santa and the audience (well, excluding the audience who actually have a brain) are supposed to think it's Christmas Sleigh, but of course I knew it was gonna be  S-L-A-Y. What's funny is that if you watched it with closed captioning, they have it as S-L-E-I-G-H until this moment when the director tells him it's S-L-A-Y and that "it's about an alien from outer space and he comes and terrorizes a bunch of kids over Christmas vacation." Yeah, they're totally playing this movie at 3 am on some obscure channel. Okay, so surely Joe knew the premise of this movie and knew it was called Christmas Slay, and NOT Christmas Sleigh, so why did he agree to take the part of this role? It seems to be very out of character for him. Was he that hard up for money? Was he just volunteering at the Children's Museum? It just seemed like he had some moral scruples about taking this part, and he even tells the director and producers that he has some problems with the script such as the violence and bad language. Then why are you even in this movie? Honestly, I don't see what Santa sees in this guy that makes him such a great contender to be the next Santa. It's too bad The Christmas Chronicles wasn't out yet, cuz then Santa could have given the job to Kurt Russell. He makes a way better Santa than this random local children's show show host from Orlando. Of course, Kurt Russell was 37 in 1988 so he may have been too young at that time. Also, who the hell in their right mind would want to be Santa? That just seems like the worst job ever. Yes, go ahead and call me a Scrooge.

Santa is finally able to talk to Joe about being the next Santa. He tells him he needs to leave by seven to deliver presents to make sure all the over a billion children in the world receive their gifts before it turns daylight. Joe asks him why he just can't continue being Santa Claus and Santa Tells him he needs to pass the torch on to another: "If it is not passed on, the flame flickers and dies." 

We get to see why Pamela stayed at Ernest's home while Ernest and Santa were at the studio. She keeps taking orbs out of the bag, wishing for them to be something good, (i.e. something valuable such as a stereo or some jewelry) but instead they just turn into crappy toys. There was one popular '80s toy with My Pet Monster so she probably could have made some money with that. She hides all the toys around the house which is quite the feat considering that some of them are quite good-sized. She decides she needs more time and takes a red blanket from the couch and turns into a bag, putting feathers in it. When Ernest and Santa return and tell her it's time to help save Christmas, she tells them, "I think I've got something else to do." Oh, like that's not suspicious at all! 

So she leaves with the real bag, leaving the fake one in the truck. Ernest drives Santa to Joe's house and when Santa lifts the bag onto his shoulder, you can tell right away he knows something is wrong and that Pamela has the real bag. When Joe asks why he's the Chosen One, Santa tells him, "Because you have the qualities; the understanding of children. You have the magic inside you." Uh-huh, sure. He tells Joe the real bag was taken, but he has "absolute faith that it will be returned." Joe tells him, "Thanks, but no thanks" and Santa dejectedly leaves, but not before he tells Joe to "search your heart; there must be something that can convince you of the truth." 

There will be something that will convince him of the truth and that will be the moment he knows he's destined to be the next Santa. It's when he's at a meeting with the movie people and looks out the window and sees Santa riding his sleigh being pulled by the reindeer. Only what he doesn't know is that it's actually Ernest driving that sleigh, not Santa. When Ernest goes to the airport to pick up the reindeer, two Helper Elves fly in from Toronto (I guess there's a direct flight from the North Pole to Toronto? Totally makes sense to me), but as they're transferring the sleigh and reindeer in a big truck, it gets a flat tire so they have fly the sleigh and reindeer. As Ernest puts it, "It's time to slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the skies on laughter's silvered wings." I did love the "Oh, brother!" reply of one of the elves. It's a whole big thing where Ernest can't control the sleigh and they're doing loop-de-loops and fighter jets are trying to chase them and Ernest even pulls a level that takes him into outer space. Why is that even an option? Does Santa also deliver gifts to the alien children? There must be some kind of magic that keeps Ernest, the elves, and the reindeer alive without any protection from the elements as they're orbiting around the Earth. 

Meanwhile, Pamela goes to the Am Track station and dumps a bunch of change and dollar bills on the counter and asks the guy how far that will take her. She tells him she wants to go "anywhere from here." Like that doesn't look suspicious. He tells her she can get to Miami and the next train leaves at 6:40. She wants to know if there's anything sooner, but there isn't. She sits near a mother waiting with her two children. The older boy keeps telling his younger sister there's no such thing as Santa Claus. Pamela starts to feel guilty when she overhears the girl ask her mom how Santa fits all his presents in one bag and glances down at the real Santa bag she has in her possession, knowing that over a billion children will not be waking up Christas morning to their gifts because she's such a selfish cotton-headed ninny muggins and that she sits on a throne of lies. When the mother leaves the children to use the bathroom or get something, the brother tells his sister (again), "There's no such thing as Santa Claus" and Pamela comes up to them and says, "Where do you get off? Don't say that to her. There is a Santa and this is his magic sack." Good Lord, I can only imagine what the mothers' reaction would have been if she had been there. Instead of thanking Pamela for coming to her defense, the little girl is all, "If that' Santa's sack, then why do you have it?" Yeah, good question. So we see Pamela run to the Children's Museum to give the bag back. I guess the Children's Museum was the unofficial place where everyone would meet. She tells Santa she's been doing a lot of thinking and she "really got things figured out" and called her mom (which we don't see). She plans to go home. I still don't know why exactly she left in the first place. 

Joe pulls up at 6:57 to take on his duties as Santa. When he asks Santa, "Is the job still open?" Santa tells him, "For the right man it is" and holds out his hand for a handshake. When Joe shakes its, he has a beard and is wearing the Santa suit which makes me realize we never see original Santa in his Santa suit.

All they need is the sled. Ernest comes hurtling down from outer space and hooray, Christmas is saved! The new Santa lets Ernest fly in the sleigh with him since he's already had some experience flying it and Ernest asks if there's any any room for "an honorary elf" and they let Pamela climb abroad. The old Santa, now going by his old name, Seth Applegate, gets to have a hot date with the old lady who runs the museum. And the one billion plus children around the world will get to open their gifts the next morning! Everyone is happy and Christmas has been saved!