Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Santa Claus (1959)
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Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb. We're off this week for the holiday, so we have a holiday Weird House Cinema episode for you. This one originally published 12-15-2023. It is the 1959 Mexican Christmas movie Santa Claus, also known as Santa Claus vs. the Devil. It is a load of fun. Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans know and love this film.

And if you're not familiar with it, we'll dive into this episode. Joe and I talk about it quite a bit. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. And this is Joe McCormick. And on today's episode of Weird House Cinema, we're going to be talking about the 1959 film Santa Claus. That's right. We've brought this one up a number of times before, not only on Weird House Cinema, but I think it leaks into the core episodes as well. It's just that weird of a film. It is a 1959 Mexican family fantasy film.

in which a kind of Dr. Doom Santa, in the same way that Marvel's Dr. Doom is a master of both magic and high technology, well, so is Santa, or at least he outsources to people who know what they're doing. That's right. I mean, the Santa in this movie relies a lot on his sort of Q branch, which is

Merlin, Merlin, who in this movie is like a cross between Albert Hoffman and John D. He is a sorcerer who wears a pointy hat. It's got like moons and stars on it. And he's clearly doing magic, but he's also doing a lot of chemistry and coming up with psychoactive substances to affect the minds of Earth's children.

Yeah, definitely dabbling in at least some alchemy, if not some outright devil worship based on some of the decorations in the house. But he also seemingly has the aid of a Greek god. And if you haven't seen the full cut of this film before, you might be surprised to find a figure who seems to be Hephaestus, a

aiding Santa Claus in his efforts to bring Christmas to the good children of the world, regardless of socioeconomic situations. Yeah, that was one of the big surprises on this viewing. So I had previously only seen this movie in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 cut.

which excises some of the weirdest stuff in the film. It excises some Merlin stuff and excises the scene where Santa goes to meet with the figure you're talking about, who's clearly Hephaestus or Vulcan, called the Master Blacksmith or the Key Master or Key Maker or later in the film, Key Man. Yeah.

I don't know if you caught that part where Santa is just screaming into the air for help and he calls out Key Man. Yeah, yeah. Because he is the one who makes Santa his magical key that like fries open any lock, allows instant access to the interior of your home. And when Santa's first testing this key out, he laughs in an almost unsettling way as he's like realizing the power to unlock any portal. Yeah.

Now, this movie is sometimes referred to as Santa Claus versus the devil in order to set it apart from the various other Santa movies, because, again, the title is just Santa Claus.

It came out in 59, initially released to Mexican audiences in 59, and it's credited with popularizing secular Santa Claus traditions in Mexico at a time when most of the emphasis was on the religious aspects of the holiday, you know, carrying over from Spanish Catholic traditions. This is still a big part of Mexican holiday traditions, of course, but this movie really helped to throw Santa Claus into the mix.

So, Rob, I don't know if you watched the same version I did, but there is the original Spanish language version and then there is an English dub. And the version that I've seen in all cases, both the one featured on MST and the full cut that I watched today is the English dub, which is.

adds a layer of comedy to the film that I think is probably not quite there in the in the original language edit because of the vocal performance of the guy who does who plays the role of Santa Claus, who has essentially one vocal gear and that gear is bellowing.

But it's perfect because the actor playing Santa Claus, who we'll get into in a bit, has that same level of energy with his physical performance. So it's weird. My primary experience, too, is with the English dub. And I primarily watched the English dub for this episode. But I did check in on the original Spanish language version a little bit just to get a feel for the performances. And, you know, it's still...

over the top. It's still campy, intentionally so. It's still comedic. But there is something about these uncredited English language dubs that just really help to just strengthen everything and make everything that's already over the top feel just a little bit more over the

Yeah, that's right. So in the original, I'm sure it was a very enthusiastic performance from the actor who plays Santa Claus. And you can see it there in his physical performance on the screen. But with this English vocal performance, it adds in inflections like, oh, the devil.

Yeah. At times, the dubbing is really borderline riffing. Like, I didn't get a chance to find out if Merlin makes like little tut-tut noises as he moves around in the Spanish original. Like, that felt, hey, we're almost going too far there. Again, unless it's present in the Spanish original, I didn't have a chance to check.

But anyway, the the English language dub, this comes to us thanks to the work of distributor K. Gordon Murray, who lived 1922 through 1979. He's also the English language narrator. And I think he does one or two other voices in there. There are times where a voice is just way too close to the narration. Yeah, there are several roles in the film that sound like they're being performed by the same actor.

So this film did receive a limited U.S. theatrical release, thanks to K. Gordon Murray. And apparently it has it continued to play over the years after that. Like it was always a success. It was the kind of thing that theaters would would maybe put on as part of a holiday matinee, much like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. I was looking this film up in Michael Weldon's The Psychotronic Encyclopedia film from 83 and.

And he closes out by saying, hey, if your local theater is playing this for their holiday matinee, go see it. It's a lot of fun. So it's interesting to think about the, you know, the continued life of this film as something that at least children would go and see. And also maybe a few, you know, psychotronically aligned adults. Well, yeah. Speaking to the psychotronic appeal, yeah.

One thing that's kind of surprising about this is I think you could make an argument that Santa Claus 1959 is actually a more science fiction oriented film than Santa Claus Conquers the Martians because it has more like sci-fi gadgets and technology in it. In fact, Santa Claus in this movie operates a really powerful machine.

surveillance communications infrastructure that uses these strange sort of biomechanical or cybernetic machines to spy on and locate children and people all around the globe. Yeah, I understand Christopher Nolan was directly inspired by this movie when creating The Dark Knight Returns.

Is that the second one, The Dark Knight Returns? That's just The Dark Knight. It's The Dark Knight. Okay. Yeah. But he does return in that film. Yes, he does. But so the Santa in this movie raises questions about technological ethics and surveillance culture.

Yeah, I think a lot of it. I think we can actually understand this a little better now that we've talked about other films by the same director from the same more or less time period, you know, give or take a decade where we see some of like, you know, the various elements that you see in the Santo films.

where there is super science, there is the supernatural. And of course, there are also these other like kind of holy and religious elements in there as well, all kind of mixed together in this kind of, you know, comic book world that that seemed to be like a common touchstone for these genre pictures. It's an intoxicating blend. I enjoy it. Now, this film also, again,

appears in various forms, not only theatrically, presumably, but also on home video releases. Many of these were edited and some highly edited parts of the opening Small World-esque sequence that actually predates Disney's Small World, I believe.

are often edited out for cultural sensitivity reasons. And there's apparently one cut of the film that takes the devil pitch out completely. I don't know how that would work. I guess it would be considerably shorter. And the MST3K version, of course, is edited and leaves a great deal of weirdness on the cutting room floor, as we already mentioned.

I'm still scratching my head over how you could edit out pitch the name of the demon who is the antagonist of this film. You would be left with I don't know it seems like at least a third of the movie would be gone and some situations would be inexplicable with without him present to cause them. It would seem like the sort of thing you would do if your attitude was look it's just going to be a room full of kids.

They're going to be raising a ruckus. They just want to see Santa Claus. They don't know how plot works. Let's just show them everything but the devil because we don't want to upset them. Okay. So anyway, it is, as we'll discuss, it is a delightfully fun and weird movie. Do not pay any attention to the various star reviews you see on like IMDB and so forth. This movie and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians are your quintessential psychotronic Christmas movies. And they both set a high bar for all holiday weirdness that was to come.

Do you have an elevator pitch for this one, Joe? Oh, do I, uh, let's see. Uh, Santa Claus wants to bring, uh, the, the good spirit of holiday cheer to, to, uh, well-behaved children all around the world. But, uh, standing athwart to this ambition is the demon pitch, a malevolent being straight from hell. Whose goal is to thwart Santa Claus and make the children of earth behave wickedly. Uh, will the demon pitch be able to stop Santa Claus? And in fact, uh,

kill Santa Claus by confining him to Earth where he cannot survive until the next Christmas? Or will Santa prevail with the help of a sort of bat belt of gadgets from Merlin and assorted other Q branch types? Sounds good to me. Let's listen to the classic English language trailer for this.

It's like living a storybook adventure beyond your wildest imagination. From the North Pole of Fantasyland comes a feature-length fable with the most enchanting characters in the whole wide world. Headed by the White Whiskeyed Fellow, who's the granddaddy of them all. ♪♪

Now, a magic motion picture transports you to an over-the-rainbow land, past the doors of Santa's towering castle and the strange, mysterious, all-seeing eye, into a fantastic crystal laboratory filled with weird and wonderful secrets no one has ever seen before.

You'll see them all and you'll discover how Santa can watch every child on earth and every good or bad thing they do. Now meet Merlin, the Wizard of Wizards, the Miracle Man of the Ages. Two for the show. Away we go. Hurry, Mr. Merlin. This is no time to play horses. Come face to face with the devil himself, a mischievous demon determined to mess things up as much as he can.

It's yours. Nobody saw you take it, Lupita. They have more and they won't miss it. What does one little doll matter, don't you see? Leave it to that devilish trickster to sidetrack Santa up a tree. Watch the jolly hijinks of Santa Claus as he decides to fight fire with fire. Oh-ho, a cannon!

You won't want to miss the entertainment wonder of the ages, the treat of a lifetime for anyone who has ever believed there really is a Santa Claus. Santa Claus hasn't come. Sleep now, darling. Sleep now and you will see. Maybe when you wake up, you'll find it, darling.

You'll see more wonders than you can wave a wand at as a dazzling panorama unfolds before your startled eyes. All right. Now, if you want to watch this film, if you haven't seen Santa Claus from 1959, Santa Claus versus the devil, if you will. Well,

Well, like I say, there are a lot of different versions that have come out over the years, various formats. You can catch this on the big screen every now and then. I think it aired on the big screen locally in the last year or two here in Atlanta. But I watched the excellent VCI Entertainment Special Edition Blu-ray. Rented this from Videodrome. Great picture quality. And it also has really insightful commentary by film historian Daniel Griffith.

So some of the information I'll share with you about the film is from that commentary by Daniel Griffith. But if I get something wrong, it's not Daniel Griffith's fault. It's my fault for not listening to him enough. Just want to put that out there. I don't want people to be like, how could he not know this? Did he not hear Daniel Griffith explain it? Well, it's because I missed something.

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Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get into the people involved in the production of this film, starting at the top.

The director and one of the writers is Rene Cardona, who we've talked about on the show before, lived 1905 through 1988, director, actor, producer, writer and editor, best remembered as a director in the golden age of Mexican cinema. We've talked about him before because we've covered two other films that he directed, 1963's Doctor of Doom. That's a luchadora film with a very fun mad scientist. And

And then 1969, Santo in the Treasure of Dracula, a time-traveling luchador Dracula movie that is also tremendous fun. I feel like those are two of my favorites that we've covered on Weird House. I love these wrestling movies and the way, the freedom with which they incorporate seemingly unlikely other genres, such as horror and fantasy and science fiction, into the wrestling plot format. Yeah.

Yeah. And again, you kind of see a similar energy in this picture, even though there are no luchadors that I know of involved in it. And there's certainly no luchador characters. But if there were one, they would not be out of place. So anyway, we'll likely cover more Cardona films in the future. So I'm going to cover less about him now for this episode, other than to stress that, yeah, he was highly prolific, worked with a number of the biggest stars in Mexican cinema of the time period. And his output ranges from serious dramas and a couple of kids' movies to

to santo pictures and the grimy night of the bloody apes from 1969 i've never seen that one but the the tasteful title has always appealed to me it's apparently not a tasteful film as we mentioned in uh in our episode on doctor of doom it is essentially a remake of some of the elements of doctor of doom but it takes it in a much grimier direction so i doubt we'll cover that film um

on Weird House Cinema, but it's out there and it's well known in horror circles. All right. The other writer on this is Adolfo Torres Portillo, who lived 1920 through 1996. His other credits include 1960's The Crying Woman, 1963's Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs. the Monsters from 62. I'm very interested in that.

Las Vampiras from 1969, 1983's Mexico 2000 that we've mentioned on the show before, as well as various other fantasies, lucha, and comedies. All right, now getting into the cast. Not going to talk about everybody in the cast, but of course, we got to talk about Santa. Mm-hmm.

Santa Claus is played by Jose Elias Moreno, who lived 1910 through 1969. Terrific Mexican character actor who is largely known apparently for playing heavies and villains rather than anything like Santa Claus. So Griffith in his commentary says that he was sort of going against type here.

It's kind of like if you'd cast late 90s, early 2000s Brian Cox as Santa Claus. Very much a similar energy. And I can imagine Brian Cox nailing it in a similar fashion. Okay, well, I can see that comparison. But I'm going to say Moreno just seems to effortlessly inhabit this role. Again, it's not his voice that I'm used to hearing because I'm listening to the English dub. But at least the physical performance, it's like he was born to play Santa. Yeah.

Yeah, the physical performance alone is just an absolute delight. He leaves no corner of the scene unshoed and his face, though partially obscured by that fake Santa wig and that fake Santa beard, is just continually shifting into a host of just extreme emotional expressions. You know, like it's it's just it's just constantly doing something up there. And this is exactly the sort of movie and the sort of role where that kind of energy is rewarding.

It has the feeling of a stage performance put on screen. Yes. You want to make sure the people in the very back row know exactly what Santa is feeling just by looking at him.

Moreno's other credits include 1952's The Magnificent Beast, 69's Night of the Bloody Apes, and he also played an ogre in Cardona's 1958 movie Pulco Cito. Oh, I feel like I saw that word appear in the credits. Is that like a nickname of his that he might have been credited along with? That is the name of or the nickname of the child actor who plays Pedro.

Oh, okay. That's confusing. Yeah. I'm not really going to get into him because his is kind of a tragic story. But yeah, that is the small Mexican boy that is aiding Santa in his workshop. But hey, okay. Santa is our hero. Let's hear about our villain who plays the demon Pitch.

Yes. Pitch is played by Jose Luis Aguirre, whose nickname is Trotsky. There are a lot of nicknames in this. I assume that his nickname is a reference to Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, who, of course, lived in exile in Mexico City and died in Mexico. But I don't know if it goes any deeper than that. We were just talking about Brian Cox, who played Trotsky in the film Nicholas and Alexandra. Ah, I didn't realize that. Well, there you go.

So anyway, Trotsky here, the actor, was born in 1923. And according to IMDb, he's not been in a film since 1977, but there's no death date, which means conceivably he's still alive out there at the age of 100. Hard to say.

The movie database, separate database, lists credits up through 1991. So who knows? But also I couldn't find anything like a death date. Trotsky was also a dance choreographer and going by his TMD credits. His other parts include a part in Pedro Almodovar's 1980 punk movie Pepe Luce Bomb, which I've not seen, but I've seen other films by this filmmaker. And of course, he's pretty famous and very well regarded.

So this is also a very broad, zany, highly physically expressive performance from from Aguirre or Trotsky here as pitch. And he does a really great job like watching this as an adult. You can detect a lot of camp energy and that that's the appeal there. But if you think about this movie through the eyes of a child, I think this is a performance that would read as really funny to kids.

Yes, yeah. It is just a deliciously great physical performance. There's prancing energy here. It's just frantic prancing. Again, he had a dance background, so there's a lot of dance, a lot of flourishes to every movement that pitch makes.

And it is easy to focus on that and to focus on the inherent comedy here. And there's a lot of comedy with pitch. But I don't think the film and Trotsky in particular get enough credit for just how effectively malevolent pitch is at times as well. There are...

Not many moments, but there are a few moments where they really get down to pitch his evil, especially when he's whispering in the years of sleeping children and adults and telling them to do things like murder Santa Claus in cold blood. Yes. Where he's very menacing and also some moments where he like leans unnaturally over the edge of rooftops.

and around corners like he is actually a cast shadow rather than a corporeal being. Yeah, I can see what you're saying there. And you're right. There are parts where the character is surprisingly truly wicked and not just comically wicked, like when he's gloating over the fact that Santa Claus is going to die. But there is an interesting contrast as well in that

I feel like he's he's the main thing he is is funny and he's supposed to be funny and that the really the scariest things in this movie are things that I don't know if they're probably not supposed to be cute, but they're not like demons. They're things like reindeer or dolls that are like the true nightmare entities in this film. Oh, yeah. The automatons.

All right, well, let's go through the rest of the cast real quickly. We're not going to mention everybody. Lupita is a great character played by a child actor by the name of Lupita Quezadas. I believe this is Pedro or Pulgarcito's brother, I mean sister rather. But again, this is like one of only two films she was in, so there's not much to say there. However, Lupita's mother is played by Nora Verlaine, who lived 1929 through 1998 in

This is probably the most believably dramatic performance in the film. She was also in another Cardona Kids film, Adventures of Joselito and Tom Thumb from 1960. And she worked mostly in musicals, dramas and musical comedies, as well as at least one telenovela in the mid 90s.

There are some moments with Lupita's mom where the movie becomes surprisingly tender and really tugs at the heartstrings. Yeah. Yeah. So like like her performance does stand out, though it is in a stark contrast to some of the other stuff we see. Yeah.

Oh, but wait, let's get to our psychedelic wizard, Merlin. I don't have a lot to say about him, but played by Armando Areola, who lived 1903 through 1978. His other films include 1959's El Zarco, which also features Moreno. The key maker or, you know, the blacksmith or Vulcan or whatever you can refer to him as, he's a little more interesting because he's played by Angel Di Stefani, who

who lived 1906 through 1973, tall Mexican actor and stuntman. I don't think he was a luchador. I looked around to see if I could find his name in any of the lucha databases, but I don't think he was. But he's a secret identity luchador. Well, that is true. Masked luchadors' identities are even today not a matter of public record. So it's entirely possible. And there's, you know, who knows what else is lost in the record of some of these films. So it's possible.

But anyway, he appeared in multiple Cardona films, including a 1969 Santo film, 1967's The Panther Woman. I think that's a Luchadora film. And he also plays the titular Aztec mummy in all three Aztec mummy films. Those are not Cardona films, but they are certainly well-known Mexican horror films. Mm-hmm.

And then the music is by Antonio Diaz Conde, who died in 1976. He's come up on the show before because he also scored Doctor of Doom, just a prolific Mexican composer who worked on a ton of B pictures during this time period.

OK, are we ready to talk about the plot? Let's get into it. Now, as we go through this, we are going to do one of the more detailed breakdowns of this film. But I want to caveat that there are, as we've said earlier, multiple different edits of this film. So I am watching one of the English releases, which, in addition to English dubbing, might also be a slightly different edit. So it's possible the version I'm talking about here might have or lack some scenes that appear elsewhere.

or don't appear elsewhere. It's also possible this movie is just magical, and every time you see it, it's a little bit different in ways that other films are not. I guess that's true. So the credits roll at the beginning on what looks like kind of a Christmas card stock, and Jingle Bells is just blasting on the soundtrack. Very traditional Christmas film opening. But after the credits, things start getting a little weirder. We see a dark, icy blue stratosphere with several white castles floating on top of clouds.

And I believe this is not Castle Braun, Transylvania. Other than that, we have no idea where it is at first until the narrator comes in to inform us. The narrator says, away up in the heavens, far out in space, in a beautiful golden crystal palace right above the North Pole, lives a kind and jolly old gentleman.

Santa Claus, also known as St. Nicholas, the best friend of boys and girls everywhere. But let's move in closer for a look. Come along. And then through a veil of fog, the camera zooms in on St. Nicholas himself. And when we first see him,

He's busy fixing up his Christmas decorations, including, and here's the first of many things in the movie that I don't know if they were meant to look scary, but they really do. He's like working on a statuette of an angel that to me evokes true cosmic horror. It's like a somber winged woman with gray flesh who is about to speak the names of the nine hidden gods. Uh,

And Santa's, you know, adjusting her clothing. He's also working on a little manger scene, like he's putting hay in a little in a little manger cradle and various other decorations. There's strings of tinsel and figurines of Mary and Joseph and all that. And the whole time he is tending to his minis, he emits nonstop bellowing laughter, just super villain laughter at nothing in particular. And I love it.

Yeah, I mean, he's just absolutely overflowing with the Christmas spirit. You can't blame him. And these I also have to mention, this is something that the MST3K riff points out, but it looks like Santa's stuffing like bits of his fake beard into the manger scene, like into the manger itself where the Christ child will go, which feels like it feels kind of animalistic, you know, like he's a he's a beast building a nest. Yeah, yeah, I see that. Yeah.

But it is interesting, too, how, again, you know, you can imagine this picture going into a very otherwise religious Christmas culture, and it's firmly establishing the religious faith of Santa Claus, just to, I guess, make sure there are no misunderstandings.

Right. The Santa Claus in this movie, he doesn't talk about it a lot, but it is mentioned that a few times this Santa is a Christian. Like he mentions the baby Jesus a couple of times. And here he's clearly attending to these angels, assuming these are supposed to be Christian angels and not like the joyless angels of the nine hidden gods or whatever.

But so he's messing with the angels and he says, it's almost Christmas and I must finish the toys for all the good children on Earth. I hope you'll pardon me, but I mustn't be late. And then he scampers over to the other end of the room, singing the tune of Silent Night in like these deep la la la's as he goes. And this Santa, by the way, you've got to imagine a deep voice. He is a bass Santa Claus.

Yes. So he goes and sits down at his organ keyboard and he starts like honking the knobs and stuff. And the narrator tells us that, quote, this is Santa's Toyland, a sort of international toy factory. Here are gathered boys and girls of different races and creeds. They have come from many lands to help Santa bring joy and happiness to all of the Earth's children.

And here begins the parade of cultural depictions. Rob, what you were referring to as the sort of it's a small world montage is showing children allegedly from many different countries and continents and regions, one group at a time, usually in some stereotypical clothing, singing a particular song that may or may not normally be associated with their nationality or region of origin. Right.

Obviously, this segment, I think it was well-meaning, like intending to show Santa inviting children from all around the world to help with his benevolent toy shop mission. But as you might guess from this 1959 movie, some of the ways the different cultures are depicted does not feel right.

um so i i can understand why some later edits of the film cut this section down yeah and it does go on a long while it's a lengthy segment but you get those great say it's that you'll show one group of kids then you'll switch back to santa playing the organ and it's great because obviously like a lot of actors in film santa's not the actor moreno is obviously not playing a piano or an organ here but he is acting like he is and

boy, is he acting hard. It is just a sight to behold. Oh, he's feeling it. He's like, uh, he, he looks like he's playing the organ part in like in a God of Davida, you know, he's just grooving, really feeling the, the, the, the music. And also I think it's clear that like he could not see, uh,

what we're seeing when the children are being shown in these scenes that they're just telling him like, act it up. Like, you know, you're looking at the children, but he's just gazing off to the side somewhere while, while feeling the organ music. Yeah. It's, it's amazing. But also there's a weird thing during this segment that compounds on the, on the questionable cultural depictions, which is that,

Some of these segments are also hilarious because of how bored and confused many of the children look. And for the song selections, for example, they never actually show the group of children from England. We just hear the narrator mention there are children from England, and then we hear kids singing London Bridge is Falling Down. British classic. Yeah.

But then we do see the delegation of kids from Russia who are singing this really like energetic, aggressive Russian folk song with like shouts in it. But for some reason, one of the children is shown driving a car. Yeah, I don't know. A few other funny things from around here. I noted that the a number of the groups of children are heavily armed with rifles and other weapons.

Uh, and this, this is not the only time in the movie where like, it's kind of surprising for a Christmas film about Santa, how many guns there are in it. Uh, also the kids from the USA are dressed as cowboys and singing. Mary had a little lamb. Uh, and I would say that the kids who do the best job of selling the song they're given to perform, uh, are perhaps unsurprisingly the Mexican delegation. Yeah. Yeah. They really shine.

But eventually Santa gets in, you know, he's had enough of that. This, this does go on for like seven minutes. I timed it. And then he, so he goes off to say, okay, done with the organ. I'm going to meet up with some of my top hench children and,

And, uh, one of the workshop kids brings Santa a demon shaped firecracker on a stick and says, Santa, do you like this devil? And Santa's a little perplexed by it. He doesn't recall any of the good children of earth asking for this toy in their letters to Santa Claus. So he, he says, uh, oh, this is one of his, his very memorable quotable lines. He says, how does it work? What is the sense of it? Yeah.

Uh, but the kid shows him, you got to light the fuse and then the devil spins around on the end of the stick. And from this firecracker, we smash cut to a real live devil twirling around in a similar manner in hell, by the way, which is represented as a cavern full of shadows and belching flames. Uh,

And this is Pitch, our antagonist for the film. He's got horns, he's got pointy ears, a goatee, he's cherry red from head to toe except for his dark goatee and a few sort of accents on his costume, red all over. And we watch Pitch and the other devils do a large coordinated dance number in the middle of the fiery subterranean recess.

surrounded, by the way, by hooded figures in robes. And I was like, wait a minute. I don't know if I ever noticed these hooded figures before. Are these like satanic cult members in hell? I think they are supposed to be the souls of the damned.

Okay. I can see that. Which you won in your Christmas movie, of course. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the devils are dancing until the boss shows up and in a terrifying voice, which I think is the same voice as that of the narrator, by the way, uh, he says, uh, he says, stop. I Lucifer, King of Hades command you and, uh, command you to stop and disappear. Be gone. All of you except pitch. Uh,

And then pitch pitches like, what do you want master? And Lucifer King of Hades, he's going to give his subordinate demon pitch a talking to, um,

So we learn Pitch is the chief of Satan's minions, and the time will soon come once again that he must leave the Brimstone Pits and go up to Earth to do battle with his archenemy, Santa Claus, whom Satan refers to as that bearded old goat, which is kind of flipping the script because wouldn't wouldn't the demon be the one who's associated with the goat? I don't know. I mean, especially given the sort of beard that they've given Pitch here. Yeah, Billy Goat Beard. Exactly. Exactly.

But yeah, anyway, Satan, he's got an assignment for Pitch. He wants him to go out and convince all of the children of Earth to do evil. And if he fails, he will be punished. Instead of his favorite food, red hot coals, Pitch will be forced to eat chocolate ice cream.

And clearly to pitch, this is a fate worse than death. He begs for mercy. He says not chocolate ice cream. It's very bad for his digestion. But, you know, Satan, Satan is not a good boss. He offers he's he's all stick, no carrot. And this is great. This is comedy for the children.

So Pitch accepts the mission. He says, I promise, O priceless Prince of Hades, that by my many wiles I will finish off Santa forever and see that the children commit terrible deeds and make Santa Claus angry.

So, you know, Pitch has his mission. He goes up to Earth to carry it out. And by the way, somewhere in here, we randomly just see a newspaper lying on the ground with the front page headline. It's in Spanish, but translated to English. The headline is The Christmas Spirit Brings Peace on Earth. Well, you want to you want to feel good story for the holidays, right? Yeah. OK. Pitch burns the newspaper because I guess he doesn't like the Christmas spirit.

And speaking of demons, we next cut to a department store window with children crowding around to look at the toys. And one of the toys is one of one of these things in the movie that I think is much scarier than it was intended to be. It's this creepy mechanical Santa Claus that is much like the real Santa from earlier, laughing maniacally without pause. It's an excellent automaton, but it is it is creepy to behold. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And in this scene, looking at the department store window, we meet two children who we're going to follow for the rest of the movie. We meet a little boy with curly hair who we initially don't learn his name. The narrator just identifies him as a boy who has been very good all year. But we also learned that his father is very rich. So this is the good little rich boy.

And then by contrast, we meet Lupita and her mother. Lupita is also a very good child, but her family is very poor. And Lupita's lifelong dream, we learn, is to own a doll, any doll.

And in this, the film introduces some rather deep thoughts, I guess, that it at least plays with, kicks around a little bit throughout the course of the picture. Like, it's almost kind of surprising because on one level, we do have this just fantasy element, Santa Claus and then this devil. But then the movie then like really sobers up at times. And it's like, hey, why is there inequality in the world?

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why? And so forth. And it doesn't really have answers to those questions, but it, like I say, it kicks them around a little bit. Yeah. I mean, this movie in which Santa Claus is real also somehow grapples with the question, why do poor children who are good get fewer toys from Santa than rich children who are good? And it doesn't really answer that question, but it does raise it.

Yeah.

Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF, and me, Mandy B, as we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms with a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity.

We share our personal journeys, navigating our thirties, tackling the complexities of modern relationships and engage in thought provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that will resonate with your experiences. Decisions Decisions is going to be your go to source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections.

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Hey, there are just too many good children we've been looking at now. Are there some real creeps among the children here? And yes, there are. There are three mean little boys who rudely push in front of the others to look in the window at all the toys and the Santa robot. And the narrator scolds them, but they do not seem to notice. Also, I wanted to note that two of the little bad boys here are wearing leather jackets like they're in a biker gang, but they're like 10 years old. Yeah.

Oh, wow. They got their cuts on. Nice. Yeah. So the devil pitch appears and he goads the three wicked boys into doing some evil. He makes rocks appear in front of them and then convinces them to throw the rocks and break the department store window, pelting the mechanical Santa Claus. And then somehow magically one of the rocks that was thrown at the robot Santa hits the real Santa up in his palace in space in the face. So,

Some more complex theology presented here. Metaphysics, if you will. Like, I guess all representations of Santa are also Santa. And therefore, anything done to them, you do unto him. Oh, wow. Yes, I can see that. It's like transubstantiation. It's like any representation of Santa becomes literally the body of Santa. I believe so. So Santa is very annoyed at this devil who he...

Clearly, they already have a relationship. He knows Pitch quite well. They've been battling for years. And he explains that if he were allowed, he'd go down to Earth right now and put that devil in his place. But he can't go to Earth yet. He's only allowed to go on Christmas Eve and not before. But that made me wonder, first of all, who imposes these restrictions? And second, what would happen to Santa if he went before Christmas Eve? Would he burst into flames? Would he bleed from his eyes? How does it work?

I mean, these are clearly rules that God has put in place. But beyond that, we have no details. So Santa's main hench child is the the child named Pedro. And he seems to be the one who, like, makes everything work in Santa's palace. Like, you know, Santa's like Merlin is absent minded. Santa himself even kind of gets sidetracked on things. It seems like Pedro is like it's like the chief of staff in the White House. Pedro keeps everything on the rails. Right.

And he's got some intel for Santa. He knows about Lupita, the good child whose family is very poor. And Santa wants to make sure that she is appropriately rewarded at Christmas. So they decide to go use the telescope to find her. And here begins a sequence of displaying all of Santa's array of eerie psychic technology.

He has the Eroscope, the Teletalker that knows everything, the Cosmic Telescope, and the Master Eye. And the narrator says nothing that happens on Earth is unknown to Santa Claus. And we see this room and it involves not only like a sort of traditional looking telescope, it's like a big tube appearing out of a window.

Uh, but there are also strange, uh, I don't even know what to call it. You know, one looks like a, one thing looks like a game of Simon says another thing is just like a computer in the wall that has a face, including like lips that move and eyes and a big nose that lights up.

Yeah, like big Rolling Stones or Rocky Horror lips that move and talk and seem to be like moist even. But Pedro says, by magic powers, look for the child we're seeking, whether she is in a cave or behind a million mountains. And then the lips on the wall computer start talking. They say, already? Already.

And then this tentacle eyeball extends out into space from Santa's communications tower. And the, the helpers announced that they have found a little girl in Mexico. But then when Santa, Santa's like, Oh, you found her. I'll go take a look. And he looks through that telescope eyepiece to see her. And it's like a view of the entire earth. I remember there being a funny riff about this in the mystery science theater where they're like, Oh yeah, really zoomed in on her. Yeah.

But eventually we do tune back in with Lupita. So he finds Lupita directly. And when he does, she's watching this grotesque puppet show. It's one of these slapstick shows where the puppets are hitting each other. Lupita is not laughing at the show, though. She looks very sad. She's sad because she is still thinking about the doll that she wants for Christmas. And as her mother takes her by the hand and leads her away, they pass a vendor in the street selling dolls from a table.

Uh, and here we get to the, will Lupita steal scene? Uh, oh boy. So Lupita, you know, she wants a dolly, but the narrator warns her, no, Lupita, do not steal, put it back. And so at first she makes like, she's going to do it. She tucks a doll into her behind like her jacket and she walks away. Uh, and then pitch appears trying to convince her to take it. Pitch says it's yours. Nobody saw you take it. What does one little doll matter? Uh,

And Pitch is grinning ferociously and rubbing his hands together as he tries to talk her into it. But the narrator argues back. He says again, no, Lupita, it's wrong and you'll be sorry. So Pitch is obviously the devil on her shoulder, but the narrator, I guess, is the angel on her other shoulder. They go back and forth. And in the end, Lupita puts the doll back because she is good.

I love Pitch's energy, though, as he's trying to convince her because he's like, you want the doll, you should be evil. You should be evil. And she's like, I don't want to be evil. He's like, like, you want the doll? You should be evil. Like, he's just like getting cutting right to the chase there. It's like, just be evil. We're not even it's not even sugarcoating it by being like, well, he does a little bit. He's like, you know, they won't miss it.

But he just goes for the bigger sell. And it's just like, commit your heart to darkness now, my child. But Lupita's too good for that. Yeah. She resists. Yes, that's right. She is morally pure and she will not take the doll. She puts it back. Pitch is very angry. He's like flexing his jaw in frustration, like a thwarted cat looking out the window at a bird. And he says, curses. And he tells her that little girls must steal or do without the things they like.

So the narrator argues again, but this time the delivery is funny because of the strange inflection on the line, which makes it sound almost like the narrator is mocking her. So the narrator says, that's not true, Lupita. If you're good, somehow you'll be rewarded. It almost sounds like the narrator is holding back laughter as he says this.

Wow. You know what I'm talking about? I didn't I didn't quite get that feeling from it. But the line always stuck out to me because it's like somehow like she'll be rewarded again, dancing around this problem that they are addressing elsewhere in the film. You know, why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good children not get gifts from Santa if they are poor? Question again that is directly asked by this picture. But the picture does not provide any answers to this difficult problem.

Well, it kind of sidesteps it with magic at the end because just Santa does give her the gift she wants at the end through magic. So it kind of gets around the real world problem. Right. But anyway, so in the film, back at the Crystal Palace in outer space, Santa is very proud of Lupita. He exclaims to his helpers that all of his friends can ignore the devil.

Uh, and then they kick off the surveillance process once again to find the other children from outside the store. This time they tune in on, uh, the good boy whose family is rich and he's asleep when they find him. So the, uh, Santa's like connect the antenna for the dream scope.

And they invade the little boy's dreams and they witness in his dreaming mind that he wants to come down the stairs on Christmas morning to these two giant boxes. And the narrator's like, what large gift boxes? Would these be toys? But no, they contain what a child loves best, his parents.

And Santa Claus gets very, very sober here. And he says, a dream is a wish the heart makes. And Santa explains that even though the little rich boy can have any possession he wants just by asking, all he really wants is the love and attention of his parents. And whether they truly love him is yet to be seen. And Santa says this with a heavy sigh.

But what about Lupita's dreams? Well, here we're going to resume the stealing debate. So they tune in on the dream scope to Lupita. She's asleep in her bed. And we see a little, by the way, we see her parents talking and Lupita's mother explains to Lupita's father that when she was young, she would dream of growing up and having great riches. But at the time, she would also dream of the devil. I guess she would be afraid.

And then Pitch appears in the house and like blows bad dreams into Lupita's brain. And we see Lupita standing in this big room that looks like a giant like walk-in freezer warehouse. And it's full of fog. And there are these big boxes kind of like in the last scene where the kids' parents were in boxes. But instead, this is a lot of adult-sized boxes. And what comes out of them?

Just a nightmare of giant robotic doll ghouls. For some reason, this whole sequence, which again, is very clearly intended to be disturbing, perhaps too disturbing, even though it doesn't have actual devils in it. Like it almost feels like this one is by guest director Mario Bava or something. You know, it's like it reminds me of the planet surface and Planet of the Vampires.

Yeah. Yeah. And these, these dolls are a horror creation. I mean, I think it's, it's supposed to be a bad dream, even though she is, she does want doll. These are evil dolls that encourage wickedness and we see them dance around a lot. They do like a doll ghoul ballet in the fog. And,

And then the argument begins with this doll puppet faced figure who screeches in this evil witch voice. Total Baba Yaga voice. Yeah, yeah. Baba. Exactly. Baba Yaga. She's like, you must steal us all, Lupita. And Lupita says, no, because I do not want to steal. But you must learn to steal. No, because stealing is bad and I want to be good. We dolls only like girls who steal. Right.

No, to steal would be evil. And I do not want to be evil. You must be evil if you want the doll. And it just goes on and on back and forth. Uh, the,

I don't know. This is one of my favorite parts of the movie. I can't quite explain how funny and good the energy of this back and forth is, but it's peak Santa Claus. Just a real hard sell for evil. Again, it's like a timeshare situation going on here. The more you steal, the more you save. Yeah.

But eventually Lupita wakes up distressed and she's comforted by her mother. Now we check in on some of the other kids we saw earlier, the three little boys who broke the window at the store. They are, once again, they come under the surveillance of Santa's sophisticated magical equipment. And they're talking about how they plan to do more crimes here.

And they also say they plan to write letters to Santa Claus claiming that they have been as good as angels all year. And Santa will never know the difference because he is far away and old. And Santa starts getting really offended. He's like, I'm not old. The devil is older than me. But obviously, you know, Santa, he knows everything. So he's not going to be fooled by these rascals. He understands what they're up to and their letters will not trick him.

And then there's a scene of children all around the world writing letters to Santa asking for what they want most. And these letters are sorted at the post office. The letters to Santa, like they put them all in a pile and then dump them into the furnace in the post office. Yeah.

But then by magic, instead of falling into the fire, they get sucked up through the chimney and out into outer space where they funnel into Santa's crystal palace and then rain down on Santa out of a hole in the wall. And Santa seems to get real pleasure from being buried under all these letters.

Oh, yeah. It's a terrific scene. It's just like it's just raining, raining letters from the children on him. And he's just it's amazing. He's literally rolling in the mail, like wallowing in it. Yeah. It's kind of like any it's like danger diabolic, except with the money on the bed. It's children's letters to Santa on the floor.

So he like looks at some of these letters. There's a funny moment where he starts reading one of these letters and it's from a kid who asks for too many things, including like a nuclear laboratory, I think. And then there are also children who tell falsehoods in their notes and they have their letters deposited into the liar's box. And then there's another thing where children who ask for a younger sibling, they have their notes handed off to the stork.

Uh, but anyway, Christmas Eve is almost here. So Santa makes a big speech to his helpers telling them, okay, we got to put the effort in. It's almost time. It's, you know, we got a big show coming. Uh, you know, we, we really got to push it to the finish line. And then we get the introduction of Merlin. Hmm.

Yes, yes. Merlin. It's time for Merlin. As I said earlier, he's part alchemist, part Archimedes inventor, part sorcerer and magician. You know, he's sort of John D. a little bit. And there is some real occult imagery in his office.

Yeah, there's like a pentagram of sorts above the above the hearth. There's also some sort of a goat's head above the hearth. And then just, again, so many beakers of smoking liquids and fuming liquids and tubes. Also, you know, astronomical looking artifacts as well. It's it's quite a set.

The narrator tells us that Merlin is Santa's most devoted ally, though he is a bit absent-minded. And when we first meet him, he tells us he's busy grinding up rainbows in his mortar and pestle.

And then he's going to reveal to Santa the secret of the magic stardust. And one of the ingredients he lists is plutonium. Another is pollen from moonflowers and dust from butterfly wings. And we see him like fiddling around with this giant, you know, almost man-eating size flower.

Also, I noticed we get one long, like distant shot where you can see Merlin's feet and he's got shoes with those curled up pointy toes. Oh, of course he does. Anyway, Merlin mixes up the magic stardust in an urn over a Bunsen burner and then he pours it off into Santa's magic wizard bag.

So Merlin, as we said earlier, he's basically the source of all of Santa's Batman gadgets. Other equipment, in addition to the Stardust, includes one of my favorites, the flower to disappear. This is a flower that Santa Claus can sniff to become invisible or also to teleport, I think. It's a little unclear if he is...

becoming invisible and then walking away and going where he needs to go or if yeah he vanishes and teleports to wherever he needs to go either way tremendous effect

On to the next weird ally of Santa's, the master blacksmith or key maker of the palace. This is the guy who you identified as Hephaestus or Vulcan. He's, you know, hammering on his divine anvil. He's got a bunch of strange metal implements all throughout the room and a big fire and hammers and tongs and all that stuff. And here he... Oh, he also has...

I don't know. Like he's got a chest hair on his chest that is the fakest movie chest hair I've ever seen. It's like an arrow of hair. Yeah. Yeah. And again, if you've only seen the MST3K version of this film, you've missed this segment entirely.

So here Santa Claus gets the quote, the golden key that opens all doors. He gives it a test run. It opens doors by like creating an electrical arc with them. And he's like laughing as he tests it out. He's like, I will get through any door now.

And then in fact, they do a test run on multiple doors. Yes, they do. Yes. And then the next thing is, this is so strange. Santa is using, I think this is supposed to be a joke about some like 1950s gimmick weight loss devices. Santa is using some machine to,

That looks like it's like mechanically running a sander belt over his belly. And it looks like a thing that would really like be sold by catalog in the 50s claiming to melt off the pounds. I feel like I've seen this device so many times in the past in like Looney Tunes cartoons, perhaps, you know, or yeah, or maybe old timey television to where I don't even think about it when I see it because it's so it was it's so established. And again, probably old cartoons or old TV shows.

But again, you know, Santa likes his tech. He does. Yeah. Yeah. And he claims that it works. He claims that before he before he used it, he couldn't fit down chimneys anymore. But then he tests out a chimney in his gym, I guess, in the palace. And he's like, yep, I fit down now. Yeah.

So the next thing is we check out Santa's reindeer. And I'm sorry I have to keep emphasizing the creepiness of various elements like the robot Santa Claus in the department store. But this is another one of these mechanical creatures that are just like a soulless virus from hell. These things are horrifying when they start moving their jaws. I think they have yellow eyes. And, oh boy, they're creepy. I think they laugh. I'm not sure. There's like a laughing sequence. And...

And then we were told additional facts about them that do not make them seem less creepy. I can't stress enough that the mechanical reindeer here eat food made from clouds and sunlight will turn them to dust. Like if Santa's not back in one night like he's supposed to be, the light of the sun will just turn these things into powder. Yeah, this is part of a longer conversation about the consequences of Santa not returning on time.

So Santa says that if he can't make it back by morning, first of all, he would not survive on Earth because he is used to a diet of Crystal Palace food, which is made up of pastries and ice cream made of clouds.

And he says on Earth they eat plants, animals, everything in sight, even smoke and alcohol. And Pedro gasps when he says this. But the implication is that Santa cannot eat such things and would starve to death on planet Earth. And his reindeer, if the sun comes up on them, they will turn to dust and he won't be able to come back. So he's got to be back by sunrise or he will die. Yeah. Again, I don't think it's a great sign when you're –

strange automatons are destroyed by sunlight. I don't know. That seems like a red flag for any kind of supernatural entity. But again, Santa's a special case, I guess. Well, one of his henchchildren does suggest replacing them while he's like getting the sleigh out. The Russian child comes up and I think says something in Russian. But we are to understand that he has suggested that Santa replace his sleigh with Sputnik.

topical what if he what if he just replaced the reindeer with sputniks and you had like yeah you know a dozen sputniks pulling the sleigh through the sky that could be kind of cute yeah uh so santa he's like yeah nice suggestion but i he can't replace his white reindeer they are too precious to him clearly

Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF, and me, Mandy B, as we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms with a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity.

We share our personal journeys, navigating our thirties, tackling the complexities of modern relationships and engage in thought provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that will resonate with your experiences. Decisions Decisions is going to be your go to source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections.

Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪

So Santa's helpers come, they load up the sleigh with gifts for all the children of the world. And as Santa is leaving his palace, after winding up his mechanical reindeer with a key, he asks that Jesus, the son of God, join him on Earth so that all may have joy and goodwill. And then we see him flying through space to Earth. And there's a moment where the narrator lets us know, like, whew, that was close. He almost ran into the moon. Yeah.

That feels like this is Murray just getting in some extra fun with the narration, you know? Yeah, I don't know if that's in the original.

Uh, but down on earth, we, uh, check in with, uh, first of all, the little rich boy whose parents tuck him into bed and then go out on a date. Uh, it's, it's Christmas Eve, but they're like going out to a restaurant. I mean, I guess that's the thing some people do. I don't know. Um, but he, he goes out, uh, obviously the little boy wishes that his parents would stay home with him. Uh, but his mother tells him that if he gets bored, he can go practice his piano lessons. Yeah. Yeah. Kids love that. Yeah.

And then we also check in with the three bad boys from earlier. They're discussing a plan to capture and enslave Santa Claus so that all of his toys and powers would become theirs. So these are power hungry children. These are bad kids. Yeah. Then there's also, oh, I mentioned earlier that there are like these surprisingly powerful

tender scenes with Lupita and her mother. One of them comes up here, and this is the one that addresses the central question. Lupita asks questions about Santa Claus, and she wonders if Santa doesn't like her because he has never brought her a doll. And Lupita's mother is trapped because she can't explain the real reason Lupita has never gotten a doll, which is that they can't afford it, without spoiling belief in Santa Claus. But she doesn't want Lupita to think

think that Santa doesn't like her or believes her to be a wicked child. And you can just see the desperation on her mother's face. She's in a bind. So she just, she says they can pray for it. And she tells the story of how Christmas is about commemorating the birth of Jesus, who was even poorer than they are. And then Lupita decides that she will ask Santa for two dollies. And if she gets them, she will give one to little Jesus and,

And amidst all of the weird stuff going on, this sort of complex situation really does grab the heartstrings and asks weird, hard questions about the world. Yeah, it almost feels like it belongs in another movie.

In which Santa is not clearly real. Yeah. Yeah. It always it throws everything out of line when Santa is real. It's kind of like watching Ted Lasso. Eventually, it is revealed that in the Ted Lasso universe, Santa Claus is real, which raises all sorts of questions about everything else that happens in that TV series.

Like what else is real? Santa's real. We've opened the gate, Ted Lasso. What's what else is out there? Good question. All right. So meanwhile, we've got Santa arriving on Earth. Pitch has been hanging out on Earth waiting for Santa to get here so he can, you know, play tricks on him. And Pitch is cold. He doesn't like Earth because, you know, he wants his brimstone pits where it's hot.

And this begins the sort of trick or treat section of the movie for, for a while. We just watched Santa going around to various houses. He's doing his business, delivering toys. And along the way, pitch is playing pranks on him and trying to harm Santa. So for example, at one house pitch moves the chimney out of the way. So Santa won't be able to get inside. I have questions about the mechanics of this.

But Santa gets around this by jumping down to ground level using his magic parasol and then just going through the door and

And in this house, some children wake up and they sneak out to get a glimpse of Santa. But Santa throws Merlin's magic sedative dust at them and it makes them go back to sleep. In fact, not just go back to sleep, it makes them collapse face down on their blankets. So it's strong stuff. Yeah, I mean, essentially you have two entities here that each have like infinity stone level powers. But the nature of their attacks are fairly whimsical. Yes, exactly.

At the next house pitch comes up with a plan. He says he's going to immolate Santa Claus with a blast of fire from the fireplace as he's coming down the chimney. Fortunately, Santa only gets a bit scorched on the haunches. He's still alive.

Uh, but since Santa can't come down the chimney, he goes down and again comes in through the front door and here, uh, pitch pulls a home alone and uses his demon breath to heat up the doorknob until it glows red. But Santa outwits the devil again, instead of going through the front door, he sneaks in through a window, sneaks in behind pitch and then shoots pitch in the buttocks with a toy cannon that launches down.

darts is this a real toy santa i question what you were giving to the children i mean this was 1959 so yeah maybe so but it does seem extraordinarily dangerous but the real lesson is is you can't home alone santa claus he will always out home alone you like he practically invented home alone yes he does usually get the better of pitch though there is one scene coming up where pitch will at least temporarily get the better of him we'll get to that in just a minute

So next we check in on the good little rich boy. You know, he's he's home alone. His parents are out clubbing. They're they're out going to the nightclub and the restaurants. And he wanders around the halls of his big house lonely. And the narrator tells us that even though he has all the toys he could ever dream of, he's poor at heart because he doesn't have his parents home with him. And Santa cause he like falls asleep in a chair. And then Santa causes the little boy to, quote, awaken while he is dreaming, which

Oh, and he explains that the boy's parents love him, even though he and his parents don't understand each other. Then we cut to the little rich boy's parents out at a fancy restaurant. Again, this is like, I guess, supposed to be midnight on Christmas Eve. And we see a disembodied hand bring a tray over to their table with two cocktails, a

on the tray and the cocktails are emitting some kind of gas or fog. And the mother says, that's a strange cocktail. And then the waiter says in Santa voice, it is the cocktail of remembrance, which only I can prepare. Whoever drinks it will think of that which is most dear and which at times for some unknown reason, we seem to forget.

And then the waiter gives a speech about how the greatest reward for giving love is love itself. And then concludes with, so drink my cocktail and you will become aware of that love, which is closest to your hearts. And

And the mother says, and those without love? He says, they couldn't drink this cocktail as it would burn their throats. So he's doing a great job of upselling it. And then they just like grab the glasses and have a little chug. Well, I mean, it's only a little different than any other cocktail. Yeah. Yeah.

And so they're like, oh, wow, wait a minute. I want to be home with our child. And they have the sudden urge to go home and see their son, who is finally revealed is named Billy. I think this is the first time we hear his name. So they go home to him. Up next, more tricks. Pitch, first of all, convinces the three naughty little boys who wanted to capture Santa Claus to injure him with a trip wire, but they fail at this. Santa...

I can't tell exactly what he, he sort of like hits them with a stun grenade, like some kind of bright flash goes off around them. And, and they are, I don't know, they, they fail at trying to trip him. But then right after this, they're like, Oh, that was Santa. So he's been here. Let's go see what toys he brought us. And they each get an old shoe and, you know, because they're, they're not going to get anything because they've been bad and pitch then tricks them into fighting each other. And,

At least here's one win for Pitch. He says Lucifer will be very pleased at the way they're fighting. I like this scene, too. This is another one of those scenes where I feel like I think the music gets a little creepier. And yeah, it's like it shows that, you know, like the devil doesn't really have any favorites. And when he's done with you, he's just going to use you against each other. All he wants is your misery. And so some nice villain work here from Pitch.

So after this pitch tries to steal Santa's sleigh, but that doesn't work. I think Santa has like some biometric security protocols in place. So pitch can't make the reindeer go. Uh, but even though he can't steal the sleigh, he still causes more mischief. He, uh, he manages to puncture Santa's wizard bag. So all of the magic powder leaks out. Uh, so now Santa can't put anyone to sleep and he also causes Santa to drop the flower to disappear. Uh,

So at the next house, Santa is going in through, you know, he's got it's like a big mansion in a compound. And Santa goes in through the gate and he is attacked by a guard dog. And at first he's like, oh, this will be fine. I will use my Merlin tools. But he doesn't have any, you know, his powder is all gone. His flower to disappear is gone. So he has no choice but to climb a tree and hide from the dog. And the dog is at the base of the tree barking at him. So he's just stuck there.

And the devil taunts him. Pitch explains that he will cause mischief by speaking to people through their imagination while Santa is stuck there in the tree. And then a laugh out loud moment for me is Santa in the tree yelling to the sky, Merlin!

This sequence is great because on one hand, it's just so ridiculous. We've built up to the point in this movie where Santa is treed by a dog and all Christmas is threatened because of it.

it. And yet at the same time, it's kind of interesting. And, you know, we have this kind of close proximity between Santa and God in this film, the Christian God. And yes, and here he is stuck up in a tree, almost kind of an Odinic figure in the same way, you know, that Odin dies in the Great World tree and

reminds us a little bit of certain things in Christian iconography as well, though not necessarily in an intentional way. But if you really want to read a lot into it, perhaps you could play with that idea a bit. Santa is being crucified upon the tree. Yeah. Whilst the devil mocks him. Yes, exactly. So

Pitch gets up to all kinds of trouble while Santa is stuck. He goes inside and convinces the family that there is an assassin outside in the tree. And so all the family, they get woken up and start gathering weapons. The father in the family is hilariously cowardly.

Uh, they, they, he also, uh, pitch contrives to have all of the like police and fire department summoned. Like he calls up the fire department and, uh, and causes, uh, flames to come out of the, the speaker of the phone at the, uh, at the fire department. And so they're like, wow, that place must really be on fire. So they're going to send a fire engine. Meanwhile, at Lupita's home, uh,

Pitch goes there and whispers despair into the ear of sleeping Lupita. He says, you'll never get a doll. You'll never get anything you want. Santa has abandoned you. And then the last line of his speech is, you are poor. Then back at the house where Santa is stuck, the police and the fire department are on the way. We hear the sirens coming.

And the whole family is woken up and armed themselves and they're going outside to investigate. And the devil taunts Santa, telling him that he will be caught by the police, trapped on Earth, unable to fly back to space, and that in this state he will starve to death and his reindeer will turn to dust and Satan will rule the planet Earth. And now how does that last part happen? That's a line in the film where I feel like, whoa, there's a lot more on the line here than I thought.

But in the end, Santa's prayers are answered. Pedro and Merlin come to the rescue. Pedro figures out what is happening. As usual, he's the one on the ball. He's the you know, he's the chief of staff. He gets everything fixed. So he gets Merlin to come to the observatory and then they communicate with Merlin by like.

Merlin communicates with Santa Claus by talking into a microphone and Santa communicates with Merlin just by shouting into the sky. So he says, they've got me in a tree Merlin. I dropped the flower to disappear and also the powder for dreaming. And now this beast won't let me down. All of this prepared by Mr. Pitch.

So it looks like Santa's goose is cooked. You know, the police are coming. How's he going to get out of this jam? Well, Merlin thinks up a clever idea. Merlin's thinking, how do you stop a mad dog? And he has an ingenious solution. He says, a cat.

So he convinces Santa to distract the dog with a wind up toy cat from his bag of gifts. And Santa does this. The police arrive, the heavily armed family, uh, they're outside. They get sprayed, but with water by the fire department, which is fire department seems fairly bumbling, uh,

The firefighters are going around trying to find the fire and eventually they do come upon a cloud of smoke and they spray it with their hose. But of course, the smoke is just coming off of pitch because he's a devil. And I guess sometimes he emits smoke and he gets drenched too. Hmm.

Serves him right. Serves him right for all this despair he's trying to spread. But Santa has escaped. And, you know, so Merlin tells him, you're out of time. You've got to come back to the Crystal Palace at once. The sun's about to come up. But no, Santa says he has one more friend to visit before he leaves Earth. And then he shouts at the sky to Merlin, I'll see you later if possible. Who's it going to be? Of course, it is the most perfect child who ever lived, Lupita.

And so somehow the flower to disappear has fallen into Lupita's house and we see Lupita's in bed. Her father comes home. Lupita's mother lets him inside and she says, did you find any work? And he's dejected and he says, nothing, my dear, nothing.

And I like on one hand, the scene is like there's great pathos and it works. But on the other hand, it's like, wait, he was out looking for work in the dark before sunrise on Christmas Day. Yeah, yeah. They're kind of laying it on a bit thick, perhaps. But Lupita wakes up. She tells her mother that she has dreamed of Santa Claus, that he left her a dolly out on the patio. And her mother tells her, go back to sleep. But Lupita goes to check and.

And there it is. There really is a doll and it's huge. It's like almost the same size as Lupita. And Lupita's parents are amazed. Her mother makes the sign of the cross and Lupita looks out the window and begins praying to Santa Claus. And we see the sleigh making the journey back through outer space. And the narrator tells us that once again, Santa Claus returns to his palace from his yearly Christmas rounds. He is happy and gay for once again, he has brought joy to the children of the world.

And we get a sort of title card at the end that said, blessed are those who believe for they shall see God, peace on earth, goodwill toward men. So sidestepping some of the hard issues with magic, as we've said, but also it's a sweet ending. And and I guess what is the last thing we see of pitch? The last thing is he just gets sprayed with water, I think.

Yeah, yeah. There's no scene where he actually has to go back to hell and eat ice cream. But, you know, he's roundly defeated. It does seem like maybe he should have had a little bit more of a comeuppance there than just getting a bit wet. Because he was setting up the public murder of Santa Claus here. That's right, yeah. And he got really close to having Satan rule over the Earth. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess it...

you know, a lot of authors have explored this. I mean, the holidays have their roots in very old traditions that, you know, are about, you know, the dying of the earth during the winter and the resurgence of the world in the springtime. And that this is a threshold you have to cross

And, you know, there's a certain amount of sacrifice wound up in all of this. So, you know, it's not completely out of character, but they do start laying on just how dire the situation is right at the end where it's like, oh, yeah, if Santa goes, Satan rules the world. Like it's the end of everything. And thus concludes the tale of Santa Claus. What is the sense of it?

Tremendously fun holiday picture. Like I say, this and Santa Claus, Congress of Martians set the bar. There are other weird holiday films out there, but you almost can't consider any of them except in comparison to these pictures. Yeah. And I wish we could have had a crossover with the two Santas. They're both excellent Santa Clauses. Or Droppo versus Pitch. I mean, there's so many ways you could go.

But Drapo wasn't a, wasn't really the villain. What's the villain in Santa Claus conquers the Martians. The guy with the mustache. Oh, um, I couldn't decide forgetting his name. Uh, I want to say, uh, Zoltar or something. Moldar, something like that. Um, Voldar. Voldar. That's it. Voldar. Yeah. Yeah. Don't forget Winky. And Cho-Chem.

Okay, I think that's it for today. All right, we're going to go and close out this holiday episode, but we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. The Santa Claus Conquers the Martian episode will also rerun over the next couple of weeks if you haven't listened to that one or if you want to listen to it again.

If you want to keep up with the movies we've covered on Weird House Cinema, and in some cases want to get a hint of what's coming up next, well, you can go over to Letterboxd.com. That's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D.com. We are Weird House on there, and we have a nice list prepared of all the movies we've covered so far.

We're primarily a science podcast on Stuff to Blow Your Mind with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie here on Weird House Cinema. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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