The 14th movie in the 31 Days of Festive-Ass Flicks line-up [calendar here] was The Santa Clause and I only watched it one day late! Which doesn’t seem that impressive until you see how far I get behind later on. [Spoilers!]
So, this one came out in 1994 when I was 9 and despite being the perfect age for it, I had never seen it. 1. Because I wasn’t the kind of kid who was into family movies, 2. Because my family isn’t the kind of family that’s into family movies, 3. My parents didn’t really take us to the movies. I think I can count on two hands how many movies I have seen with my parents in theaters and most of those are the Jackass movies which we saw together as adults.
ANYWAY, I ended up really liking this! I think it’s aged pretty well despite the hallmarks of the mid-90s: divorced parents, a mom with a dark bob, psychological care dismissed as yuppie bullshit, yuppie bullshit, jokes about Asian businessmen, the sad bachelor divorced dad, Tim Allen, kid with a bowl cut, etc. Just watch it, it basically vomits 90s-ness all over you as you watch.
There’s a lot of fat-shaming bullshit as Scott gets fat and his boss and coworkers basically mock and deride him for it. But his doctor is like, “Dude, you’re healthy! Stop worrying about it!” and that was really refreshing.
I liked the elf that brought Tim Allen hot chocolate because I love nine-year-olds that are successful at acting like adults. Except maybe, if you’re going to use children as elves in your holiday movie, maybe try to do a little make-up work so they don’t just look like children? It looked like child labor all up in Santa’s Workshop.
I love Bernard because DUH I love David Krumholtz SO MUCH. And he’s so sassy. And Tim Allen was okay and Judge Reinhold was doing his thing and the mom comes to terms with the whole business in the end and it was sweet. Mystery Date! It’s all good.
The thing I hated THE MOST was that fucking kid. OH MY GOD. Some of it is bad writing: the kid hates/dislikes/doesn’t want to be with his dad because his dad is a bad dad but there is NOTHING that indicates that he’s a bad dad? Like, he’s kind of a shit in the beginning because he fake-justifies his tardiness, but like, for real? That’s supposed to convince me that this guy is terrible? I wouldn’t want to be on time to hang out with that fucking brat either.
And look, I’m not giving props to dads for being decent. If we expect moms to be great and awesome super heroes then let’s expect the same super heroism from dads, yeah? Let’s stop applauding divorced dads who spend one weekend a month with their children. Do you want a fucking cookie? [OBVIOUSLY EVERY INDIVIDUAL RELATIONSHIP IS DIFFERENT BUT I AM SPEAKING GENERALLY HERE OKAY PLEASE DON’T NITPICK ME BECAUSE YOUR DAD COULDN’T SEE YOU ENOUGH BECAUSE HE WAS BUSY LITERALLY SAVING THE WORLD. I AM SORRY.]
But there is legitimately not enough to go on here to be like, OH TIM ALLEN, YOU BECAME SANTA AGAINST YOUR WILL AND NOW YOU ARE FORGIVEN AND REDEEMED. Like, dude can’t cook a turkey? And the kid rolls his eyes and moon-faces around in tragedy. Are you fucking… WHAT? I can’t cook a turkey either, kid. YOU WANT A TURKEY SO BAD COOK IT YOURSELF, JERKWAD.
Basically, my only notes were:
– THIS KID SUCKS
– So basically, he manslaughters Santa and then takes over his life?!
– FUCK THIS KID
– I would be SO PISSED if Santa gave my kid a puppy.
– Comet is a super creep.
– Judging by the pointy hats, these elves are into wizardry.
But it was totally enjoyable anyway.
