An Adult's Perspective On: The Santa Clause

The Santa Clause

I'm 24 years old and I just watched The Santa Clause for the first time.

How I Never Saw It: I was a major Disney kid growing up, but I was really only interested in the animated films. Not only did the live action movies not get my attention, I also never watched Home Improvement growing up so Tim Allen was nothing but the voice of Buzz Lightyear to me. I even remember seeing commercials for The Santa Clause on TV and thinking it looked kinda funny, but not funny enough to sit and watch the whole thing. My parents must've felt the same way since we never owned it on VHS or DVD, and apparently none of my friends ever wanted to watch it either.

Why I'm Seeing It Now: It's the holiday season and I'm scrounging up the last few Christmas classics I still haven't seen before, this being one of them. I didn't think I was about to watch the greatest movie of all time, but I figured there must be enough Christmas imagery and holiday cheer that I'll enjoy the experience despite it really just being for kids.

What I Thought: I thought I was just gonna watch this movie and not talk about it, but about five minutes in I had to start taking notes, because this movie was made by and for insane people.

Look, if this is your favorite Christmas movie because you saw it as a little kid that's completely valid. I specified this being "an adult's perspective" for a reason, that reason being I have no nostalgia-colored lenses to see this movie through. I took it at face value and my face still hurts from it. I didn't just not like the movie, I was confounded by it. There are choices in here that make absolutely no sense, and I wrote down every thought this movie forced out of my brain.

Tim Allen plays a bad person. No stretch there. He starts the movie with lying to his ex-wife about there being traffic as he soars through the deserted freeway because he doesn't want her to know he made a speech at work before coming over to pick up his kid. Already, I'm confused. Why wouldn't he just say "Hey, I've gotta make a speech at work because I'm doing really well there, sorry I'm gonna be late." Is he trying to avoid the 90's trope of dad who puts work before his kid? I'm just gonna say yes because I'm only a minute into the movie.

He picks up his kid and we meet his ex-wife and her new husband, who's introduced as a horrible jerk who honks at them as they wait inside. I point this out because at no point after this scene is he like this. Neil (Judge Reinhold) is a psychologist and he's actually pretty patient and kind, with his only flaw being his attempts to talk the kid (Charlie) out of believing in Santa Claus (which is admittedly weird). He's never shown being the kind of person to honk at his family ever again after this scene.

So it's Tim Allen's turn to have Charlie for Christmas and he's horrible at it. We've gotta establish he's bad at being a parent so he can have an arc throughout the movie, so here you go. He burns the turkey, so he takes his kid to Denny's, a place that is already depressing enough on regular days of the year, let alone Christmas Eve. I'm stopping here because there's a weirdly racist moment where Tim Allen and Charlie walk into Denny's and it's full of Japanese businessmen. A waitress then asks Allen and Charlie if they're Japanese businessmen and they say no, then she takes them to the back where other kids and their single dads are, so we never come back to this room full of Japanese businessmen. But what was that? Is this a stereotype that the screenwriters made up? The shot lingers for a while like it's being played as a racist joke, but what's the joke even supposed to be? It's only there for 30 seconds but it's so bizarre that I can't stop thinking about it. Someone please help me make sense of this.

Later Tim Allen reads Charlie The Night Before Christmas and he tells Charlie that Santa's real. Then Santa shows up. Great, we're not wasting any time. Tim Allen's reasonably shocked and thinks Santa's a burglar. Tim Allen shouts at Santa and he falls off the roof instantly. Allen doesn't even really shout at Santa, he just calls up to him. Santa really shouldn't be that shocked, I would think this happens to him all the time, but apparently just him being acknowledged was so startling it caused him to lose his balance immediately and fall off the two story house and fall onto a bush coated in soft snow. This kills him. I don't think this would even kill a child, but somehow a grown man is dead from it. Allen finds his business card which tells him to put on the suit. Charlie points out the reindeer on the roof and they get in Santa's sleigh. The reindeer fart a few times, which isn't typical of the Disney brand so I wonder if that was Tim Allen's idea or if it was in the original script and the screenwriters fought to the teeth to keep it in.

Tim Allen takes Santa's sack and it causes him to fly. Charlie's amazed by this and Tim Allen proceeds to say that it's not weird for him because "I lived through the 60's." So now there's an LSD joke in this Disney children's Christmas film. Also, Tim Allen was born in 1953, so he was in high school when the 1960's ended, meaning not only is the joke about doing drugs, it's about a child doing drugs. And it's in the movie.

So I like that the the story's starting quick, getting right into the premise of "What if Tim Allen was Santa Claus?", but it almost feels like the movie's done out of order. Why are we seeing regular Tim Allen do Christmas first? I understand it's part of seeing his growth as a character later on, but we don't even see him physically start to transform into Santa Clause until over half way through the movie for the next year's Christmas. This premise must've seemed simple to the screenwriters at first, but as soon as they started working on it they realized just how overly complicated it has to be for it to make any sense. But even if the premise is hard to iron out logic for, maybe just have Tim Allen's house be the last one on Santa's list or something, because seeing him talk horribly to a little girl who's presents he's putting under the tree is pretty disturbing and sad to watch.

Also, it's during this sequence that I found out the CGI is terrible. This is 1994, a year after Jurassic Park came out. Disney was also having a renaissance in the 90s, so there's no reason for these embarrassingly cheap special effects. Fork over a little cash for your farting racist drug child Tim Allen Santa movie, Disney.

Moving on, they go to the North Pole and meet the elves, who are children. What. So elves are just little kids? Doesn't that evoke thoughts of child slavery? Did they just really not want to give little people actors jobs? What was the thought here? Not only is it strange, it's actually kind of creepy. Like, one of the elves is a baby. That's not just illogical because babies are terrible workers, but it's a chillingly surreal image, like out of a David Lynch movie. The only older elf is David Krumholtz as Bernard, whose name Allen purposefully keeps saying wrong because he's awful.

At this point I'll point out that I actually like these North Pole sets. They're a little cluttered but they're Christmasy and fun. This is the kind of thing I was expecting when putting on this movie. What I wasn't expecting is Tim Allen changing out of his Santa costume and a bunch of elves peeping on him from outside his door. What. Why. That's terrifying and implies that all of these elves aren't just little kids, they're perverts. But they aren't the only perverts, because then Tim Allen talks to one of the little girl elves and says "You know I must say, you look pretty good for your age." I get that the line is supposed to be innocent, but when it's Tim Allen saying it to a very young actress, it sends shivers down my spine.

The next day Tim Allen wakes up at his home and thinks this is all a dream, but his kid thinks it's real. Allen starts wigging out and his kid says that he knows CPR. WHAT KID IS THIS. He looks like he's 6, but he's weirdly intelligent and is apparently CPR certified. That's such a weird line to throw in because he's not saying it to be cute, he's deadly serious.

Anyways, then we cut to his classroom on career day and a fireman is telling the class about his partner dying from third degree burns.

..........

What is the tone of this movie supposed to be? I understand that family films should have jokes for both kids and adults with some jokes going over kids' heads, but that's not going to be one of them. Kids know what burns are. They have some idea of what death is. What maniac thought this joke was gonna slide in a Christmas Disney film for children? And the teacher's reaction is essentially ".....wellll okay then!" as if this was just "awkward." But it's not awkward. It's disturbing.

Then Tim Allen tries to talk to the class about working for a toy company, but his son tells everyone about last night and how his dad is really Santa. This concerns Tim Allen's ex-wife (who's dressed like Mia Wallace, complete with hairstyle) and her new husband (who's dressed like Bill Cosby, which was fun then but sad now), and causes a kid to ask the most glaring question in the whole movie: "So if I take you out, am I the new Santa Claus?" And then they cut to the next scene.

No.

Answer that question.

Because there's a lot of implications here. Like what if Hitler had killed Santa? Would Hitler become the new Santa? There needs to be background checks or something, because otherwise Disney is saying it's fine for Hitler to become Santa.

Anyways, the school's principal is also concerned about Charlie, so she brings in Allen, ex, and husband to talk about him. Allen doesn't take any of this seriously at all, and at one point sticks his tongue out at his fellow adults. He's truly an awful man, and I can't believe he has to be our protagonist.

Also, why are they taking The Sixth Sense route of making the kid look like he's psychologically damaged? That's not fun or Christmasy. That's very sad. How did no one come in and say "Hey your fun family movie about Tim Allen being Santa needs to not keep making people think about a child who's had a traumatic experience and now has psychological damage?" Everyone was just on board with choosing this angle.

More movie happens, Tim Allen keeps being mean to the new husband and keeps making fun of his sweater because Tim Allen isn't funny. Then he farts when he gets out of bed because the ADR people tried to make him funny.

Now, an hour into the movie, Tim Allen finally starts turning into Santa Claus.

He goes into work and people audibly gasp when they see he's fat now. Who does that? What human being could possibly be that rude? Then they keep staring at him as he eats his big lunch. Who are these people? Why are they so terrible?

Then at this meeting they introduce Santa in a tank for their next toy. Tim Allen points out all of the Santa inconsistencies with the ad except for the fact that SANTA IS IN A TANK. I know real life Tim Allen doesn't have a problem with this, but how does Santa Claus not see a problem here? Santa probably wouldn't want to see himself in a horrifying killing machine when he's supposed to be beloved by children all over the world. It's also weird because this means the screenwriters, producers, and Disney itself didn't see a problem with it either. And they're okay with Hitler Santa.

Tim Allen goes to the doctor who proceeds to not care that he's defying science by growing a beard and gaining weight in seconds, or that his heartbeat is to the beat of "Jingle Bells." He just sends Allen on his way like he stubbed his toe or something. Is this supposed to take place in our universe?

Then he's at the park alone watching his kid play soccer when a bunch of little kids start sitting on his lap. I don't know what you think of when you see a grown man with a beard and a bunch of children on his lap at a park, but let's just say the parents should be more concerned than they appear to be. Also, in the background of this scene there's an extra who is clearly an adult that goes on the slide by herself. WHERE ARE WE?

Then ex and husband talk about how they stopped believing in Santa Claus because he didn't give them what they wanted. So these are terrible people too.

Then they get full custody of Charlie and Tim Allen comes over unannounced which is super creepy. It was also at this point that I realized a full year had already passed. They really needed a better way of showing time passing, because I had no idea that had happened.

Then Tim Allen kidnaps Charlie and leaves. When the cops hear that a man who looks like Santa kidnapped a child, they all laugh. WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE LIKE THIS?

Also, the picture they have of Charlie is a really weird picture for a kid to have of themselves. It looks like the cover of his moody new solo album.

Then Tim Allen and Charlie and the elves walk and do a CHOREOGRAPHED DANCE FOR SOME REASON.

They make this all look like a fun montage but it's actually horribly traumatizing for the couple who just HAD THEIR CHILD KIDNAPPED.

This is the second time we're at the North Pole, and it's the point where I realized almost all of this movie is just custody battles. There's literally 30 minutes total of Christmas imagery in this movie. It's like if The Squid and the Whale was a Christmas movie.

Oh and then KIDS WATCH SANTA GET ARRESTED.

But ex is happy now and she burns the custody papers which I guess is how law works now. Also in this scene Judge Reinhold believes in Santa and then doesn't believe and then goes back to believing again in a way that doesn't feel like it was done on purpose.

Then the SWAT team shows up and they have multiple sniper rifles and a helicopter ready for literally one man.

Then Charlie turns down Judge's offer to become a psychologist, looks at Santa Allen and says "I think I'm gonna go into the family business." which heavily implies he's gonna kill his dad.

Then ex and Judge finally get what they wanted for Christmas, which means I guess the old Santa never got anyone what they wanted? Or maybe they were naughty that year? I don't know.

So anyway that's The Santa Clause and my brain hurts and I'm sad now.

Again, if you genuinely love this movie, that's wonderful.

For me it's occasionally unintentionally funny, but mostly just frustrating. I don't like it at all, but I'm not gonna say I regret watching it. After all, it got me to write something again.