THE QUEST FOR THE MOST ’90s FILM OF ALL TIME
The Santa Clause

‘Tis the season for watching Tim Allen vehicles on YouTube. Let’s get right into it.

STARS/PERFORMANCES-
- Actors Who Are Unquestionably Tied to the Decade- Tim Allen [+10]
To give you an idea of how huge Tim Allen was in 1994, there was a week in November when he had the number one TV show (Home Improvement), the number one book (Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man), and the number one movie (the charmer in question here) in the country. That’s an impressive trifecta, but I wish he had tried performance art as well, since his entire persona is built around heteronormativity and the ill-defined tropes of modern masculinity—seemed like fertile ground.

In The Santa Clause (from the writers of Space Jam), Allen plays Scott Calvin, a divorced dad in need of some Christmas spirit [+5]. He begins the film as a bad dude, since that’s how these movies work; but the film has trouble showing what makes him so morally repugnant, since it’s a kids’ movie. They can’t show him cheating on his wife or embezzling. So at the office Christmas party*, he interrupts someone, then he lies on the carphone [+3] about being in traffic because he’s running late to pick up his son. Bam. Unredeemable human being. Or is he?


Should I review the Game Boy adaptation of The Escape Clause: Santa Clause 3, starring Martin Short as Jack Frost? (y/y)

- Other Notable Actors/Characters- [+5]- Judge Reinhold, David Krumholtz, Peter Boyle, Mary Gross
Scott’s son Charlie—half-butt-cut, half-hiking boots [+3]—is at the tenuous age when he might no longer believe in Santa, and “telling him the truth” becomes a divorced parent tug-of-war. Scott’s ex-wife and her jughead psychiatrist husband* (the inimitable Judge Reinhold) don’t want the child to “have any illusions,” but Scott thinks that “Sometimes you believe in things just because you believe in them.” I think there’s some middle ground between terrible parenting advice A and terrible parenting advice B, but the characters don’t. After a dinner at Denny’s (DAD BURNT THE TURKEY! [+2]), Charlie goes to bed suspicious about all this Santa stuff. But hark: There arises such a clatter on the roof that Scott has to check it out. He and Charlie investigate, and they startle a presumably real St. Nick so much that he falls off the roof and dies. End of movie.


I reviewed this movie because I found this photo. Not the other way around.

Not really. Through a complex series of bumbling events, Scott obeys a business card on Santa’s person and puts on the suit. Thus begins a magical night in which he begrudgingly fulfills Father Christmas’ duties while somehow staying completely skeptical of the entire operation? The reindeer green-screen themselves to the North Pole, and chimneys morph out of thin air [+5], but Scott is still like: “Yeah, sure. I’m so sure that’s Rudolph. Oh yeah. Good one.” Dude, it probably is. It’s more logical that you are hanging with 1200-year-old elves than hallucinating from your Grand Slam at this point. Just go with it.

Emo-elf David Krumholtz informs him that, because of fine print on the business card (the titular indemnification), Scott is now the new Santa, which everyone at the workshop seems happy about, indifferent to the news of their patriarch’s untimely death. Scott is told that he has eleven months to get his affairs in order, before being due back at the North Pole to be NOEL 4 LYF.

TECHNOLOGY/CULTURAL RELICS
- Could the Plot Reasonably Occur with Current Technology?
Yes, as long as that technology is magic [-10]. Scott and Charlie wake up in their house on Christmas morning like, “What a weird dream!” [+5], and Charlie’s mom picks him up. Over the next few weeks, Charlie can’t shut up about this December to remember, and Scott starts putting on weight and growing a beard and getting white hairs and, ruh-roh, did it really happen?


I think this is the part when the family’s alarm system goes off [+2].

References/Artifacts
Federal Express—not FedEx—delivers boxes of naughty-or-nice lists, despite Scott’s insistence that the elves fax them to him [+5]. Meanwhile, Charlie insists that his dad is Santa Claus, and his mom thinks Scott is selling him delusions to the point that she takes away his custody. Hilarious. So, after a ZZ Top-scored business time montage [+5], Scott basically kidnaps his son to TEACH HIM THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS. And when the police, after keeping him on the phone to trace the call [+3], arrest him? Fuck that shit. Escape from jail with flying elves. Christmas.

Scott/Santa gives her and Judge Reinhold a present they didn’t get when they were kids, and they eat pita sandwiches and forgive him, throwing the custody papers into the fireplace [+5]. “Santa, check your CD. Not compact disc, silly! Cocoa distributor!” [+2525]


All I want for Christmas is a few jokes about getting convicted for cocaine possession. I must have missed them.

Hacking/Computers
None. But I did forget to mention that Allen ad-libs something about America’s Most Wanted and paying for the Disney Channel, which used to be a thing [+4].

FASHION
Was ’90s winter style better than ’90s summer style? I’m from New Orleans, so we just wore Umbro gear year-round. But I’m pretty impressed by the flannel, light-wash jeans, long-sleeved hooded shirts, Air Jordans, Cosby sweaters, jean-jackets, tucked-in t-shirts, warm-up suits, 8-ball jackets, and double-breasted suits [+10].

’90s FILM CONVENTIONS

“Do you know how to call 911?” “Sure, dial 9-1-1.” [+1]
“Jeopardy Theme” Plays While Someone Takes a Long Time to Do Something [+1]

Tim Allen Impersonates the Voice of a Stereotypical Gay Person [+3]
Farting [+3]

Fast-Motion for Comedic Effect [+5]
Cop Not Paying Attention While Someone Escapes Behind Him [+5]

OTHER
I’m making fun of it, but this is actually a sweet, good-natured movie, and Allen is an engaging lead. The Santa Clause moves quickly and accomplishes all of its goals. While much of the jokes are hackneyed tripe, I legitimately laughed a few times. You could do much worse.

Anybody ever think about the degree of copyright infringement Santa’s Workshop is responsible for during any given year?

FINAL TALLY
A respectable 83. By request, Mallrats will be the next installment of the series, but I probably won’t get to it for a while.

*- Which is, strangely, on Christmas Eve and—they make sure to mention this—none of the employees’ spouses are there. What kind of office party is that? “Sorry, hon. I know even the Mad Men office gets a Christmas party the wives are invited to, but you’ll have to stay here for tonight. I work for a toy company.”
*- Scott makes fun of the new husband by saying that he’s “a psychiatrist, not a real doctor” and that he should shut up about his “inner-child.” This disrespect for a valuable profession seems pretty ’90s [+3].