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