Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick, and we're out this week,
Speaker 2: so we're bringing you an episode from the Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema vault. This rewind is our feature on Santa Claus
Speaker 2: Conquers the Martians seasonally appropriate. This originally aired December sixteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. It's a classic. What can I say?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this and Santa Claus from nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: nine that we just featured on Weird House Cinema are
Speaker 1: clearly like the two main psychotronic holiday films that set
Speaker 1: the bar for all other weird Christmas movies.
Speaker 2: Let's get right to that DROPO.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: When it comes to holiday movies that can be classified
Speaker 1: as weird or bad or psychotronic, or whatever descriptor you choose,
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty four films Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,
Speaker 1: I'm going to probably refer back to it incorrectly as
Speaker 1: Santa Claus versus the Martians, but it is Santa Claus
Speaker 1: conquers the Martians. This is a film that just really
Speaker 1: stands out. Even if you strip away the holiday aspects
Speaker 1: of the movie, it's still one of the weirder and
Speaker 1: we when entertainingly weird films you could dig up from
Speaker 1: the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: I think that they should have kept the ending a
Speaker 2: little bit more of a cliffhanger, like they tell you
Speaker 2: the end in the title.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know kids are watching. You don't want
Speaker 1: them to be in distress over what's going to occur, but.
Speaker 2: Well, oh yeah. Otherwise the kids would be worried that
Speaker 2: Voldar actually does murder Santa Claus in the airlock of
Speaker 2: the spaceship.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh. Also, I think Conquers is a little misleading. It
Speaker 1: brings to mind a certain image of Santa bringing the
Speaker 1: people of Mars under his heel and proclaiming Mars to
Speaker 1: be the domain of Santa. It doesn't really work like that.
Speaker 1: I guess it's more of a like a spiritual conquering.
Speaker 2: He conquers a certain Martian mindset. He conquers the mindset
Speaker 2: of the Martian who wants all of life to be
Speaker 2: serious and violent and adult.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is a really fun film. I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to discussing it here. And really, I guess the other
Speaker 1: exciting thing about it is like it's a film that's
Speaker 1: so weird and so amusing that I believe it's come
Speaker 1: up numerous times on Weird House and stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind before, like anytime we've been talking about Santa Claus,
Speaker 1: but also sometimes just when we're talking about science fiction films.
Speaker 1: There's a particular set in this movie that I believe
Speaker 1: I referenced when we were talking about Mario Baba's Planet
Speaker 1: of the Vampires.
Speaker 2: Oh, that makes sense, the craggy planet surface set, which
Speaker 2: I think they also be exactly the same as the
Speaker 2: North Pole set, except with the North Pole they covered
Speaker 2: it in snow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just got a flocking gun or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but either way, it's a strange landscape of kind
Speaker 2: of twisted topography where a little like spires and things
Speaker 2: poke up out of the ground right.
Speaker 1: Right, And we end up two with the classic spaceship
Speaker 1: landing legs set where you're not going to show the
Speaker 1: whole spaceship, but you can show the landing legs and
Speaker 1: have people climbing down from it. They didn't planet the
Speaker 1: vampires to great effect, and they do it here in
Speaker 1: an amusing way.
Speaker 2: I see the shared DNA.
Speaker 1: Yes, So yeah, this is a tremendously fun film. The
Speaker 1: premise is wild, and yet, as Michael Weldon points out
Speaker 1: in his review for the Psychotronic Encyclopedia film quote, the
Speaker 1: spirit of Christmas shines through. Because while choices of every
Speaker 1: sort can be called into question regarding this film, and
Speaker 1: certainly we'll discuss any of them, its commitment to a
Speaker 1: childlike wonderment for the holidays is just above reproach.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Yes, for my own part, I've been watching this film
Speaker 1: for years, at least as far back as whenever I
Speaker 1: first saw the nineteen ninety one episode of Mystery Science
Speaker 1: Theater three thousand. They of course famously riffed this movie.
Speaker 1: I think it was later riffed on Cinematic Titanic and
Speaker 1: then also on Rift tracks. So I've re visited this
Speaker 1: film via these episodes with friends and family, I guess,
Speaker 1: for decades at this point. But this isn't the only
Speaker 1: way to enjoy the film. Before Joel, when the bots
Speaker 1: came around, plenty of people were enjoying the heck out
Speaker 1: of Santa Claus Concress the Martians. In fact, I once
Speaker 1: went into a furniture store in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and what were they playing on like multiple televisions during
Speaker 1: the holidays. It was Santa Claus Concress the Martians. I
Speaker 1: asked the owner. It's like, Oh, did you learn about
Speaker 1: the CNMs teams? Like, oh, no, this is just the
Speaker 1: movie we watch every year. What's MST So I always
Speaker 1: enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's interesting. It seems like whenever I go into
Speaker 2: a place of business that has a TV on, it's
Speaker 2: just news, or it's like local news, that's always just
Speaker 2: a segment showing like a body outline drawn on the ground,
Speaker 2: or like or it's Fox News or something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, in this case, it was Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Speaker 1: And I don't go into a lot of furniture shops,
Speaker 1: So this is the memory I choose to keep of
Speaker 1: what it's like inside one. So this year I watched
Speaker 1: it with my wife and my son. We had a
Speaker 1: great time. My son insisted that we do the unriffed
Speaker 1: version of it, which I was happy to oblig John,
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of fun. My son enjoyed
Speaker 1: the goofness of it all, but also enjoyed questioning the
Speaker 1: logic of its many plot choices. But he's also a
Speaker 1: real Christmas kid at this point, just really gung ho
Speaker 1: for Christmas, and so he really dug all the holiday
Speaker 1: vibes as well.
Speaker 2: I could not help but compare this movie to the
Speaker 2: other main Christmas movie that was covered on Mystery Science Theater,
Speaker 2: which is the nineteen fifty nine Renee Cardone Junior Mexican
Speaker 2: film Santa Claus, also known I think as Santa Claus
Speaker 2: versus the Devil. Yes, and several differences stand out. They're
Speaker 2: both fantastically entertaining in their own ways, but one of
Speaker 2: the things that really stood out as a difference is
Speaker 2: that the Mexican film emphasizes that the spirit of Christmas
Speaker 2: is love and appreciation for family and selflessness and charity.
Speaker 2: Like the strong moral themes in the fifty nine Mexican
Speaker 2: Santa Claus, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is very much
Speaker 2: more that the spirit of Christmas is fun and it
Speaker 2: is about laughter and toys, and that the real threat.
Speaker 2: So the villain in the fifty nine Santa Claus is
Speaker 2: the devil, because, of course, the devil opposes charity and
Speaker 2: goodwill and love and all those moral values, whereas in
Speaker 2: this movie the villain is someone who opposes nuisances, who
Speaker 2: opposes noise and laughter and silliness.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the devil wouldn't really have a place in
Speaker 1: this movie because the devil would just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm fine, nobody ever accuses me of not being fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it is interesting to compare those two. Of course,
Speaker 1: both Santa VI Martians and Santa V Devil are important
Speaker 1: legal precedents for our celebration of the holidays, and one
Speaker 1: is Yeah, one is more theological than the other, but
Speaker 1: both raise a lot of questions. You know, what does
Speaker 1: it mean when you have your Santa Mythos and now
Speaker 1: the devil is involved? What does it mean when now
Speaker 1: interplanetary conflict is involved.
Speaker 2: They both also have a surprising number of science fiction gadgets.
Speaker 2: Santa Claus conquers the Martians has everything from the freeze
Speaker 2: gun to the tickle wand and all other manner of
Speaker 2: things in between we'll talk about when we get into
Speaker 2: the plot. Whereas the fifty nine Santa Claus has the
Speaker 2: flower or to disappear and it has those like lips
Speaker 2: on a tentacle or whatever that poke out of Santa
Speaker 2: Claus's hideout in space.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love when a Christmas movie is not afraid
Speaker 1: to get invented and come up with new twists and turns.
Speaker 1: Even if it's terrible, it's a lot of fun. Like
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of that Dudley Moore John Lithgow movie Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see this one?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: Oh, I haven't seen it since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: But even as a kid, I could tell this movie
Speaker 1: was bad but also a lot of fun. It had
Speaker 1: to do with something about candy canes that if you
Speaker 1: ate them, it would make you fly. And that's about
Speaker 1: the only thing I remember. And John Lyth Coow is
Speaker 1: an evil corporate enemy of Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: Nice, I don't.
Speaker 1: Remember how dudly. I Thinkdudley Moore is an elf. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure.
Speaker 2: Before you said evil corporate, I was trying to imagine
Speaker 2: what it could be, and I thought of John Lithgow
Speaker 2: in his Buckaroo Bond's Eye role versus Santa Claus. Now
Speaker 2: that would be good, Santa Claus versus the I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, the John Smallberry's whatever you called them in
Speaker 2: that movie.
Speaker 1: By the way, speaking of Santa Claus, the the Devil. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you are Atlanta based, I believe what is it?
Speaker 1: Next week Video Drome and the Plaza Theater are going
Speaker 1: to have that on the big screen. Thumbs up. All right,
Speaker 1: So what's the elevator pitch for this movie? Well? I
Speaker 1: think it basically comes down to Santa Claus becoming a
Speaker 1: central figure in an interplanetary conflict.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should hear some trailer audio.
Speaker 6: Santa Claus conquers the Martians, shut up a fantastic automatic
Speaker 6: point factory on Mars. Well Marsh and a the Wicked
Speaker 6: bode are in a desperate effort to save set up
Speaker 6: a wise Man of Mars nine hundred years old. The
Speaker 6: battles are the toys. When Martian kids and Earth kids
Speaker 6: join set up to battle the bad guys of Mars
Speaker 6: for real space age fun, you will be out of
Speaker 6: this world when Santa Claus conquers the Martians.
Speaker 1: All right, sounds pretty fun, right? It sounds like all
Speaker 1: you kids should just pile into the theater for this one.
Speaker 1: Get out of the cold. It's time for some cheer.
Speaker 2: I did not listen to the trailer. Does it sing
Speaker 2: the song?
Speaker 1: No, it does not. It has some other jaunty, kind
Speaker 1: of dancy track going on in the background. But I
Speaker 1: don't believe this is the theme song. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess we could play a little bit of the theme song,
Speaker 1: or we could just sing it. I was actually you can,
Speaker 1: you can stream it like on Spotify and stuff. So
Speaker 1: I was playing it this morning in the car, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like, hooray for Santi clause s A N
Speaker 1: T A C l A U s Horay for santi clause.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll hear that a number of times. What do
Speaker 2: they say? He's he's round and fat, but jumping jimminy.
Speaker 2: He can fit down any chimney, which becomes a plot
Speaker 2: point in the film. It's how Santa escapes certain death
Speaker 2: in space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if there's a ventilation system, he's a master of it.
Speaker 1: He finds some fun ways to use the existing mythology
Speaker 1: of Santa here.
Speaker 2: I would say this song sounds like a mix between
Speaker 2: It's like half something that would be on Sergeant Pepper
Speaker 2: and then half. If you've ever heard that most unwonted
Speaker 2: song created by that like Russian art duo. That's, you know,
Speaker 2: combining children's choirs singing about holidays in Walmart with opera
Speaker 2: rapping and cowboy music.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I have heard that, and the comparison is
Speaker 1: not altogether unfair.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like this track. I've had it stuck in my
Speaker 1: head the last couple of days since I rewatched the movie.
Speaker 1: It has that trumpet part that like really wild, chassy
Speaker 1: trumpet part.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe that's why I was thinking of that song too,
Speaker 2: because the trumpet part, I guess, kind of reminded me
Speaker 2: of like the tuba riff in The Most Unwanted Song.
Speaker 1: It'll push the boundaries of your tolerance for crazy trumpet solos.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't seen Santa Claus Conchers the Martians, obviously,
Speaker 1: I highly I encourage you to do.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: It's pretty widely available. When I went to stream it
Speaker 1: on Prime, there were multiple options, one of which was
Speaker 1: included in Prime. So I think I don't know what
Speaker 1: the rights issue is with this film, but there seem
Speaker 1: to be so many ways to view it. There is
Speaker 1: even a at least one DVD release of it. It's
Speaker 1: labeled as remastered, so that might be worth looking into.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know if I could handle this in
Speaker 2: High Death. A lot of the designs in this movie
Speaker 2: are kind of on the cheap side, but also pretty
Speaker 2: enjoyable to look at. But one thing that was not
Speaker 2: enjoyable to look at was any close up on the
Speaker 2: Martians faces with their green makeup, which just looked like
Speaker 2: filth or sometimes. I was watching it with Rachel and
Speaker 2: she compared it to She said, they look like Charlie
Speaker 2: Sheen and Platoon when he's got like the green Camo
Speaker 2: makeup on his face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can you can tell that, as is
Speaker 1: often the case with any film that inquires car's makeup
Speaker 1: like this, it kind of varies depending on the shot
Speaker 1: how well it's applied. And my son was picking up
Speaker 1: on this. He's like, why is his neck not green
Speaker 1: in this one? Or or later on just kind of
Speaker 1: commenting on the quality of it, like, Okay, looks pretty
Speaker 1: good in this scene, looks pretty good here.
Speaker 2: But always looks kind of greasy. Like I was just
Speaker 2: thinking about these actors. I was like, man, after they're
Speaker 2: done filming for the day, I bet they're really looking
Speaker 2: forward to a shower.
Speaker 1: Yes, speaking of the actors. Yeah, as we get into
Speaker 1: the people of note here basically the case with this film.
Speaker 1: And you know we're not a hardcore film history podcast here,
Speaker 1: but the basic scenario seems to be you had some
Speaker 1: TV filmmakers and producers. They decided to make the greatest
Speaker 1: Santa movie of all time and they turned I believe
Speaker 1: this was made in New Jersey, and they turned a
Speaker 1: Broadway for their talent. So a great many, if not all,
Speaker 1: of the main actors in this film are sourced from
Speaker 1: the Broadway scene of the day. So in looking everybody up,
Speaker 1: actually had to go to the Internet Broadway database a
Speaker 1: little bit to do a little research on on who
Speaker 1: these individuals were. All Right, well, let's start at the top.
Speaker 1: The director was Nicholas Webster, who lived nineteen twelve through
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, mostly a TV director, and after
Speaker 1: this he went on to work on episodes of such
Speaker 1: shows as Bonanza, Get Smart, The Immortal Mannix, and In
Speaker 1: Search Off, particularly the episodes on Bigfoot, The Power of
Speaker 1: London Murders, and Eva Braun huh okay. He also wrote
Speaker 1: four episodes of In Search Of For those of you
Speaker 1: who are not familiar, this was Leonard Demoy hosted basically
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory show of the day that I think
Speaker 1: was perhaps well intended, but also helped to further promote
Speaker 1: some ideas such as ancient aliens and so forth. And
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, they would show reruns of
Speaker 1: this on A and E and that's how I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with it. But he wrote some of the episodes, and
Speaker 1: he also wrote and directed the Bigfoot documentary The Man
Speaker 1: Beast exclamation Point, Myth or Monster question Mark from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Was it a documentary or like a fictional documentary?
Speaker 1: Well, the title would lead me to believe there's at
Speaker 1: least a hefty dash of fiction in there.
Speaker 2: Oh well, no, no, no, I meant like a mockumentary. I
Speaker 2: guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: Given his connection to In Search of I suspect it's
Speaker 1: leaning more into the longing for Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: Well, who can blame him? And I hope Nicholas Webster
Speaker 2: here cast the same actor to wear a Bigfoot suit
Speaker 2: that he casts to wear a robot suit in this movie,
Speaker 2: I hope.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: Now, for as far as the writing on this movie goes,
Speaker 1: there's a screenplay credit for Glenville Merrith and it's based
Speaker 1: on a story by the producer Paul L. Jacobson, who
Speaker 1: died in twenty fifteen. These are the only credits I
Speaker 1: could come across for either of these individuals as far
Speaker 1: as writing goes. So yeah, they're the scrip vibes we
Speaker 1: have to thank for this wild idea.
Speaker 2: I'd say, just in terms of acting talent, I think
Speaker 2: probably the people with the most star power in this cast,
Speaker 2: I would say are the guy playing Santa Claus and
Speaker 2: the guy playing Voldar the villain.
Speaker 1: M Yes, So, Santa Claus is played by John Call.
Speaker 1: John Call lived nineteen oh eight through nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: and he was active in films from nineteen fifty one
Speaker 1: through nineteen seventy one. That's when his last film was released,
Speaker 1: The and Anderson Tapes. This was directed by Sidney Lumet
Speaker 1: and it starred Sean Connery and Christopher Walken. But this
Speaker 1: is just a bit part for Big John Call. This
Speaker 1: was he played O'Leary, the doorman. Like many of the
Speaker 1: cast members here, he had a Broadway career and, among
Speaker 1: other roles, played doctor Grimwig in a nineteen sixty three
Speaker 1: through sixty four production of Oliver the musical and yeah,
Speaker 1: in this he is one of the highlights of the film.
Speaker 1: He's this he's kind of hard to describe because he's
Speaker 1: deafly Santa, but he's like slightly over jolly. He tells
Speaker 1: bad jokes all the time. He almost comes off a
Speaker 1: little intoxicated.
Speaker 2: He's slightly mischievous. This is Santo with a with a
Speaker 2: twinkle in his eye of a different kind than you
Speaker 2: might imagine. Like he makes some jokes at other people's expenses,
Speaker 2: even though he's the nice guy of the movie. And
Speaker 2: he also there's a thing he does in several scenes
Speaker 2: where he just laughs at someone like a maniac until
Speaker 2: they are forced to start laughing with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he invented laughter yoga basically. But yeah, he is
Speaker 1: overflowing with holiday cheer here. It's just it's just infectious
Speaker 1: and perhaps a little dangerous. All right, let's get into
Speaker 1: some of the other kid. We're gonna talk about a
Speaker 1: couple of Martians here, and Joe, you made some discoveries
Speaker 1: about the naming of the Martians.
Speaker 2: Oh well, so several of the like the main Martian family,
Speaker 2: their names all end in the word mar and the
Speaker 2: first half of their names corus Onto what role they
Speaker 2: have in the family. So you have the leader of
Speaker 2: the Martians, Key Mar, which I saw suggested on the
Speaker 2: Internet that is short for King of Mars, which makes
Speaker 2: sense Ki and Aar. And then his wife, who is
Speaker 2: the mother of their children, is called Momar, so I
Speaker 2: guess she's like mother Mars. And then the children are
Speaker 2: Bo Maar and Germr like boy Mars and Girl Mars.
Speaker 2: It doesn't exactly sound great. It's I think they could
Speaker 2: have come up with better, but that's what we're left with.
Speaker 1: Okay, I like that. This is I've got some new
Speaker 1: insight now, all right. So yeah, starting with the father,
Speaker 1: this is the father knows best of the Martian clan here,
Speaker 1: Key Maar, played by Leonard Hicks, who have nineteen eighteen
Speaker 1: through nineteen seventy one. And I think I've looked into
Speaker 1: his biography before, because, like I say, I've been watching
Speaker 1: this movie for so long now. This is the most
Speaker 1: prominent of only three screen credits that he has, and
Speaker 1: he only has three credits on the Internet Broadway data base,
Speaker 1: which of course doesn't mean he wasn't active elsewhere on
Speaker 1: the stage. According to his oh bit in The New
Speaker 1: York Times, he appeared in productions at the Sharon Playhouse,
Speaker 1: the Living Theater, and the New York Shakespeare Festival. He
Speaker 1: had a real presence in this film. I feel like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is kind of stern yet loving martian dad knows best.
Speaker 1: Seems like this is a guy that would have been
Speaker 1: a natural cowboy actor of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is very stern, very serious, but not cruel
Speaker 2: like the next guy we're going to talk about. He's
Speaker 2: kind of a green eagle of a man.
Speaker 1: Yes, Voldar. Do you think that v is like villain?
Speaker 1: Is that where we're getting this?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, villain? Yeah, yeah, Voldar is the bad guy
Speaker 2: of the movie.
Speaker 1: Voldar this very tough looking Martian with this amazing mustache.
Speaker 1: Played by Vincent Beck, who lived nineteen twenty four through
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Another Broadway actor who worked in a
Speaker 1: lot of film and television as a character actor, often
Speaker 1: playing heavy Unsurprisingly, he had notable roles in seventy nine's
Speaker 1: and Justice for All as a cop and nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven's The Spy and the Green Hat. And he did
Speaker 1: a lot of TV work, popping up in bit parts
Speaker 1: on shows like Gilligan's Island, The man from Uncle Banan's
Speaker 1: Mister Ed, the Time Tunnel and the Monkeys. His final
Speaker 1: film was a nineteen eighty two William Lustig movie titled Vigilante,
Speaker 1: which seems to be in the death wish vein of
Speaker 1: cinema of that time period. But he plays a judge.
Speaker 2: In that was This movie also just called alternate title
Speaker 2: Street Gangs.
Speaker 1: It may have been. It's like I saw the basic
Speaker 1: pitch for it, and I'm like, this is not a
Speaker 1: movie I really want to know any more about. But yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of those had double names, so like, you know,
Speaker 1: let's release it again. It's more scandalous name. Please, let's
Speaker 1: touch into other areas of fear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Vincent Beck is fantastic in this role. He
Speaker 2: is one of my favorite actors in the movie. He's
Speaker 2: just relentlessly grim. He's got this d voice, muscular physique,
Speaker 2: this thick black mustache, and all he ever wants is
Speaker 2: seriousness and anger and war.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He is a terrific enemy of Christmas, Like such a
Speaker 1: terrific enemy of Christmas. He belongs in like the proper
Speaker 1: overarching pantheon of the Holidays, And oh man, can you
Speaker 1: imagine if voldar and Pitch the Devil ever teamed up
Speaker 1: to take on Santa Claus. I think they might pull
Speaker 1: it off.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they would work well together, because
Speaker 2: I believe Pitch would be too silly for Voldar. Like
Speaker 2: Pitch is engaging in exactly the mischief and antics and
Speaker 2: dancing about that, Voldar is expressly the most against the
Speaker 2: thing he doesn't want happening is children of Mars having
Speaker 2: fun and getting underfoot with their play.
Speaker 1: Now, when it comes to play on Mars, there is
Speaker 1: no greater violator of Voldar's sensibilities regarding Martian silliness than Dropo.
Speaker 2: He is a silly man.
Speaker 1: Drop Oh, and we'll talk a lot about Dropo here
Speaker 1: in a bit. His the silly marsh and he's the
Speaker 1: laziest man on Mars, played by the late great Bill McCutchen,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty four through two thousand and two. This,
Speaker 1: for me is one of the highlights of the film
Speaker 1: as well. Like this performance is just so silly it is,
Speaker 1: you know, you could compare it to I think you
Speaker 1: could easily compare it to the antics of say a
Speaker 1: Martin short in more recent cinematic history, like there's that
Speaker 1: level of goofy energy to it where there's no wasted motion.
Speaker 1: All the individual's energy is put into the performance.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Dropo is burning ten thousand calories an hour.
Speaker 2: He like, he never stops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a broadly comedic role. And yeah, he's
Speaker 1: just positively possessed with childlike wonder and childlike glee for Christmas.
Speaker 1: And this is This is Bill McCutchen, who is a
Speaker 1: highly accomplished character actor and also a Tony Award winner.
Speaker 1: He won a Tony Award for his role as Moonface
Speaker 1: Martin in the nineteen eighty eight revival of Anything Goes.
Speaker 2: Don't know anything about that.
Speaker 1: I don't know a lot about it either. I think
Speaker 1: it's I get the impression he's playing a gangster or
Speaker 1: something in it. I saw some photographs from the production.
Speaker 1: That's about it. We'll have to hear from our theater
Speaker 1: listeners out there if you have anything you'd like to
Speaker 1: add on these various musicals. I don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about musicals unless they have a monster or a murderer
Speaker 1: in them, in which case there's a good chance I've
Speaker 1: seen them. He was also nominated for an Emmy Award
Speaker 1: for playing Uncle Wally on Sesame Street. Do you remember
Speaker 1: Uncle Wally?
Speaker 2: Not explicitly, but when you showed me pictures, this kind
Speaker 2: of looks familiar, So I'm sure I saw him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think. He was also nominated for an Emmy
Speaker 1: for playing Young Joe on the TV movie That Forgotten
Speaker 1: Kennedy in nineteen seventy eight, and he also had some
Speaker 1: fairly big film roles. He played Shirley McLean's husband and
Speaker 1: Steele Magnolia's in nineteen eighty nine, and he was also
Speaker 1: so in nineteen nineties, Mister Destiny in nineteen eighty nine's
Speaker 1: Family Business. He also had a role in the Tales
Speaker 1: from the Dark Side episode A Case of the Stubborns,
Speaker 1: which also featured Christian Slater and Brent Spiner. Oh and
Speaker 1: this is crazy. According to his New York Times a bit,
Speaker 1: he served in the US Army during World War Two
Speaker 1: and received the purple Heart.
Speaker 2: Oh that's very DROPO. Seems more like a lover than
Speaker 2: a fighter. But I guess this was in his later years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Now moving on to Lady Momar, who
Speaker 1: you mentioned is the mom of the household, The stylish
Speaker 1: Lady of Mars, played by Leliah Martin born nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 1: She is a Broadway actor who is I believe still active.
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen fifties, she had roles in shows
Speaker 1: like Guys and Dolls and West Side Story. In the sixties,
Speaker 1: she was in Gypsy. At some point in the Phantom
Speaker 1: of the Operas thirty five years on Broadway. For anyone
Speaker 1: out there isn't aware like it's been running on Broadway
Speaker 1: in New York for ages and is just now like
Speaker 1: closing up shop. And I think they've had to extend
Speaker 1: their dates because of that, because everyone's like, whoa, you
Speaker 1: can't take Fantom away from us on Broadway, and so
Speaker 1: everybody's going back into see one last time. I have
Speaker 1: to say, I'm again not a big musical guy, but
Speaker 1: I've always liked Phantom of the Opera. I'm a little
Speaker 1: foggy on the details here, but she played the role
Speaker 1: of Madam Geary in that, though I don't know for
Speaker 1: how long, but apparently she was active enough that she
Speaker 1: was present for a twenty eighteen red carpet event for
Speaker 1: the thirtieth anniversary of the show. She has a few
Speaker 1: TV credits as well, and her film credits include nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one's Who Killed Mary What's Her Name? With Red
Speaker 1: Buttons and Sam Watterson, and her final film credit was
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six As God Told Me To, the fabulously
Speaker 1: weird Larry Cohen film that starred Tony Lobianca, Sandy Dennis,
Speaker 1: and Richard Lynch. She played Nurse Jackson in that. Wow,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of a Christmas movie. And oh, I
Speaker 1: don't recall it. I a Saint Patrick's dake.
Speaker 2: Have a kind of glowing like Richard Lynch is a
Speaker 2: glowing space Jesus who tells people to do crimes exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he does glow. He's very angelic. Oh, we
Speaker 1: have Santa Claus in this, but we also have Missus
Speaker 1: Clause played by Doris rich who of nineteen oh one
Speaker 1: through nineteen eighty. I've seen this credited as the first
Speaker 1: cinematic portrayal of Missus Claus, I think again. Primarily a
Speaker 1: Broadway actor or IBDB credit stretch from nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 1: through nineteen seventy two. All right, another actor of note again,
Speaker 1: another Broadway actor, Carl Donn plays two different roles in
Speaker 1: this film. He plays Chochum, the wise Hermit of Mars,
Speaker 1: and he also plays Professor von Green, which is a
Speaker 1: comedic Verner von Braun parody shows up at one point
Speaker 1: in the film.
Speaker 2: I think they call him Verner von Green. I heard
Speaker 2: Werner von Breen.
Speaker 1: M It could have been Yeah Green. Either way, it's
Speaker 1: very obvious bit of parody here. This is a guy
Speaker 1: who's active on Broadway from the nineteen forties through the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. His film credits include Stardust, Memories, and Ransom,
Speaker 1: mostly small parts and some TV work. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of Stooges that Voldar has working for him, and
Speaker 1: they're both terrific, but the more recognizable of the two
Speaker 1: is Shim, played by Joseph Elk, who lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: one through twenty nineteen. A very recognizable character actor, has
Speaker 1: a very recognizable face. His biggest role on screen is
Speaker 1: probably that of playing Bonscini in One Flew Over the
Speaker 1: Cuckoo's Nest. One Flews over the Cuckoo's Nest, of course
Speaker 1: frequently pops up. We're talking about connections in these movies
Speaker 1: because that is like a magnet for weird character actors
Speaker 1: of the day. This guy also did some TV where Can.
Speaker 1: He had roles and other films such as The Producers,
Speaker 1: The World's Greatest Lover, and Black Rain, the Ridley Scott
Speaker 1: movie that featured his final performance on screen, in which
Speaker 1: he played a bartender.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to remember which of Voldar's henchman he
Speaker 2: is here. Is he the smaller one or the bigger one?
Speaker 2: Is he the one that gets a clown nose put
Speaker 2: on his face?
Speaker 1: He's the bigger one that has a monologue about slinkies
Speaker 1: and how wonderful they are.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was wondering if that was paid product placement,
Speaker 2: but he does look directly into the camera and talk
Speaker 2: about how I don't know, maybe Christmas isn't so bad
Speaker 2: because the slinky is the most wonderful toy ever made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the bigger of the two with the slinky
Speaker 1: the other stooge. I'm not sure who he was exactly.
Speaker 1: Maybe he didn't have as big of a footprint and
Speaker 1: film or Broadway. But he is also terrific because I
Speaker 1: have never seen someone twitch and chew scenery so much.
Speaker 1: In the background, There'll be a scene where two other
Speaker 1: characters are talking and he's just oh, he's just twitching
Speaker 1: up a storm. Every muscle on his face is moving.
Speaker 1: It is a spectacle to behold.
Speaker 2: He looks like he bit his tongue off while filming
Speaker 2: this role.
Speaker 1: Anyway. But Joseph Ellach Yeah, did a lot of other work.
Speaker 1: He was even in two episodes of the original Twilight Zone,
Speaker 1: The Obsolete Man and One More Paul Beher. Oh, but
Speaker 1: there are kids in this movie. It is a kid's movie.
Speaker 1: Most of these kids didn't really appear in much else
Speaker 1: or anything else. Victor Styles plays Billy Foster, a human child.
Speaker 1: Donna Conforti plays Betty Foster, a human child. Chris Month
Speaker 1: plays Bomart, a Martian child. I think Month was in
Speaker 1: a couple of other very brief things like Ed Sullivan
Speaker 1: Show and so forth. But for the most part, these
Speaker 1: kids pop up in this show and you don't really
Speaker 1: find him elsewhere. But famously, the Martian child Germar is
Speaker 1: played by Pia Zadora born nineteen fifty four. As an adult,
Speaker 1: Zadora is known for her performances in such films as
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three is the Lonely Lady, nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: Voyage of the Rock Aliens, which looks pretty fascinating, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one's Butterfly and John Waters' Hairspray from nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: She also apparently had a musical career as well.
Speaker 2: Voyage of the Rock Aliens has a gnarly poster.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And finally, on the musical note, Milton Delugue did the
Speaker 1: music and lived nineteen eighteen through twenty fifteen. Composer and
Speaker 1: musical consultant who mostly worked in TV and TV specials.
Speaker 1: It looks like he had a long running musical consultant
Speaker 1: role for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, somehow I can see the main song here,
Speaker 2: the Santa Claus Conquers the Martians theme song. With the
Speaker 2: spelling of the name and everything being a parade song.
Speaker 1: It does have a kind of a marching feel to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And maybe that's our cue to jump into
Speaker 2: the plot breakdown, because of course the movie does begin
Speaker 2: and end with that song, the horns, the children's choirs
Speaker 2: singing the sa ntac la us hooray for Santi Clause.
Speaker 2: We get all the lyrics about jumpin' Jiminy he can
Speaker 2: climb down any chimney and so forth, and that segues
Speaker 2: into a news report. That kind of a strange way
Speaker 2: to begin the film. But we see a news anchor
Speaker 2: talking about how kid TV, so I guess this is
Speaker 2: a kid focused news channel has installed a TV crew
Speaker 2: at Santa's workshop and they're going to interview Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: They got the scoop on Santee clause. And then we
Speaker 2: pull back to see who's watching the TV. And of
Speaker 2: course you're expecting, I don't know, some Earth children, but no,
Speaker 2: it is green Martian children. And not only are they green,
Speaker 2: they're wearing green turtlenecks, they have green helmets, and they
Speaker 2: have green and tenne.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the same basic costume design we'll see
Speaker 1: with all the adult Martians as well. And it's always
Speaker 1: intrigued me because it's it's definitely a singular vision. But
Speaker 1: are the people of Mars just wearing high tech suits?
Speaker 1: Are are these like space suits? Or are they cybernetic?
Speaker 1: Are we to interpret things like their antenna array as
Speaker 1: being part of their body or part of their technology?
Speaker 2: This is a good question, and it's not really clarified
Speaker 2: by the movie much because, for example, there's the scene
Speaker 2: where the children first meet the Martians and they see
Speaker 2: the antennae and they say, are you a television set?
Speaker 2: And of course the Martians are not impressed by this question,
Speaker 2: but it implies that the antennae are part of the
Speaker 2: Martian even though they are clearly like made of metal
Speaker 2: and jutting out of the martians helmets. So it's almost
Speaker 2: that suggests that the helmet is like part of the
Speaker 2: Martian anatomy. But then again, it's clearly a helmet, like
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like it's fused to their flesh in
Speaker 2: any way. Anyway, coming back to the kid TV broadcast,
Speaker 2: we go to the to the anchor on the ground
Speaker 2: there who's standing outside covered in frost. He's He's like,
Speaker 2: we're here at the North Pole. It's very cold here.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go inside Santa's workshop and talk to Santa.
Speaker 2: So he goes in. We see elves working on toys.
Speaker 2: He approaches Santa Claus and they greet each other. The
Speaker 2: Santa Claus looks directly into the camera and talks about
Speaker 2: how he's excited for Christmas. And it's hard to describe
Speaker 2: how strange the vibes are in the scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it would be weird enough. I guess
Speaker 1: if you just had you're just the just the basic
Speaker 1: idea of a TV journalist coming in and chatting with
Speaker 1: Santa on the job. One question I had, like, is
Speaker 1: this an exclusive that they've grabbed here?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or is this like a constant flow of different international
Speaker 1: press representatives coming in. I wanted to get there five
Speaker 1: minutes with Santa Claus get some footage of the toys
Speaker 1: being assembled.
Speaker 2: Well, the newscaster has all kinds of ridiculous questions for
Speaker 2: Santa's such as, is Santa going to be traveling by
Speaker 2: rockheat this year? And Santa says, no, balderdash. He's gonna
Speaker 2: do it the old fashioned way with the sleigh and
Speaker 2: the reindeer. And he starts manically reciting their names, and
Speaker 2: he getting them some of them wrong, like he's on
Speaker 2: Donner and Blixen and Vixen and Nixon. But then he
Speaker 2: sort of catches himself, but he points right at the camera.
Speaker 2: He goes, but the kids know their names, and it
Speaker 2: has exactly the energy of a wrestling promo. It's like
Speaker 2: Scott Steiner talking to the camera.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it absolutely does. I'm not sure that this
Speaker 1: style of pro wrestling promo existed yet in the early
Speaker 1: to mid sixties, but it really feels like Santa is
Speaker 1: cutting a nineteen nineties wrestling promo here, complete with gesturing
Speaker 1: to the camera acknowledging the power of the intended audience
Speaker 1: or the fans, the kids in this case, and so forth.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: We almost get a Rick Flair woo in there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then missus kl wanders on. She sort of flirts
Speaker 2: with the reporter and then belatedly realizes she's on TV,
Speaker 2: and she's a very missus. Claws is played as very
Speaker 2: annoyingly over talkative, and Santa even jokes about this later
Speaker 2: when she gets frozen with a Martian freeze gun and
Speaker 2: he's like, I've never heard her this quiet before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's being abducted by Martians later on and his
Speaker 1: wife is frozen, but he takes just a quick moment
Speaker 1: to mock her for not being able to talk.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, the missus is always chattering away. But so
Speaker 2: Santa and the reporter go to check in with the
Speaker 2: Elves who are working on toys, and they're making toy
Speaker 2: trains and everything. One is making a toy rocket that
Speaker 2: runs on real rocket fuel. That's what they say. I
Speaker 2: think he says real rocket fuel. But then Also, they
Speaker 2: pick up another toy from the table, which is a
Speaker 2: green little doll, and they're like, why what is this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're told that Winki has invented it, that
Speaker 1: it's his idea of a marsh. So we introduce an
Speaker 1: idea here that is touched on a couple of times
Speaker 1: in the movie, and I really went wild thinking about
Speaker 1: this time. Winki clearly has the gift of prophecy. He
Speaker 1: can divine the future through his toy creations. I assume that,
Speaker 1: like maybe his dreams or just the pure act of creation,
Speaker 1: he is able to realize the form of the beings
Speaker 1: from another world that are about to arrive on Earth
Speaker 1: and throw everything into chaos.
Speaker 2: Yes, Winki has the gift. Anyway, enough of Earth, we
Speaker 2: should cut down to Mars to meet our Martian characters
Speaker 2: and get some flavor of Martian life. So we jump
Speaker 2: into the house of what appears to be the royal
Speaker 2: family of Mars. Again. This is Key Mar, you know,
Speaker 2: the King Martian. He's the very serious and stern daddy.
Speaker 2: There is Momar the mom Martian, Germar the girl Martian,
Speaker 2: and Bomar the boy Martian. Do Germar and Bomar have
Speaker 2: any individual charactercteristics, not really that I could detect, but
Speaker 2: you know who does have a personality, Dropo, who also
Speaker 2: lives in this house because I think he is Key
Speaker 2: Maar's like personal manservant or butler or something. He lives
Speaker 2: in the house and he's just this silly bozo whose
Speaker 2: main activities are falling asleep when he's not supposed to
Speaker 2: and dancing around and acting goofy while surrounded by deadly
Speaker 2: serious Green Martians.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dropo is just a real treat. And one of
Speaker 1: these early scenes who were encountering what's he doing? He's
Speaker 1: sleeping on the job.
Speaker 2: Right, He's like sleeping under the coffee table. There's all
Speaker 2: this mod furniture everywhere, very much the same spirit as
Speaker 2: the Jetsons. For some reason, this movie says, yes, mod
Speaker 2: furniture that is what indicates aliens and the future.
Speaker 1: It looks pretty good. I mean I certainly the version
Speaker 1: I watched that this was not remastered or anything, but
Speaker 1: a lot of effort went into these sets anyway.
Speaker 2: So Keemar finds Dropo sleeping and how does he wake
Speaker 2: him up? Well, he wakes him up with the tickle ray.
Speaker 2: It is a baton that tickles instantly at a distance,
Speaker 2: and Dropo begs him to stop, but also clearly seems
Speaker 2: like he's kind of into it, like he likes the
Speaker 2: tickle ray.
Speaker 1: The mere fact that this invention exists on Mars seems
Speaker 1: to back up Voldar's we used to be a planet
Speaker 1: of war criticism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like, shouldn't this be a like a stun
Speaker 2: gun or something if the Martians are really as evil
Speaker 2: and warlike as they claim?
Speaker 1: Yeah, now they're just tickle guns. We used to have
Speaker 1: stun guns.
Speaker 2: So Keymar says, Dropo, you're the laziest man on Mars.
Speaker 2: Why are you always sleeping during working hours? And Dropo
Speaker 2: makes a bunch of excuses. He says he forgot how
Speaker 2: to sleep, so he was just practicing. Keemar wants to
Speaker 2: know where Lady Momar is and Dropo says she went
Speaker 2: to the food pill center to get some food pills.
Speaker 2: Here we set up what will be a repeated object
Speaker 2: of comedy in the movie. The Martians don't eat food,
Speaker 2: They eat food pills. So Santo, when observing this, like,
Speaker 2: somebody offers him some chocolate ice cream pills and he says, well,
Speaker 2: if you've got a headache, do you eat regular chocolate
Speaker 2: ice cream, and this is tremendously funny, I guess. But
Speaker 2: there are a bunch of Martian inventions that occur throughout
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's the sleep spray, which you use on the
Speaker 1: children to make them sleep. I guess this is kind
Speaker 1: of appearance dream. Yeah. Oh, and also one of the
Speaker 1: things I think we touched this already, Like the children
Speaker 1: of Mars, you know, they don't have fun. They just
Speaker 1: basically sit around and they become adults really quickly. They
Speaker 1: learn via some sort of tele learning device that like
Speaker 1: is described as putting the knowledge directly into their brains,
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, downloading the information into their brains.
Speaker 1: But when we see this in action, it looks a
Speaker 1: heck of a lot like they're just listening to podcasts.
Speaker 1: It looks like like a scene I might find if
Speaker 1: I walk in and my son is laying on his
Speaker 1: bed listening to a podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just audio talking at them, and sometimes they
Speaker 2: talk back to it, I guess. But these are the
Speaker 2: information machines that they use to educate their children. But
Speaker 2: here we learn of what you've just alluded to the
Speaker 2: inciting situation of the film, which is that the children
Speaker 2: of Keemar are not eating or sleeping lately. They have
Speaker 2: no appetite, they don't want to go to bed. You
Speaker 2: have to sleep spray them in order to get them
Speaker 2: to lie down. And it's because they sit in front
Speaker 2: of that television set watching those ridiculous programs broadcast from
Speaker 2: Earth all day. Now, this made me wonder, what do
Speaker 2: they watch when they're not watching Santa being interviewed on
Speaker 2: sixty minutes?
Speaker 1: Just anything, I guess. But I think this is exactly
Speaker 1: what children of my generation were like, And I assume
Speaker 1: this is what children watching television were like in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties as well. If it was on, you watched
Speaker 1: it until there was just the test pattern after the
Speaker 1: DVA station went off the air. You know, very very
Speaker 1: much a mad of a teacher, mother's secret lover.
Speaker 2: Oh it's Saturday afternoon. Is this River of Death starring
Speaker 2: Michael Dudikov on TNT? I guess that's what I'm watching.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's on, you're watching it.
Speaker 2: But the children actors, they do a good job of
Speaker 2: wearing absolutely blank, almost catatonic expressions while watching this horrible
Speaker 2: Earth TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've seen children with these exact expressions watching television,
Speaker 1: So this is dead on right here.
Speaker 2: So they're watching Santa Claus talking about the toys he's making,
Speaker 2: and the kids are talking to each other while Keymar
Speaker 2: is watching from behind. Germar says, Bomar, what is a doll?
Speaker 2: And Bomar says, I don't know, Germar. So Momar comes
Speaker 2: home and she and Keemar discuss the problem. Across the
Speaker 2: entire planet, children are behaving strangely. They don't want to eat,
Speaker 2: they don't want to sleep. All they want is to
Speaker 2: watch Santa on TV and talk about earth, toys, dolls, bats,
Speaker 2: everything like that. Something is wrong with them, and Momar
Speaker 2: has a suggestion. Keemar has to figure out what's wrong,
Speaker 2: and to do that he must go to the forest
Speaker 2: and consult the wisdom of Chochin, the ancient one.
Speaker 1: Oh Chochin's Great.
Speaker 2: So Keemar pokes his belt buckle and uses that as
Speaker 2: kind of a belt buckle cell phone to call all
Speaker 2: of the chiefs of the Mars Council, which I believe
Speaker 2: are Hargo, Rigna, Lomas, and finally Voldar. Voldar takes a
Speaker 2: minute to answer the belt phone, and I think that's
Speaker 2: foreshadowing for his character. And so Keimar says, meet me
Speaker 2: in the forest. We're going to consult Chochim. Chochim rocks.
Speaker 2: We're going to get to him in a second, but
Speaker 2: first we have to learn a bit about the politics
Speaker 2: of the Mars Council. The other chiefs, they're just kind
Speaker 2: of sheep. They go along with whatever Keymar says. But
Speaker 2: before kimar arrives, Voldar is there, and he's obviously the
Speaker 2: bully boy of the group. He's got this deep voice,
Speaker 2: the thick black mustache, the muscular physique under the green tights,
Speaker 2: and he instantly starts undermining Keymar. To all the other chiefs,
Speaker 2: he's you know, why do we have to listen to him?
Speaker 2: And why do we have to consult this doddering old
Speaker 2: man they're referring to Chochim.
Speaker 1: Now they go to the forest, and of course, when
Speaker 1: you think about fantastically realized alien forest ecosystems and cinema,
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly you think of Avatar, but then you
Speaker 1: also think of Santa Claus conquers the marsh. Just such
Speaker 1: a vivid living system they've they've created here.
Speaker 2: It's kind of some some fake tree trunks with with
Speaker 2: like Halloween fake cobwebs thrown over them.
Speaker 1: M m yeah, a little bit of a little bit
Speaker 1: of fog back there for sure.
Speaker 2: Now, when Voldar is undermining Chochim, one of the other
Speaker 2: chiefs says, Chochim is eight hundred years old. We can't
Speaker 2: reject the wisdom of centuries and Voldar's as I can.
Speaker 2: So keemar arrives. They summoned Choachim from the ether. They like,
Speaker 2: call out, Chochim, where are you? And he sort of
Speaker 2: pops into a corporeality out of a column of smoke.
Speaker 2: And I want this frame where we firs see Chochim
Speaker 2: sitting there on his throne in the Mars forest. I
Speaker 2: want that as the cover of my upcoming doom metal album.
Speaker 2: It's so good.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a real cosmic wizard vibe here with
Speaker 1: his staff and his beard. They're saturn visible in the background. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jochum is amazing. And I have to highly recommend any
Speaker 1: folks out there who've only seen the Mystery Science Theater
Speaker 1: three thousand cut of this film, as fun as that is,
Speaker 1: you need to watch another cut of it, either one
Speaker 1: of the other riffs, or of course the full pristine
Speaker 1: Santa Claus conquers the Martians. If you want the extended
Speaker 1: full Chochum monologue that we're about to describe here.
Speaker 2: So Chochim hears them describe the problem. You know, the
Speaker 2: kids aren't doing what they're supposed to do. And so
Speaker 2: he realizes, wait a minute, So they're watching Earth's TV.
Speaker 2: He says, it's early December on the planet Earth, the
Speaker 2: time of Christmas. He says, it is an occasion of
Speaker 2: joy and peace on the planet Earth, the whole planet,
Speaker 2: that's what he says. And for children, it is also
Speaker 2: a time of anticipation as they await the arrival of
Speaker 2: Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: They await the arrival of Santa Claus. That's kind of
Speaker 1: the voice he has the whole time.
Speaker 2: It's so good. Yes it is. Oh and one point
Speaker 2: he asks what month is it, I think, and they say,
Speaker 2: well it is Septober. Yes, he says, no, not Mars
Speaker 2: months on Earth?
Speaker 1: Is that before Smarch? I can't remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the problem, Chochim explains, is that the children
Speaker 2: of Mars they never get to have a childhood. They
Speaker 2: don't play, they never have fun. They're just hooked up
Speaker 2: to these information machines. From the time they're born and
Speaker 2: by the time they can walk, they're already boring adults
Speaker 2: who are dead inside. And now they are rebelling against this.
Speaker 2: And the only way to fix it we need a
Speaker 2: Santa Claus on.
Speaker 1: Mars sensible solution. I couldn't help, but wonder does this
Speaker 1: somehow reflect actual concerns about children of the early to
Speaker 1: mid nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: Were they being hooked up to information machine?
Speaker 1: Oh? But I wonder if there was some concern learn
Speaker 1: about like maybe it was kind of reflective on you know,
Speaker 1: maybe for the like the post war generation or for
Speaker 1: the generation that grew up through the Second World War.
Speaker 1: Maybe this was like a worry they had, Like like
Speaker 1: maybe they were they were reflecting and thinking, well, there
Speaker 1: were aspects of our childhood we didn't get to have.
Speaker 1: I hope that our children get to have more of
Speaker 1: a childhood than we had, or something to that effect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe, uh yeah, I wonder. Anyway, Chochin explodes, He
Speaker 2: sort of disappears in a puff of smoke, and then
Speaker 2: Keemar agrees, He's like, yep, we're going to bring Santa
Speaker 2: Claus to Mars. Now, Voldar disagrees, he does not want
Speaker 2: the children of Mars to have fun, because if they
Speaker 2: start laughing and playing and running underfoot, they will become
Speaker 2: a nuisance. But he is overruled and the Martians will
Speaker 2: kidnap Santa Claus. So they get in their spaceship travel
Speaker 2: to Earth and they start scoping out the planet. Pretty quickly,
Speaker 2: they find Santa Claus in front of a department store.
Speaker 2: But wait a minute, here's an other one on the
Speaker 2: street corner. There are too many Santas. This could have
Speaker 2: been a movie in itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is my favorite what if moment of the
Speaker 1: whole film, because I can imagine a scenario where they're like, well,
Speaker 1: look at all these Santas. I guess they're all Santas,
Speaker 1: and we need to have the right number of Santas
Speaker 1: for cheer. Let's round all of them up. Or perhaps
Speaker 1: they think, well, we've got to round them all up
Speaker 1: to be sure, so let's go harvest all of earth
Speaker 1: Santas and then we'll sort out which one is the
Speaker 1: true Santa. Or what if they were just kind of
Speaker 1: lazy about it and they're like, oh, the first one
Speaker 1: will do, let's just get him, and they end up
Speaker 1: just getting a random mall Santa who's then brought to
Speaker 1: Mars and is expected to deliver on all of this
Speaker 1: Christmas cheer.
Speaker 2: I like the getting all of them idea, because then
Speaker 2: you could imagine like a Martian prison full of tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of Santas and they have to like storm
Speaker 2: the prison walls. They do a Martian prison break as
Speaker 2: an army of Santa's.
Speaker 1: Oh, that would be amazing. I mean, all these ideas
Speaker 1: are great. I know they've been tall in the past
Speaker 1: of a serious revival of this film or remake of
Speaker 1: this film. I think I want to say, at one
Speaker 1: point Tim Burton even expressed an interest in it, and
Speaker 1: I mean, for the most part, yeah, you can't recapture
Speaker 1: this magic, but I don't know, if you had the
Speaker 1: right creative spirit behind it, kind of like a classic
Speaker 1: Tim Burton spirit to it, you might be able to
Speaker 1: do something. And maybe you could draw it out a
Speaker 1: little bit by exploring some of these other possible scenarios.
Speaker 2: So instead, the Martians say, we got to figure out
Speaker 2: which is the real Santa. What do we need to do?
Speaker 2: Probably kidnaps some earth children and force them to reveal
Speaker 2: Santa's true location. But why would they assume they would know.
Speaker 2: I don't know anyway. Here we meet Billy and Betty,
Speaker 2: who are our earth children for the movie. I don't
Speaker 2: know where they're supposed to be at the beginning, it
Speaker 2: looks like a kind of barren landscape. They're like leaning
Speaker 2: against a dead tree, talking about whether or not they
Speaker 2: believe in Martians, and then the Martians just come up
Speaker 2: on them. They say like, hey, what's up. And one
Speaker 2: of the kids asks, hey, what are those funny things
Speaker 2: on your heads? And Keymar says those are our antenna
Speaker 2: and they ask, are you a television set? This is
Speaker 2: what we alluded to earlier. Voldar is not impressed with this.
Speaker 2: He says, Keymar, is this what you want to do
Speaker 2: to our children on Mars? Turn them into dopes like
Speaker 2: these earth children.
Speaker 1: I want to point out that in this scene and
Speaker 1: in subsequent scenes, you have a Martian in this case,
Speaker 1: is Voldar with this freeze gun that freezes people. This
Speaker 1: is actually just a I believe it's a Whamo brand
Speaker 1: air blaster from the day you can. You can do
Speaker 1: searches for these and find and they mass produced these,
Speaker 1: so they're I think they're readily available as like kind
Speaker 1: of a collector's items at the time. But yeah, these
Speaker 1: were just common little toys that like blasted a little
Speaker 1: puffe air.
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice. So these are known toy I wonder
Speaker 2: if that was on purpose, so the kids would be like, hey,
Speaker 2: I saw that in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. I
Speaker 2: want to buy one.
Speaker 1: Or it just looked cool and we'll use it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of was it Robot Jocks that we watched
Speaker 1: where there's some sort of a gun and in some
Speaker 1: scenes in the close up it's clearly a really cool
Speaker 1: looking scili prop gun, but in some there are other
Speaker 1: shots where it's clear they're using a glue gun.
Speaker 2: So yeah, oh, and so the children get kidnapped, you know,
Speaker 2: they say tell us Warsanta is, and the children immediately
Speaker 2: betray Santa and reveal the location of his secret base.
Speaker 2: They say it's the North Pole, and so on the
Speaker 2: way to the North Pole we're treated to more stock footage.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, we see an airplane refueling in mid air.
Speaker 2: I think this particular bit of stock footage it or
Speaker 2: something almost exactly like it, was used in another mystery
Speaker 2: science theater movie. I recall about air force or something,
Speaker 2: and there were just long scenes of refueling in midair that.
Speaker 1: Read Zo Cuba or one of those.
Speaker 2: Maybe, Yeah, if they found this fascinating at the time,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is fascinating. Air to air refueling is amazing,
Speaker 1: and we could easily do stuff to blow your mind
Speaker 1: episode on it, like it's a crazy concept we take
Speaker 1: for granted. But yeah, there are whole stretches of this
Speaker 1: film that just feel like a strategic air commands stock
Speaker 1: footage dump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we also see lots of missile silos opening up
Speaker 2: and rockets being taken around on rails and things.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 2: Also along the way, Dropo who was caught stowing away
Speaker 2: on the ship, he fell asleep inside the radar console.
Speaker 2: He is tasked with watching the children, but naturally Dropo's
Speaker 2: you know, he's a good guy. He just lets them
Speaker 2: out of their cell, shows them around, allows them to
Speaker 2: sabotage the ship's radar jammer. And we were joking that
Speaker 2: the kids are trying to commit suicide by space force,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, he just lets them out.
Speaker 1: Major design fail for making the radar console so comfy
Speaker 1: for naps. It's just the right size for a full
Speaker 1: grown adult to climb in there and curl up, and
Speaker 1: I guess it's probably warm and cozy in there too.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it is. So they arrive at the North Pole,
Speaker 2: the children escape to try to warn Santa that the
Speaker 2: Martians are coming for them, and we get a great
Speaker 2: North Pole set. Again, this is the question of is
Speaker 2: this the same as the Mare surface set, but just
Speaker 2: with snow on it? Possibly?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the spaceship has landed and so we have that
Speaker 1: wonderful lander legs and a ladder coming down from what
Speaker 1: is supposed to be the bottom of the spaceship. So
Speaker 1: it's not Planet of the Vampires, but what is? It
Speaker 1: still has a lot of charm.
Speaker 2: The Martians say they are going to use tor Get
Speaker 2: to capture Santa. We have not seen tour yet, so
Speaker 2: we don't know what it is. But oh that's as
Speaker 2: it makes the hair stand up on the back of
Speaker 2: your neck to hear what is Torg? I have to know? Well,
Speaker 2: one thing I observed is that Torg is gort spelled backwards.
Speaker 2: That might not be an accident.
Speaker 1: This reminds me of a line from from John Saxon's
Speaker 1: character And what was it? A battle beyond the Stars
Speaker 1: where he says I had to look it up because
Speaker 1: it was like Gort. Maybe he said Gort or the reverse.
Speaker 1: But you know, he says Dacco is expert at inflicting pain.
Speaker 1: It made me think Torg is expert at inflicting pain.
Speaker 2: Well, I think torg Is is. Though Tork is not invulnerable,
Speaker 2: and some types of magic may in fact stop his
Speaker 2: murderous nature. But so the children escape, the Martians go
Speaker 2: hunting after them. Of course, Voldar just wants to kill
Speaker 2: the children. The children see him and they say he
Speaker 2: doesn't like us, but he is literally trying to murder them.
Speaker 2: They hide in a cave from a polar bear, which
Speaker 2: has a actually horrifying costume design. This polar bear looks
Speaker 2: like a mask somebody would wear in the purge. It
Speaker 2: is evil.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a lot of Tombach from The Terror
Speaker 1: from the TV miniseries adaptation, So we were not meant
Speaker 1: to know of it.
Speaker 2: And then out of the frying pan into the fire.
Speaker 2: The bear goes away. They come out of the cave,
Speaker 2: but here comes torg. They initially mistake Torgu for Sanna's workshop,
Speaker 2: but no, Tork is a giant robot with glowing eyes
Speaker 2: that grabs the children, and then of course Voldar gets
Speaker 2: to Torg before Keymar does. In Voldar is like, nice work, Tog,
Speaker 2: Now destroy them. I get this children's movie. Like He's
Speaker 2: literally commanding the robot to kill the children. But Tourg
Speaker 2: does not obey because key Mar specifically programmed him to
Speaker 2: obey only my commands.
Speaker 1: Very smart.
Speaker 2: But so they make it over to Santa's workshop and
Speaker 2: they look inside and they see the toys and the games.
Speaker 2: Voldar of course hates all this again. He's saying, you
Speaker 2: children games laughing, This is humiliating. Mars was once a
Speaker 2: planet of war, which makes me think it it would
Speaker 2: almost be great to set part of this podcast to
Speaker 2: the Gustav Holst Planet Suite the Mars theme, which if
Speaker 2: you never heard it, it really does sound like war
Speaker 2: is coming. It's very much Voldar's theme song.
Speaker 1: You know, if Voldar was really like he's already shown
Speaker 1: his true colors. He mainly doesn't want the kids playing
Speaker 1: because they would be annoying and would be under foot.
Speaker 1: If he was really concerned about the warrior ethos of
Speaker 1: the planet Mars, he would at least meet him halfway
Speaker 1: on like war toys, Like, let's just only tanks and
Speaker 1: toy guns.
Speaker 2: H No, I think he's just saying, like the children
Speaker 2: should only learn war from the beginning, so not even
Speaker 2: playing war. They should just go to war. You know.
Speaker 2: He's like one of these guys who's obsessed with the
Speaker 2: movie three hundred. Okay, they get to Santa's workshop, they
Speaker 2: send tor Aga in, They're like, get him Torg. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure exactly what happens in the scene. I think
Speaker 2: Torg was supposed to incapacitate and remove Santa from the premises,
Speaker 2: but instead Torg is like rendered harmless by the magic
Speaker 2: of Santa Claus. He comes in and Santa's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're a big toy, and then Torg just doesn't do
Speaker 2: anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Santa is an arcane artificer here, he's
Speaker 1: a master of toys, and what are toys but technology?
Speaker 1: This is like trying to pull a robot attack on
Speaker 1: data lists, you know. I mean, it's just not gonna work.
Speaker 2: But of course the Martians themselves they still got their
Speaker 2: freeze guns and everything, so they come inside and they're
Speaker 2: gonna kidnap Santa. This is plan B they use their
Speaker 2: freeze guns on the elves. They use their freeze gun
Speaker 2: on Missus Claus, and Santa is forced to cooperate. But,
Speaker 2: as we mentioned earlier, not before making a joke about how,
Speaker 2: my dear, I've never seen you so quiet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so weird. It's such a weird choice.
Speaker 2: Then okay, so Santa Claus and the children they get
Speaker 2: back on spaceship. They are taken away, stolen away to Mars. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: we see a bunch of newspaper headlines. Somehow the newspapers
Speaker 2: know what has happened, so they're running headlines like Martians
Speaker 2: kidnap Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like front page. I forget all the
Speaker 1: journalism lingo for for for what do you call a
Speaker 1: headline of this caliber? But like, this is the this
Speaker 1: is the big stuff, because clearly this is not only
Speaker 1: an international issue, this is now an interplanetary issue.
Speaker 2: And it's an extra Yeah, it's like the banner headline.
Speaker 2: And then below that, I was just because I paused
Speaker 2: the frame here to see what was going on. We
Speaker 2: see the other headlines are panic in New York, Menagerie
Speaker 2: breaks loose, and the other is Plenarians give New clues
Speaker 2: to early migrations.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I mean either one of those would have
Speaker 1: been the lead story had it not been for this,
Speaker 1: So I guess it would have been kind of a
Speaker 1: slow news day otherwise.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we're in the space ship. We're going back
Speaker 2: to Mars. But on the way, the magic of Santa
Speaker 2: Claus kind of spreads even to the adult Martians on board.
Speaker 2: The other Mars council chiefs start giggling uncontrollably. There's this
Speaker 2: one Martian with a beard who comes up to Keymar
Speaker 2: and he's like, that little guy is so funny. I
Speaker 2: couldn't stop laughing. And he retells a joke that Santa
Speaker 2: told him. He says, what's soft and round and you
Speaker 2: put it on a stick and you toasted in a fire,
Speaker 2: and it's green, a Martian mellow. And Voldar, of course,
Speaker 2: is he's still mad. He's like, that's what he's going
Speaker 2: to turn us into Martian mellows, soft round, toasted in
Speaker 2: a fire.
Speaker 1: He is not amused.
Speaker 2: Oh and Dropo especially seems to love Santa. They're two
Speaker 2: peas in a pod. Dropo was made to be Santa's buddy,
Speaker 2: but Santa's just always doing a comedy routine. We see
Speaker 2: him in his cell like on the bunk talking to
Speaker 2: the children, and he's telling a story about going into
Speaker 2: a chimney that was surrounded by fog, and he says,
Speaker 2: it's the biggest chimney I'd ever been in, And then
Speaker 2: there's a punchline. I realized it wasn't a chimney, it
Speaker 2: was the smokestack of the Queen Elizabeth. The children do
Speaker 2: not laugh, and he says, well, don't you think that
Speaker 2: was funny? And then they both simultaneously somberly say yes, Santa,
Speaker 2: but they are somber because they feel bad. They feel
Speaker 2: bad that they betrayed Santa and told the Martians where
Speaker 2: to find him. Of course, Santa doesn't want them to worry,
Speaker 2: you know, Boulder Dash. Now on the ship, one of
Speaker 2: the main things that happens is Voldar tries to murder
Speaker 2: Santa Claus and the children in the airlock, which I
Speaker 2: literally while we were watching, I made a joke about
Speaker 2: that happening, and then it actually happened in the movie.
Speaker 2: I did not see that coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the build up to this scene is great. The
Speaker 1: scene itself is wonderful, and then of course the payoff,
Speaker 1: because of course, first you get uber villainous, just oozingly
Speaker 1: villainous Voldar convincing them to come with him into the airlock,
Speaker 1: and then once they're locked inside, Oh yeah, it's great
Speaker 1: because I think nowadays, I don't know when this became
Speaker 1: the case, but for I think most modern sci fi viewers,
Speaker 1: you know what an air lock is. You don't need
Speaker 1: to be described to you just need to know that
Speaker 1: it is one. But this film does not take airlocks
Speaker 1: for granted. In this film, they feel the need to
Speaker 1: have Billy give an extended monologue about the functionality and
Speaker 1: purpose of an airlock.
Speaker 2: And why does he know?
Speaker 1: He's just a science kid.
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess. So he locks them in the airlock,
Speaker 2: and Santa is always giving Voldar the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, I don't think he locked us in.
Speaker 2: He just stepped away for a moment. And then they
Speaker 2: set off the timer. It's like it takes sixty seconds
Speaker 2: before they can avoid the airlock into space. The timer's
Speaker 2: ticking down. They're like, Oh, what's gonna happen? You know,
Speaker 2: we're gonna be killed until they see a like pipe
Speaker 2: leading up out of the corner of the room, and
Speaker 2: so we come away to the control room of the
Speaker 2: ship and we see Voldar just really enjoying the thought
Speaker 2: of Santa and the children dying in the vacuum of space.
Speaker 2: Keymar discovers that Voldar has killed them, and then there's
Speaker 2: a fistfight, but it's interrupted when Santa and the children
Speaker 2: come in unharmed. And what happened, well, they explained they
Speaker 2: went up the vent. Of course, Voldar is astounded. Santa,
Speaker 2: you are too fat to fit in that vent. But
Speaker 2: Voldar doesn't know the magic of Santa Claus. Santa Claus
Speaker 2: goes down chimneys all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he thought he'd space them, or maybe that they'd
Speaker 1: exploded like Anthony Zerba in James Bond film. But no, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: now they just took them on up the chimney. You
Speaker 1: cannot outsmart, Santa Claus if you have anything like a
Speaker 1: venthilation system involved in your technology.
Speaker 2: And of course this ends with everyone laughing at Voldar
Speaker 2: and Voldar is arrested. But Voldar, I think escapes as
Speaker 2: soon as they land on the planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they really have great prison facilities
Speaker 1: on this spaceship.
Speaker 2: No, everyone who is imprisoned escapes immediately, so they get
Speaker 2: to the planet and then Momar meets everybody. So it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: meet Billy and Betty and Santa Claus. Can Santa heal
Speaker 2: the children of Mars, Well, he's gonna try. So Bomar
Speaker 2: and Germar are listening to their science podcasts, looking very
Speaker 2: blank and miserable, and then Santa comes in to try
Speaker 2: to heal them with jollity. And what happens is Santa
Speaker 2: just starts laughing at them like a maniac, without telling
Speaker 2: a joke, and the Mars children almost by sort of
Speaker 2: like almost like in Terror, just eventually start laughing too.
Speaker 1: And it's infectious because I think you will find watching
Speaker 1: this movie, you too will start laughing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so everyone in the room laughing at nothing, like
Speaker 2: like a mad scientist and his henchman, you know, cackling
Speaker 2: over a plan to blow up the moon. Oh and
Speaker 2: this makes Dropo dance.
Speaker 1: His dance is so good and this like it's it's
Speaker 1: like it's this feeling when the holiday spirit just overcomes
Speaker 1: you so much that you can't help but just shuffle manically.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. Again, it's if you've never seen this performance.
Speaker 1: The only living performer I can imagine pulling something like
Speaker 1: this off would be Martin Short.
Speaker 2: So Santa tell's Kimar. He's like, I need to get
Speaker 2: the workshop up and running here so I can do
Speaker 2: Christmas on Mars and still have time to return to
Speaker 2: Earth for Christmas there.
Speaker 1: And this leads to one of my favorite bits from
Speaker 1: John calls performances Santa Claus because they tell him, Santa,
Speaker 1: you're never going to return to Earth. Quote now you
Speaker 1: belong to Mars. Santa goes, I can't. I can't even
Speaker 1: can't do it as well as he did. But he's
Speaker 1: like ho ho ho or something to that effect, like
Speaker 1: he finds a way to use ho ho ho to
Speaker 1: deliver the character's thought process here realizing, oh snap, I
Speaker 1: have to go to Mars forever.
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, I belong to Mars. So he sort of
Speaker 2: goes along with it. Anyway, we find out the key
Speaker 2: Maar has set Santa up with a sort of automated
Speaker 2: toy production factory so he can be the Santa Claus
Speaker 2: of Mars. And it's working all right, Like there are
Speaker 2: these shoots in the wall that sort of poop out
Speaker 2: like dolls and baseball bats onto a conveyor belt, and
Speaker 2: then the earth children have to carry them away in
Speaker 2: laundry baskets. And Santa kind of laments this state of affairs.
Speaker 2: He's like, look at me, the world's greatest toy maker
Speaker 2: reduced to pressing buttons. That's automation for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. This is kind of a frequent strain and
Speaker 1: cinematic retellings of Santa Claus, the mass production versus the
Speaker 1: handcrafted toys that we see in illustrations of Santa's workshop.
Speaker 1: And I think this is also always a point of
Speaker 1: confusion for children under the spell of Santa. It's like, clearly,
Speaker 1: the things that I want for Christmas are not things
Speaker 1: made by rustic elves in some sort of shop somewhere. No,
Speaker 1: these are made by factories, often overseas, but not at
Speaker 1: the North Pole.
Speaker 2: Did Santa Claus make this game boy?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Now, my wife and son when we were watching this,
Speaker 1: they question why the toy selection is so limited here.
Speaker 1: But I think it makes sense because you have to
Speaker 1: remember this is Mars First Christmas. All of this is new.
Speaker 1: The children of Mars are just excited about the concept
Speaker 1: of doll and bat oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the other things on there are train tool
Speaker 2: maybe Teddy Bear, I think m hm oh. And also
Speaker 2: it's putting out little like model militaria, like little cannons
Speaker 2: and stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And you'd think that Voldar would be pleased
Speaker 1: with that, but no, Voldar has taken to the caves
Speaker 1: with the rebellion, right.
Speaker 2: So he's got some henchmen hiding out with him. They
Speaker 2: say the cave is surrounded by a nuclear curtain which
Speaker 2: prevents people from coming and going unless they deactivate. And
Speaker 2: he's hatching plans with his toadies. And this is the
Speaker 2: part where one of the henchmen returns. He's been spying
Speaker 2: on Santa's workshop and he looks into the camera and
Speaker 2: does a commercial for the slinky. He's like, isn't this
Speaker 2: the most wonderful thing ever? It's a coil of metal
Speaker 2: that can walk down the stairs by itself.
Speaker 1: It makes you wonder it was Santa licensed by the
Speaker 1: Slinky Corporation to make slinkies? And if so, what about
Speaker 1: being on another planet? I guess that comes. I know
Speaker 1: that some legal documents talk about rights extending through the universe,
Speaker 1: and it may be for this very reason.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. So he gives this beautiful monologue
Speaker 2: about the slinky. But then Voldar is like, you fool,
Speaker 2: you are falling for the allure of toys. We believe
Speaker 2: in war, not fun.
Speaker 1: And this this is another scene where you have this
Speaker 1: absolute gargoyle of an actor in the background. Just oh
Speaker 1: my god, such chewing of saying ray, it's just amazing.
Speaker 2: Really good. And then also this part made me laugh
Speaker 2: out loud when Voldar he's coming up with a plan
Speaker 2: of what to do, and he says, we can't eliminate
Speaker 2: Santa Claus, but we can discredit him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like if we kill him now, he will
Speaker 1: become a marker. It's just basically done Messaiah all over again. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: this is the only way to bring him down. This
Speaker 1: is the only way to prevent Santa's jihad. Yes, we
Speaker 1: cannot kill Santa. We have to kill the Santa myth.
Speaker 1: Yes we must. We must destroy his brand. So I
Speaker 1: think their initial plan is just to sabotage the toy
Speaker 1: machine in Santa's workshop, to make it spit out like
Speaker 1: dolls with bear heads and Teddy Bears with doll heads,
Speaker 1: which we do see later but instead when they're in there,
Speaker 1: it crosses over with the subplot where Dropo has wanted
Speaker 1: to become Santa Claus because Momar makes Santa a backup
Speaker 1: Santa suit and Dropo wants to wear it, but he's
Speaker 1: not fat enough, so he stuffs a pillow in there,
Speaker 1: and he's dancing around in the Santa suit with a
Speaker 1: hat on, and he's trying to fatten up I think
Speaker 1: by eating a lot of like ice cream pills, and
Speaker 1: so that's becoming Santa. My wife and son asked, where
Speaker 1: did you get this pillow? Because where do we see
Speaker 1: any Martians with pillows? No, they don't sleep with pillows.
Speaker 1: They sleep on some sort of a weird inverted pyramid
Speaker 1: kind of a platform, right while they listen to their podcasts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, the sleep spray. Yeah. Oh, and we missed.
Speaker 2: In between, there's a part where we see Santa come
Speaker 2: home from a day's work in the toy factory and
Speaker 2: he's talking to Keymar and everybody, and he's like, wow,
Speaker 2: you know that was a long day at work. They say,
Speaker 2: are you tired? He says, no, I'm not tired, but
Speaker 2: my finger is. He holds his finger up. He's like
Speaker 2: now I have to go put my finger to bed.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, all of the various riffings of this
Speaker 1: movie have had tremendous fun with this line. I believe
Speaker 1: Lookout knows what's the riff from the original Mystry Science
Speaker 1: Theater three thousand treatment of the movie.
Speaker 2: That's good. But okay, so Dropos all dressed up as Santa,
Speaker 2: and so when Voldar and his hinchman they break into
Speaker 2: the Santa workshop, they just happen to run across Dropo
Speaker 2: dressed as Santa. They can't tell that he is not Santa.
Speaker 2: They do not notice that he is green and has antinnae,
Speaker 2: so they just take.
Speaker 1: Him interesting insight into the mind and perception of the Martian.
Speaker 1: They couldn't tell one Santa from any other Santa when
Speaker 1: looking down at earth either.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah, yeah, so maybe they
Speaker 2: just don't have much visual acuity. That could be the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have the antenna ray, which may be their
Speaker 1: primary means of sensing the world around them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, So Santa figures out what has happened. He says,
Speaker 2: oh wait a minute. He finds out that his second
Speaker 2: Santa suit is missing and Dropo is missing. He's like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: wherever you find one, you're going to find the other,
Speaker 2: because Dropo clearly wants to be me. He also discovers
Speaker 2: that his workshop has been sabotaged. This is when they're
Speaker 2: holding up like dolls with Teddy Bear heads on them.
Speaker 2: They look pretty horrifying. And now that they think they
Speaker 2: have Santa hostage, they actually have drop O. Voldar and
Speaker 2: his henchmen go to Keemar to list their demands. They say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to release Santa Claus, but only if you
Speaker 2: one destroy the toy machine, two send Santa and the
Speaker 2: children back to Earth, and three quote no more joy
Speaker 2: through toys nonsense on Mars, and I think that's the
Speaker 2: name of the program. I guess it's Joy through Toys,
Speaker 2: which actually sounds kind of soulless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine scenes where the Martian legislature is having arguments
Speaker 1: over this. So like some are saying, yeah, joy through
Speaker 1: toys is the way, and others are like, more Martian
Speaker 1: money to be spent on Joy through toys. Come on.
Speaker 2: But while they're there, Keemar reveals, Hey, actually Santa's right
Speaker 2: here in the workshop next to us, So you don't
Speaker 2: have him hostage, and Voldar is astounded. How did he
Speaker 2: escape the cave? How did he get here so fast?
Speaker 2: Keemar replies, Santa Claus has powers you don't even know about.
Speaker 2: Hands up and gun on the I love it. So
Speaker 2: Keymar now is just he's fully in the tank for
Speaker 2: Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, he's committed. And now we have just full
Speaker 1: blown kind of like a civil war on Mars here
Speaker 1: between these factions between the pro Sanna and the anti
Speaker 1: Santa factions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Keymar tries to keep Voldar and his henchmen
Speaker 2: in a storage shed that does not look Martian at all.
Speaker 2: It's just an earth storage shed that's got shelves, it's
Speaker 2: got like skis in there, and he's got the gun
Speaker 2: pointed at him. But they fighting, and Voldar kind of escapes. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Dropo also escapes the cave where they're keeping him by
Speaker 2: like he turns off the quote nuclear curtain, I think
Speaker 2: by switching light bulbs on a machine. It's not clear
Speaker 2: exactly what's happening there, but he makes his way out.
Speaker 2: Everybody gathers back at Santa's workshop. Voldar runs in again,
Speaker 2: points a gun at Santa Claus and says we meet again,
Speaker 2: and you know, you think, oh, is it all over
Speaker 2: for Santa Claus. But no, Voldar is defeated by the children.
Speaker 2: In fact, he is defeated by children running underfoot and
Speaker 2: being a nuisance and pelting him with toys until he
Speaker 2: is dead.
Speaker 1: Oh he doesn't die, no.
Speaker 4: But they but they do.
Speaker 2: They do mercilessly pelt him with toys and confetti and
Speaker 2: Christmas cheer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a lot of the toys are attacking
Speaker 1: him too. They're kind of maximum overdrive of yes elements
Speaker 1: to this attack. So the anti Santa rebellion has been squashed.
Speaker 1: But what happens next? We have a curious situation. Are
Speaker 1: we going to continue with Santa Claus from Earth ruling
Speaker 1: over Christmas on Mars while they, I guess they're just
Speaker 1: not going to have Christmas on Earth. What is the
Speaker 1: possible solution to this?
Speaker 2: Well, we already know what it's going to be. We've
Speaker 2: got a second Santa in the movie.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's drop Oh, Dropo becomes Dropo clause the
Speaker 1: Santa of Mars. Interplanetary war is avoided and the future
Speaker 1: fun of children on Mars is ensured.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, and Dropo comes in dressed as Santa, saying, Merry Christmas, everyone,
Speaker 2: you know, Merry Christmas. Building and Loan and the Martian
Speaker 2: children are excited. Betty and Billy are excited. But Betty
Speaker 2: and Billy and Santa, now we're going to get to
Speaker 2: go back to Earth. And there was one thing I noticed.
Speaker 2: Germar and Bomar give Betty and Billy gifts as they're leaving,
Speaker 2: but they don't say what the gifts are. And Billy's
Speaker 2: gift looks like a blood pressure cuff.
Speaker 1: I didn't notice this. Maybe they're setting up for the
Speaker 1: equal like basically it's a planet of war, so they
Speaker 1: gave Billy like the laser blast gauntlet. Yeah, he's going
Speaker 1: to go home and it's going to be very disruptive.
Speaker 2: And at the end, Santa and the children blast off
Speaker 2: to travel back to Earth in the spaceship and we
Speaker 2: hear the song again because you have not heard the
Speaker 2: song enough.
Speaker 1: Where did this spaceship come from? I'm trying to remember it.
Speaker 1: Is this a spaceship that Earth sent? Because there was
Speaker 1: this whole talk with Verner von Green about how they
Speaker 1: were going to send a spaceship. What happened with all that.
Speaker 2: I never even mentioned to this subplot because it never
Speaker 2: goes anywhere. But Billy sabotages the Martian spaceship's radar jamming
Speaker 2: thing so that the Earth Space Force which exists in
Speaker 2: this movie can detect the Martian ship. And then we yeah,
Speaker 2: we have this interview with Verner von Breen and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, we were going to take a while to
Speaker 2: train our astronauts to go to Mars, but now instead
Speaker 2: we're going to send them immediately. But we never see
Speaker 2: them arrive.
Speaker 1: Hmm. There's a lot to make of that, but it
Speaker 1: also feels like maybe some stuff was just cut.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Yeah, that could be it. Like I
Speaker 2: expected human Earth soldiers to show up on Mars and
Speaker 2: rescue the children, but they.
Speaker 1: Like it would be like the finale of Moonraker.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, exactly, yeah, with the lasers.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's great. We may have to do Moonraker
Speaker 1: in the future.
Speaker 2: Speaking of it, Oh, we should absolutely do Moonraker. That
Speaker 2: is the weirdest, one of the worst, but one of
Speaker 2: the most entertaining James Bond movies, and it's got Michael
Speaker 2: Lonsdale as Hugo drax one of the most hilarious James
Speaker 2: Bond villains ever.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, a great, great actor, but yes, strange part.
Speaker 2: But yes, of course. In the end, the bad forces
Speaker 2: of Mars get draxed and the Earthlings go back to
Speaker 2: Earth and it's it's happily ever after.
Speaker 1: But hit the song again because everybody loves hooray for
Speaker 1: Santi Clause. So they play the song again, I think
Speaker 1: maybe after the credits, and they do the there's no
Speaker 1: bouncing ball, but they throw the lyrics up there on
Speaker 1: the screen so all the chill chidren in the audience
Speaker 1: and all the people watching at home can sing along
Speaker 1: with this infectious song.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the parents loved this because it encourages the
Speaker 2: children to sing along and shows them what the words are.
Speaker 2: So it's like, keep singing this for weeks at your parents.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's stuck in my head and I'm the
Speaker 1: one singing it. That's the thing.
Speaker 2: Maybe you're a child at heart, I hope.
Speaker 1: So this is the season for it, right, So that's
Speaker 1: Santa Claus again conquers the Martians. Consider Martian civilization conquered
Speaker 1: by Santa Claus. At this point, Santa has established a
Speaker 1: Martian of his choosing to rule over Christmas on Mars
Speaker 1: in his place. What would that title be if we
Speaker 1: were like looking back on ancient civilizations, what is the
Speaker 1: name of the ruler installed by the overarching emperor.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's a special name for that
Speaker 2: in the ancient world, but yeah, there were often kings
Speaker 2: who were you know, they had to pay tribute to
Speaker 2: the empire. They're sort of in some way a vassal
Speaker 2: of the imperial structure above them.
Speaker 1: M okay, so yeah, maybe Mars is now a vassal
Speaker 1: state to the North Pole.
Speaker 2: I can see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Santa Claus conquers the Martians. This one is a
Speaker 1: lot of fun, as always to watch, a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to discuss. I don't know about you, Joe, but
Speaker 1: I always find that even if it's a movie i've
Speaker 1: seen many times before, watching something for weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: it requires me to think about it a little differently
Speaker 1: and maybe approach it with a little more at tension
Speaker 1: than I normally do. So this is a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to discuss, totally true, and obviously we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts about
Speaker 1: Santa Claus versus Sorry, Santa Claus conquers the Martians. If
Speaker 1: you have thoughts about this film, you have theories about
Speaker 1: this film, we'd love to hear from you. If you
Speaker 1: have memories of watching it rift or unriffed in any form,
Speaker 1: definitely ride in and we'll potentially read those messages on
Speaker 1: a future installment of a listener may a reminder that
Speaker 1: we are primarily a science podcast, with core episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a short form artifact or monster
Speaker 1: fact on Wednesdays and a listramail on Monday. But on Fridays,
Speaker 1: we set aside most serious concerns here on Weird House
Speaker 1: Cinema to just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer today, JJ Pousway. If
Speaker 2: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 2: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 2: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
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