Speaker 1: Now just a quick note for parents who are listening.
Speaker 1: We will be discussing the secrets behind the magical world
Speaker 1: of Santa, so it's not suitable for little years. Episode one,
Speaker 1: The Santa Claus. It's almost been thirty years since Scott
Speaker 1: Calvin unwittingly inherited the title of Santa Claus. Somebody's on
Speaker 1: the roof? What from that? Now true? Scott became the
Speaker 1: unlikely hero who saved Christmas after Santa fell off his roof,
Speaker 1: left with a sleigh full of toys to deliver, Scott
Speaker 1: and his son Charlie got to work. It was meant
Speaker 1: to be a one off, but Scott missed the fine print.
Speaker 1: You put on a suit, you're the big guy. What
Speaker 1: I'll buy you a Santa Claus? Then then there would
Speaker 1: be millions of disappointed children around the world. In this
Speaker 1: special Christmas edition, we unpacked the cult Christmas classic and
Speaker 1: share the unknown stories behind the Santa Claus. We are
Speaker 1: journalists Amy Kay and Sophie Torba, and this is outspoken.
Speaker 1: The Santa Claus would be in my top three Christmas
Speaker 1: movies full time, and it was released in November nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, so we were five when it first came out.
Speaker 1: We didn't go to the movies to watch it. I
Speaker 1: specifically remember sitting down as a family and watching this
Speaker 1: on a Friday night, and that was when they used
Speaker 1: to play all of the blockbusters. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: have more specific memories of this film when I was
Speaker 1: around ten or twelve, and it just seemed to be
Speaker 1: a tradition that you would always watch this. It would
Speaker 1: always be on the week leading into Christmas, and you
Speaker 1: couldn not watch it. It had to be a part
Speaker 1: of the rotation. Now, since The Santa Claus was released
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four, there have been two sequels, So
Speaker 1: The Santa Claus two was released eight years after the
Speaker 1: first installment in two thousand and two. Well, the third movie,
Speaker 1: The Santa Claus three, The Escape Clause, was released in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six and since then a follow up
Speaker 1: TV series called The Santa Clauses aired last year in
Speaker 1: November twenty twenty two, and a new series is currently
Speaker 1: airing now. So in this deep dive, we'll be covering
Speaker 1: the first movie of the franchise. I'm usually not a
Speaker 1: fan of sequels, but in this instance, the sequels were
Speaker 1: actually good. Well, I did touch on it before, but
Speaker 1: there was such a huge gap between the first and
Speaker 1: the second movie because they wanted to make sure it
Speaker 1: was right now. Tim Allen was not the first pick
Speaker 1: for the role of Scott Calvin. The role was originally
Speaker 1: written for Bill Murray, but after starring in Scrooge, Bill
Speaker 1: had no interest in being in another Christmas movie. For
Speaker 1: a lot of actors, you wouldn't really want to be
Speaker 1: pigeonholed into Christmas movies because generally they're thought of his
Speaker 1: movies that don't do that well at the box office.
Speaker 1: You don't really get that much respect in the industry
Speaker 1: for appearing in Christmas shows. Yeah, it's not something you
Speaker 1: want to be type cast in now. Producers then tried
Speaker 1: to get Chevy Chase. So five years earlier, Chevy had
Speaker 1: starred as Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation, so he already
Speaker 1: had a successful festive film under his belt. However, he
Speaker 1: was unable to do the movie due to scheduling conflicts,
Speaker 1: so he had to drop out. That really disappoints me
Speaker 1: because Christmas Vacation is my all time favorite Christmas movie
Speaker 1: and that is down to Chevy Chase. He is incredible
Speaker 1: in that movie. But you can't have Chevy Chase in
Speaker 1: two iconic Christmas movies. It probably would have spoilt it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think he would have been great
Speaker 1: in this movie. Now, other candidates were Tom Hanks, Tom Selleck,
Speaker 1: and Mel Gibson, who all have ironically played Santa Claus
Speaker 1: at one point in their careers. Now, while Home Improvement,
Speaker 1: which Tim starred in, was incredibly popular at the time,
Speaker 1: the producers weren't sold on him as talent. They didn't
Speaker 1: think a TV star could open a movie, and they
Speaker 1: were also concerned about his criminal pass. So in the
Speaker 1: late seventies, Tim was arrested for possession of cocaine and
Speaker 1: he was found with over six hundred and fifty grams
Speaker 1: of the illegal drug on him. Now, Disney has a
Speaker 1: really strict policy regarding actors with criminal records, but they
Speaker 1: ended up making an exception for him. It's quite ironic
Speaker 1: because since appearing in the Santa Claus franchise, Tim has
Speaker 1: also starred in another one of my favorite Christmas movies,
Speaker 1: which is Christmas with the Cranks. So I suppose he
Speaker 1: has been typecast himself. Yeah, I was going to say,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen him appear in any non
Speaker 1: Chris this movie, so he seemed quite happy to make
Speaker 1: that his niche maybe that is because he came from
Speaker 1: a TV background. Yeah. Now, Tim's character Scott shares an
Speaker 1: eight year old son, Charlie, with his ex wife Laura,
Speaker 1: and in the movie, Laura is remarried to a man
Speaker 1: called doctor Neil Miller, who was a psychiatrist. And the
Speaker 1: casting of Charlie wasn't a straightforward process either, So producers
Speaker 1: were looking for a child age between six and nine
Speaker 1: who had a sense of innocence and sensitivity and who
Speaker 1: could access their emotions. So auditions were held in thirteen
Speaker 1: different states before they cast eight year old Eric Lloyd
Speaker 1: in the role of Charlie. And it wasn't smooth sailing
Speaker 1: with Eric during filming because his two bottom teeth got
Speaker 1: knocked out during a baseball game with his family, so
Speaker 1: he had to wear denches during the film to ensure continuity.
Speaker 1: What a nightmare for producers because things like that can
Speaker 1: become so distracting in movies. It's pretty funny because in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Eric revealed on Reddit that his head was
Speaker 1: superimposed on the movie poster as a cost cutting exercise.
Speaker 1: He wrote, it's some other kids standing behind a cutout
Speaker 1: of Tim Allen and they just put my face on
Speaker 1: it so they didn't have to pay me for another day. Wow,
Speaker 1: he seems pretty dirty on it. Still, well, let's get
Speaker 1: into the movie. So the film opens on Christmas Eve
Speaker 1: when Laura and Neil drop Charlie off to spend the
Speaker 1: occasion with Scott, and the contentious conversation on when to
Speaker 1: tell Charlie the truth about Santa comes up. Now Scott
Speaker 1: wants Charlie to continue to believe. Well, Laura and Neil
Speaker 1: think it's time to be honest with Charlie. When did
Speaker 1: you guys stop believing in Santa? My official word is
Speaker 1: that I have never stopped believing in the magic of
Speaker 1: Father Christmas because I think if you one, if you
Speaker 1: don't believe, you don't receive Our Mum always used to
Speaker 1: say that to that's big in our house. And two,
Speaker 1: Father Christmas still delivers presents to us, so at our parents'
Speaker 1: house there is always a present from Father Christmas. We
Speaker 1: do have our Santa sax Field. But we did make
Speaker 1: the very devastating discovery when we were twelve, which I
Speaker 1: think is quite old. So how Mum always used to say,
Speaker 1: as you said, if you do not believe, you do
Speaker 1: not receive. And I think we had an inkling that
Speaker 1: something wasn't quite right because we would always ask our friends, look,
Speaker 1: can you leave a piece of paper, ask Santa to
Speaker 1: sign it when he drops your presence off, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to compare the signatures to see if they
Speaker 1: match up. Unfortunately, though the friends that we had asked,
Speaker 1: they already knew that Santa wasn't real, so they just
Speaker 1: kind of fobbed us off. There is something magical though
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve where you kind of second guess yourself.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, there's so much magic going on on
Speaker 1: that day, and you do get a bit funny, like
Speaker 1: I still put out carrots and milk and stuff as
Speaker 1: a bit of a joke on Christmas Eve? Does Dale
Speaker 1: eat them for you? Will they get eaten somehow? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Well, in terms of this situation in the movie,
Speaker 1: I think it was very wrong that the decision about
Speaker 1: telling Charlie about Santa is being pushed by the step dad.
Speaker 1: I would be so pissed off if I were Scott.
Speaker 1: It seems like this is coming from a deeper place
Speaker 1: for Neil because as you touched on Kate, he is
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist and he thinks that there's all these unresolved
Speaker 1: issues if you feel like your parents are lying to you.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that didn't he find out when
Speaker 1: he was two or something he was three because he
Speaker 1: didn't get a whistle that he wanted. Now, unfortunately, Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve didn't go to plans, so Scott ends up burning
Speaker 1: Christmas dinner and takes Charlie to Denny's. And is it
Speaker 1: just me or does Charlie seem really spoilt? Because throughout
Speaker 1: the start of the movie he's always rolling his eyes
Speaker 1: at his dad and getting fedter up, and it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear that Scott is trying his very best. As a kid,
Speaker 1: you always loved going out to restaurants. That would be
Speaker 1: way better than having a home cooked meal. But isn't
Speaker 1: it because Scott is a bit of a distant dad,
Speaker 1: like they've gone through the divorce and the kid's not
Speaker 1: happy going from house to house. That's the thing. This
Speaker 1: movie was very of its time because in the early
Speaker 1: nineties that's when movies and TV shows really started exploring divorce,
Speaker 1: and as a kid who perhaps was from a divorced home.
Speaker 1: It would have been actually really refreshing to see their
Speaker 1: experience reflected on the big screen. I did notice that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of nine stereotyping going on at the
Speaker 1: start of the movie. So Denny's the restaurant is full
Speaker 1: of men who can't cook and have have been involved
Speaker 1: in accidents in the kitchen. And there's also this old
Speaker 1: cliche at Scott's office of the boss having an affair
Speaker 1: with the secretary. I've also noticed in all of the
Speaker 1: Christmas movies the families have these epic houses that people
Speaker 1: just wouldn't be able to afford. Now think if the
Speaker 1: home alone house is about five bedrooms, particularly if you've
Speaker 1: just gotten divorced as well. That's a common theme in
Speaker 1: American movies, though, because the houses are so much bigger
Speaker 1: than Australian houses. It is interesting to note that the
Speaker 1: movie was originally called Such a Clatter, which is in
Speaker 1: reference to a line in the iconic Christmas book. It
Speaker 1: was a stroke of genius to rename this movie because
Speaker 1: the Santa clause. Instantly you know it's a Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: It's about Father Christmas. And again it's a fun play
Speaker 1: on words because it's about this special clause that means
Speaker 1: that whoever wears the red cloak and the hat is Santa.
Speaker 1: And while investigating, the noise outside startles Santa while he's
Speaker 1: on the roof, who then slips and falls to his death,
Speaker 1: and Santa's body vanishes, and all that's left behind is
Speaker 1: the famous red suit and a business card that says,
Speaker 1: if anything were to happen to the man, to put
Speaker 1: on the suit and the reindeer will know what to do. Now. Originally,
Speaker 1: it was written in the script that Scott shot Santa
Speaker 1: because he thought he was intruderhow and it's just funny
Speaker 1: to think how American that is. However, the CEO of
Speaker 1: dream Work thought better of it and decided a kid's
Speaker 1: Christmas movie couldn't start with the shooting of Santa. But
Speaker 1: it don't start with the death of Santa, which actually
Speaker 1: is very sad when you think about it, but it's
Speaker 1: all kind of glossed over. Yeah. I think it's because
Speaker 1: his body disappears. It's almost like this puff of magic,
Speaker 1: and I think if you saw his body dead it
Speaker 1: would be a little bit different. Yes, probably also because
Speaker 1: we haven't actually been introduced to the character as such.
Speaker 1: We've only seen the character of Santa on the roof
Speaker 1: delivering presents. We don't know his personality at this stage. Well,
Speaker 1: Scott and Charlie get a shock when they climb on
Speaker 1: the roof and discover Santa's slay and reindeers. And looking
Speaker 1: at the movie nearly twenty years on, what do you
Speaker 1: guys think about the reindeers. Oh, they were very mechanical,
Speaker 1: weren't they. Yeah, they definitely don't look real. They literally
Speaker 1: look like big puppets or robots. They remind me of
Speaker 1: the reindeers at the Adelaide Christmas pageant. Yes, on Santa's float.
Speaker 1: There are these reindeers for those who don't live in Adelaide,
Speaker 1: And I always thought they looked pretty cool when I
Speaker 1: was five, But now you see them and you're like wow.
Speaker 1: I saw a video recently and I think it was
Speaker 1: from a pageant in America, and it was basically Santa's
Speaker 1: slay on this Bobcat and the reindeers were people and
Speaker 1: they were China Prance. It looked so messed up. That
Speaker 1: looks that sounds terrifying. Yeah, it was the mechanical reindeer
Speaker 1: vibe enhances my personal Christmas experience though, because it reminds
Speaker 1: me of the eighties and nineties, of a simpler time.
Speaker 1: And I'm seeing on TikTok that all millennials are loving
Speaker 1: the vintage Christmas decorations. Well they're calling it taki Christmas.
Speaker 1: They're saying taki Christmas. To come back down to this
Speaker 1: bege Christmas. I do love the personalities of the Reindeers, though,
Speaker 1: Comma is such a bad ass. He literally farts and
Speaker 1: also brows at Scott to get him to do what
Speaker 1: he's supposed to do. The slave flying scene, though, looks
Speaker 1: particularly bad. I know it was thirty years ago, but
Speaker 1: when you consider that Jurassic Park was out a year earlier,
Speaker 1: the CGI in the Santa Claus isn't up to scraps.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they didn't have the money to spend on it.
Speaker 1: During that scene where the sleigh begins flying, they move
Speaker 1: past a truck and funnily enough, the truck driver is
Speaker 1: Home Improvement's Benny. This reminds me of the Brady Bunch
Speaker 1: movie when they had Alice playing a truck driver. They
Speaker 1: seem to have more of these cameos back in the nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a nice little touch. Now, Scott ends up
Speaker 1: reluctantly donning the Santa suit and spends the night delivering
Speaker 1: presence with Charlie, and the movie answers the age odd
Speaker 1: question of how Santa delivers presence to children whose houses
Speaker 1: don't have a fireplace. I can answer that already. It's
Speaker 1: the magic ice key in Australia that it keeps in
Speaker 1: his well. No, it's different in the movie. So in
Speaker 1: the movie, at each house, the sack of Presence magically
Speaker 1: refills with the toys for the children at the house,
Speaker 1: and Scott is confused when one of the houses doesn't
Speaker 1: have a chimney but just a very small vent pipe.
Speaker 1: So when he picks up the Santa sack, it lifts
Speaker 1: him and flies him over to the pipe and he
Speaker 1: magically squeezes down to spit inside again. It's some absolutely
Speaker 1: bang on graphics by the team, and then inside a
Speaker 1: fireplace magically forms. Wouldn't have this been so fun to
Speaker 1: come up with? Yeah, it would have been. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that they didn't just fob everyone off and only pick
Speaker 1: houses that had proper chimneys. I would have liked to
Speaker 1: have seen though, the eski in Australia. I don't know
Speaker 1: if any other people grew up thinking that happened. Is
Speaker 1: that just an Australian thing because it's so hot. I
Speaker 1: hope it's not just an our household fee. Probably, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if that came out to be. In fact,
Speaker 1: they need some set rules for parents because there would
Speaker 1: be so many different variations at school to be some continuity. Now,
Speaker 1: Scott and Charlie spend the rest of the night delivering
Speaker 1: presents before the Reindeers fly them home to the North
Speaker 1: Pole and they make a grand entrance into the toy factory.
Speaker 1: And it's weird because no one seems upset at the
Speaker 1: news that Sander has died. That's what rocked me to
Speaker 1: my core. Yeah, they look happy as Scott and Charlie arrive.
Speaker 1: No one seems shocked that the original Santa is dead,
Speaker 1: and the focus is just on the elves getting back
Speaker 1: to work. It kind of seems like a sweatshop. There's
Speaker 1: no morning of the original Santa. It makes me wonder
Speaker 1: is the job of Santa really dangerous and he's replaced
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, they could be the case. Also, you've
Speaker 1: got to remember that the elves in the movie, they're
Speaker 1: thousands of years old, so you can imagine how old
Speaker 1: Father Christmas must be here. And maybe Santa's just a prick.
Speaker 1: I mean you said it seems a bit like a sweatshop.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're glad that he's got He is not a prick.
Speaker 1: I think you can see in the movie. In order
Speaker 1: to be Father Christmas, you need to be merry, and
Speaker 1: you start you start exhibiting the spirit of Christmas. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: another interesting element is there's no grieving missus clause, and
Speaker 1: in the sequel of the first movie, we learned that
Speaker 1: Santa has to have a wife in order to continue
Speaker 1: his job. So where was the original Santa's missus clause? Like,
Speaker 1: was she just kicked it to the curb? She's gone?
Speaker 1: I don't want to think that deeply into it. It
Speaker 1: is a children's movie. They obviously thought, look, how are
Speaker 1: we going to have a sequel to this? And I
Speaker 1: think it was a pretty good idea. It is pretty
Speaker 1: funny because when they are at the North Pole, they
Speaker 1: again play homage to Tim being the tool man, so
Speaker 1: at one point he picks up a tool belt and
Speaker 1: makes his famous noise let's throw to it. H I
Speaker 1: actually really enjoy when movies do this It reminds me
Speaker 1: of the Barbie movie when they made a joke about Oh,
Speaker 1: this would have been more of a pivotal point in
Speaker 1: the movie if Margo Robbie wasn't so attractive. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know that the audience is smart enough
Speaker 1: to be in on the joke. Yeah. Now, as for
Speaker 1: the Elves, the producers cast real children in the role,
Speaker 1: and this ended up being a bit of a problem
Speaker 1: on set when Tim Allen wanted to improvise, so a
Speaker 1: producer on the movie said, you didn't want the kids around.
Speaker 1: When Tim got going, he would go on these hilarious
Speaker 1: rants streaked with obscenity, and when he did go off
Speaker 1: on a rant, the production team used to interject when
Speaker 1: he seemed close to swearing and put him in time out. Now,
Speaker 1: Tim would also get incredibly frustrated with his younger co
Speaker 1: stars and was known to yell at them on set,
Speaker 1: so the directors often had to remind him that many
Speaker 1: of the kids on set actually thought he was Santa
Speaker 1: Claus and that he needed to be nicer to them. Now,
Speaker 1: Tim himself has proclaimed that he isn't the biggest fan
Speaker 1: of kids, in saying that he does have three daughters
Speaker 1: of his own. Wow, that really doesn't paint him in
Speaker 1: a good light at all. No, I was a little
Speaker 1: bit surprised when I found that out. Now, it is
Speaker 1: at this point of the movie that we meet head
Speaker 1: elf Bernard, and he stands out because he looks around sixteen.
Speaker 1: All the other elves look under twelve. And he seemed
Speaker 1: like a bit of a ball breaker because he explains
Speaker 1: in quite a cutting way that by putting on the
Speaker 1: dead Santa suit, Scott is legally subject to a technicality
Speaker 1: known as the Santa claus and in putting on the suit,
Speaker 1: Scott has accepted all of the late Santa's duties and responsibilities.
Speaker 1: Bernard then tells Scott that he has eleven months to
Speaker 1: get his affairs in order before reporting back to duty
Speaker 1: at the North Pole on Thanksgiving. That somewhat surprised me,
Speaker 1: because these elves, as you say, are busting their gut
Speaker 1: to get these presents out. But it seems like all
Speaker 1: Santa has to do is, you know, come a few
Speaker 1: months early, drop off the presence his role doesn't seem
Speaker 1: as intense. Well, it's a pretty big job, flying around
Speaker 1: the world in twenty four hours and delivering all those presents. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about that now. That is incorrect because
Speaker 1: we do find out in the movie that part of
Speaker 1: Santa's role is to keep an eye on all of
Speaker 1: the kids to make sure who's naughty and nice. So
Speaker 1: he does seem to have extra duties there, and I
Speaker 1: think they were giving him a bit of leeway because
Speaker 1: it's just been sprung on him in the last twenty
Speaker 1: four hours that he is Santa. I do love that
Speaker 1: the North Pole provided Scott with personalized Santa pajama and
Speaker 1: he ended up falling asleep at the North Pole, confused
Speaker 1: and overwhelmed. What's quite cool about this scene is that
Speaker 1: the pajamas are this really silky rad I've always wanted
Speaker 1: a pair of Christmas pajamas like this, and it has
Speaker 1: the initials s C on them, which is Scott Calvin
Speaker 1: but also Santa Claus. Yeah. Well, on Christmas morning, Scott
Speaker 1: wakes up in his own bed and believes the previous
Speaker 1: night's events were just a dream. However, he is still
Speaker 1: dressed in the personalized pajamas from the North Pole, and
Speaker 1: he quickly realizes last night was in fact reality. When
Speaker 1: Charlie recalls what happened and is convinced that his dad
Speaker 1: is the new Santa Claus. Charlie tells his mum and
Speaker 1: stepdad Neil all about it and they become very concerned. Now,
Speaker 1: Scott did ask Charlie to keep the trip to the
Speaker 1: North Pole a secret, but he literally tells anyone who
Speaker 1: will listen, even though it affects his dad really bad.
Speaker 1: So this kid is me as a child, I tell
Speaker 1: everyone's secrets, even me now sometimes Yeah, I mean he
Speaker 1: was only eight or something, so it'd be pretty exciting
Speaker 1: how everyone assumes that he's lying and it just makes sense.
Speaker 1: They also start thinking that Scott has completely lost it,
Speaker 1: particularly when he starts transforming physically into Santa Claus, because
Speaker 1: over the next year he puts on a lot of
Speaker 1: weight at a very rapid pace, which isn't helped by
Speaker 1: his new love of milk and cookies. He also grows
Speaker 1: a very thick white beard that instantly regrows after he
Speaker 1: shaves it again. This one would have been difficult for
Speaker 1: the CGI back in nineteen ninety four. I think they
Speaker 1: do it better though than the slave. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: quite good. Actually. Scott's hair also does turn white, even
Speaker 1: though he does try to diet a few times during
Speaker 1: the movie, but it instantly goes back to white. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no way he can stop this center transformation. I
Speaker 1: did notice that in the office they were very happy
Speaker 1: to fat shame Scott. This definitely wouldn't be allowed in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. This would be an harm matter. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it is still very gendered when
Speaker 1: it comes to fat shaming. I think that men almost
Speaker 1: seem to be allowed to poke fun at one another
Speaker 1: and it's all in Jess. I don't think it would
Speaker 1: be brought up. Hang on a second, mate, you're looking
Speaker 1: really old and fat because his hair was changing color. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: while the transformation was shown as instantaneous on the screen,
Speaker 1: it actually took four to five hours to turn Tim
Speaker 1: into Santa Claus, and then, on top of that, a
Speaker 1: further hour and a half to take it all off.
Speaker 1: The worst bit was this movie was shot during summer,
Speaker 1: so Tim ended up experiencing heat rashes, scars, scratches, and
Speaker 1: infections due to the latex in the prosthetics used. He
Speaker 1: also had to wear multiple fat suits while filming, which
Speaker 1: were extremely uncomfortable during summer, and there was a rule
Speaker 1: that Tim could only be in the suit while filming
Speaker 1: for a maximum of six hours because of poor ventilation,
Speaker 1: and as the films progressed, Tim did say that they
Speaker 1: got better at air conditioning him. That's the crazy thing
Speaker 1: about these Christmas movies is you don't realize, oh wait,
Speaker 1: this is actually filmed in the most non Christmas Eve time.
Speaker 1: They need summer, they need a film one in Australia.
Speaker 1: They can perfectly film it in winter. I saw a
Speaker 1: video on TikTok recently, and it was a Christmas episode
Speaker 1: of Dawson's Creek and they showed that obviously it hadn't snowed.
Speaker 1: They didn't have proper snow machines. They just had this
Speaker 1: white cloth down that was meant to be snow. I
Speaker 1: saw that. They said that they didn't expect that HD
Speaker 1: would be a thing in the future because it was
Speaker 1: so obvious when you now watch it now. Tim said
Speaker 1: that he hated the process and called it terrible. He said,
Speaker 1: you can't describe how maddening the process is. The Santa
Speaker 1: suit itself also caused a lot of problems. Is that
Speaker 1: why he was lashing out at kids because he was
Speaker 1: just so uncomfortable? Probably now the Santa suit itself also
Speaker 1: caused a lot of problems, so Tim had to go
Speaker 1: back and re record a bunch of his lines because
Speaker 1: when they watched it back, they realized that the bells
Speaker 1: of the Santa Suit were too loud when he walked,
Speaker 1: so they ended up using automatic dialogue replacement for most
Speaker 1: of the parts he was in in the Santa Suit.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to go back and watch that
Speaker 1: really closely to see if his lips match up with
Speaker 1: the words. Now, Scott wasn't just changing into set and
Speaker 1: to physically, but also mentally, so he got the ability
Speaker 1: to no children's names he'd never met and whether they
Speaker 1: were on the naughty or nice lipt. This got quite
Speaker 1: awkward because kids would instinctively know he was Santa. So
Speaker 1: there's this scene where Scott is at Charlie's soccer game
Speaker 1: and Laura and Neil witness a line of children queuing
Speaker 1: up to sit on Scott's lap. Now they don't spell
Speaker 1: it out in the movie, but there is a bit
Speaker 1: of an undertone that perhaps Scott is a bit of
Speaker 1: a creep. Yeah, there's also the theme that Scott is
Speaker 1: just doing all of this so that Charlie wants to
Speaker 1: spend time with him. And Charlie loves him, so they
Speaker 1: think that he's gone to these extreme lengths to get
Speaker 1: Charlie's attention. Yeah, yeah, Well, Charlie's mum, Laura, actually ends
Speaker 1: up taking him to a counselor with the aim to
Speaker 1: revoke Scott's visitation rights, and it ends up being more
Speaker 1: of a counseling session for Laura and Neil because the
Speaker 1: pair talk about their own Christmas disappointments, which center around
Speaker 1: not getting what they wanted from Santa as kids. So
Speaker 1: Laura asked for a Mystery Date boy game, which I
Speaker 1: feel it was very of that seventies vintage, while at
Speaker 1: three Neil wanted an Oscar Meyer Weenie whistle, which I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, but Santa didn't deliver either, and after that,
Speaker 1: neither of them believed in Santraguin. Now I blame the
Speaker 1: parents in that situation because neither of those presents sound expensive.
Speaker 1: I think it is a parent's duty to uphold the
Speaker 1: magic of Christmas. It sounds like lazy parenting to me. Now,
Speaker 1: Scott's visitation rights are canceled, but he goes to Laura
Speaker 1: and Neil's home anyway, and they allow Scott to talk
Speaker 1: privately with Charlie, and it's at this point where Charlie
Speaker 1: manages to convince Scott that he really is Santa Claus,
Speaker 1: so he shows him the magical snow globe that Bernard
Speaker 1: gave him and tells his dad how important it is
Speaker 1: to the children of the world. Then Bernard suddenly appears
Speaker 1: and transports Scott and Charlie back to the North Pole.
Speaker 1: Laura and Neil think Scott has kidnapped Charlie, so they
Speaker 1: call the police and this is when the man hunt begins.
Speaker 1: And I think this is where it becomes really ridiculous,
Speaker 1: because police start arresting Santas all around the city and
Speaker 1: there's this scene where the police car circles a Santa
Speaker 1: and then aggressively it grabs him and arrests him. And
Speaker 1: the producers clearly had a lot of fun with these scenes.
Speaker 1: Is they have this police briefing where they circulate a
Speaker 1: drawing of Santa and all the police officers are sniggering.
Speaker 1: And the thing that shocked me the most did they
Speaker 1: reveal that Scott is meant to be thirty eight years
Speaker 1: old in the film, and Tim Allen was actually forty
Speaker 1: one when he shot the movie, So it wasn't far off,
Speaker 1: but as I get closer to that age, it really
Speaker 1: freaks me out. He does look quite young in the movie.
Speaker 1: I think it's because you're reflecting on watching it as
Speaker 1: a child and thinking that he's this adult, and that
Speaker 1: you put yourself in the shoes and think, God, could
Speaker 1: I be Santa Claus. Yeah, but Santa Claus, you don't
Speaker 1: normally think of him as being thirty eight. I know
Speaker 1: he gets significantly older or appears significant yeah, but at
Speaker 1: the start of the movie he seemed like a young,
Speaker 1: cool sort of dad. I don't know. I think when
Speaker 1: you're little, you think forty is really old, and now,
Speaker 1: as we're approaching the age, you're like, no, it's still
Speaker 1: cool and young and hip. Now. There's also they are
Speaker 1: a really funny scene where they call Laura into a
Speaker 1: police lineup to identify Scott and there's the FAKEUS looking
Speaker 1: bunch of Santas with cheap Santa suits on, and there
Speaker 1: are a few that don't even match Scott's title ethnicity.
Speaker 1: It's like, wouldn't you make the Santas take their suits off?
Speaker 1: Isn't that The joke of it? Though? That the only
Speaker 1: id they really have is that at Center. Well, they
Speaker 1: just make the police look fucking stupid. Maybe it's their
Speaker 1: way of having a bit of diversity back then in
Speaker 1: the nineties. Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Scott is working
Speaker 1: with the Elves on ensuring he's safe during the Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve deliveries. So the Elves have come up with this
Speaker 1: new technology, including a fire retardant Santa suit. Scott and
Speaker 1: Charlie begin delivering presents and when they return to Neil
Speaker 1: and Laura's home, Scott is arrested whilst Charlie is on
Speaker 1: the sleigh on the roof. I always love this part
Speaker 1: of the movie because the North Pole ended up deploying
Speaker 1: this special team of Elves and they were called the
Speaker 1: Effective Liberation Fight Squad or Elves for short. So they
Speaker 1: arrive at the police station where Scott is being held
Speaker 1: and they tell the police officer, we're your worst nightmare
Speaker 1: Elves with attitude. The joke of it is they just
Speaker 1: seem like little dweeps. It's about at this point where
Speaker 1: I normally fall asleep in this movie. If I'm being
Speaker 1: completely honest, the start of the movie is really it
Speaker 1: for me. I'm not really interested in the rest of
Speaker 1: it where he goes to the North Pole and stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm just interested in the starting plot. I get what
Speaker 1: you mean, because I love the Christmas Eve vibe. At
Speaker 1: the start. It feels very exciting, and it does turn
Speaker 1: a little bit dark when Scott is accused of basically
Speaker 1: grooming Charlie and pretending to be Santa Claus. Now, the
Speaker 1: movie does have a happy ending, so Scott ends up
Speaker 1: returning Charlie to Laura and Neil's home and insists that
Speaker 1: he spend Christmas Eve with them, and he ends up
Speaker 1: delivering this very heartfelt speech which convinces Laura and Neil
Speaker 1: that he is in fact Santa And in the end,
Speaker 1: Laura ends up burning the custody paper, so Charlie is
Speaker 1: allowed to visit Scott whenever he likes. I mean, I
Speaker 1: suppose it's little bit difficult because he will be in
Speaker 1: the North Pole, But I supposed out pretty perfectly for
Speaker 1: her though. She gets this ex husband who pisses off
Speaker 1: because he's now Santa Claus, so she gets custody, full
Speaker 1: custody of the child. Yeah, it did work out well
Speaker 1: for Laura and Neil. One of the most magical parts
Speaker 1: of this movie is the snow globe that Bernard the
Speaker 1: elf gives to Charlie. He says that if he ever
Speaker 1: wants to see his dad, he can shake it and
Speaker 1: he can see wherever he is in the world. It
Speaker 1: reminds me very much of a movie of the same vintage,
Speaker 1: the Richie rich movie, where he's got this high tech
Speaker 1: computer and he can find Dad wherever he is. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: in terms of those snow globes, there are only two
Speaker 1: of the original snow globes from the movie that still exist,
Speaker 1: and Tim and Eric are the only ones who own them.
Speaker 1: So the actor that played Charlie said during a redder
Speaker 1: Ama that the prop team didn't fill the globes with
Speaker 1: the proper treating chemicals, so within a few years they
Speaker 1: turned brown. So it's not even like they've got a
Speaker 1: really cool prop from the movie. As a keeps say,
Speaker 1: I thought you gonna say that they smashed the rest
Speaker 1: of them accidentally, because that's what always happens with Christmas
Speaker 1: snow globes. I did love at the end of the movie,
Speaker 1: how Scott ends up giving Neil and Laura the Christmas
Speaker 1: gifts they always wanted, So he drops a mystery date
Speaker 1: game for Laura and a weenie whistle for Neil. Now,
Speaker 1: the original cut of the Santa Claus was a lot
Speaker 1: longer than the version that actually hit the big screens,
Speaker 1: So thirty minutes from the movie ended up being cut
Speaker 1: out because it was considered too long for a kid's movie. God, Amy,
Speaker 1: you would have been snoring bloody very early into it
Speaker 1: if they kept us original When wondering what they actually
Speaker 1: cut out, because it still seemed pretty long for me, Well,
Speaker 1: what they ended up cutting out were all of the
Speaker 1: individual scenes with Charlie, so he had a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a character development amongst the film. But they
Speaker 1: decided that if he wasn't in a scene with Tim Allen,
Speaker 1: they didn't really want him. You know, I think that
Speaker 1: was a wise decision because I don't think we needed
Speaker 1: to see any more of this kid. There's also a
Speaker 1: scene in the movie that has been cut out of
Speaker 1: the DVD release since nineteen ninety nine. So when Laura
Speaker 1: dropped Charlie off at Scott's house on Christmas Eve, she
Speaker 1: handed him a contact list if there's an emergency, and
Speaker 1: he pointed at his ex mother in law's number and
Speaker 1: said one eight hundred. Spank me. I know that number. Now,
Speaker 1: that number actually ended up being a real phone number
Speaker 1: of a sex line, so Disney started receiving complaints that
Speaker 1: children were calling the number, and apparently one kid in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six ran up a four hundred dollars phone
Speaker 1: bill on the sex line. Does that mean that one
Speaker 1: of the sex workers actually spoke to the kid? What
Speaker 1: sounds like it if they were able to break up
Speaker 1: a bill. Yeah. Well, after all the complaints, Disney removed
Speaker 1: the scene from all of the home releases, starting with
Speaker 1: a nineteen nine DVD release. I think I have seen
Speaker 1: this original maybe it's floating around on YouTube now. In
Speaker 1: its opening weekend in November nineteen ninety four, the Santa
Speaker 1: Claus ended up date billing at number two, making nineteen
Speaker 1: million dollars. So this figure was nearly the exact amount
Speaker 1: as the film's budget, and in an unprecedented turn of events,
Speaker 1: the movie kept performing and after almost one month after
Speaker 1: its premiere, came number one at the box office. This
Speaker 1: isn't surprising, because obviously it would have gone into a
Speaker 1: December and everyone wanted to see it was. This is
Speaker 1: quite surprising, though, for a Christmas movie to make it
Speaker 1: to number one, that's pretty unprecedented because usually Christmas movies
Speaker 1: don't fare that well in these poles. Well, it ended
Speaker 1: up making one hundred million dollars in the US alone,
Speaker 1: and success was also felt personally by Tim Allen. So
Speaker 1: he had the number one movie at the box office,
Speaker 1: the number one TV show with Home Improvement, and was
Speaker 1: at the top of the New York Times bestseller's list
Speaker 1: with the book Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man,
Speaker 1: which he wrote while filming The Santa Claus. Look controversial opinion.
Speaker 1: I don't think the Santa Claus franchise is Tim Allen's
Speaker 1: best Christmas movie. I would have to say Christmas with
Speaker 1: the Cranks is better. Look, I am a fan of
Speaker 1: Christmas with the Cranks, but I definitely think that the
Speaker 1: Santa Claus has more of a cult following because he
Speaker 1: has embodied such a joyful character of Santa Claus in
Speaker 1: Christmas with the Cranks. He's like the greench in that movie.
Speaker 1: He's one wanting to cancel Christmas. Yeah, but he's like
Speaker 1: his original character, like he's cranky when the movie first
Speaker 1: times to eight sound. It's like that character was also
Speaker 1: closer to him. After hearing that he was quite rude
Speaker 1: to all of the children on this. So there's something
Speaker 1: about that movie though, because Joe Bot'scot Dewey, who was
Speaker 1: in Malcolm in the Middle. Yeah, and there's something about
Speaker 1: the whole community coming together to try and convince this
Speaker 1: family that they need to sell a bet Christmas. Even
Speaker 1: how the daughter Blair was the popular girl in a
Speaker 1: Cinderella story, which was popular girl in literally every other
Speaker 1: movie time. She was probably like thirty five playing the
Speaker 1: roles of teen data. Yeah. Well, the success of the
Speaker 1: Santa Claus film did come as a surprise, so Disney
Speaker 1: was very keen to keep the ball rolling and film
Speaker 1: a sequel, but Tim Allen wasn't as convinced, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to ensure the second movie was actually a quality movie.
Speaker 1: So at one point sixteen different contributors were involved in
Speaker 1: the Santa Claus two and Tim Allen almost walked away
Speaker 1: at one point. But eight years after the original, the
Speaker 1: sequel hit theaters in two thousand and two. It blows
Speaker 1: my mind that they waited that long. I do understand
Speaker 1: wanting to get it right. Obviously filming takes time, but
Speaker 1: you think that you would want to generate momentum off
Speaker 1: the back of the first one, Yeah, well. In an interview,
Speaker 1: Tim said, we gave up. We got to the point
Speaker 1: where we all got frustrated. They green lit the script
Speaker 1: and I said, I don't want to do this, but
Speaker 1: we pushed through. It's quite interesting because the original director,
Speaker 1: John Pasquin didn't return to direct the two sequels, and
Speaker 1: Tim credited the new director, Michael Lemback, for helping make
Speaker 1: the sequels possible. He said, the studio and I were
Speaker 1: really disagreeing on which direction to take it, if we
Speaker 1: were going to take it at all. We really didn't
Speaker 1: think they were going to do this. We were so
Speaker 1: far apart, and then Michael came in and made the thing.
Speaker 1: He came to the set every day with an attitude
Speaker 1: that was great. Now. Just last year, in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Tim reprised the role of Santa again in a streaming
Speaker 1: series for Disney Plus. He said that this series was
Speaker 1: important because it answered longtime questions regarding what happened to
Speaker 1: the previous Santas and whether there were other Missus clauses.
Speaker 1: I was quite surprised by this because I didn't hear
Speaker 1: anything about it back in twenty two. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I probably am not that interested in watching the series,
Speaker 1: are you guys? I reckon I will give it a
Speaker 1: go this Christmas because I think about it this way.
Speaker 1: If they spend eight years trying to perfect the sequel
Speaker 1: for Tim Allen to then do another sequel and then
Speaker 1: this TV show, he must see a lot of merit
Speaker 1: in it. It seems like he hasn't wanted to bastardize
Speaker 1: this franchise, so I think it must actually be quite good.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I might be cynical, but maybe he's
Speaker 1: just chasing after the dollars now to end on a
Speaker 1: pop culture though. It's pretty funny because we all know
Speaker 1: how much the Kardashians love Christmas and apparently their favorite
Speaker 1: movie is The Santa Claus. Yeah, they watch it every
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve. Apparently. Yes, so when Kim and Chloe were
Speaker 1: on the Red Carpet a few years ago, they actually
Speaker 1: ran into David Crumbholt, who plays Bernard the Elf, and
Speaker 1: they absolutely fan geld over him. I'm confused. Don't they
Speaker 1: have these huge Christmas Eve parties at the Kardashian households?
Speaker 1: Are they watching this movie in the morning? I want
Speaker 1: to know. Is this being screened at the party, not
Speaker 1: only at the party? Big movie screen. Well maybe when
Speaker 1: they're getting glam for the party. Yeah. Well, that is
Speaker 1: where we are going to leave you today. We hope
Speaker 1: that you all have a very merry Christmas. We will
Speaker 1: be continuing through the holidays, don't worry. So we will
Speaker 1: be running episodes as normal on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday.