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Mystery Science Theater 3000 has made fun of quite a few Christmas movies, it kind of became an expected thing when they made the move to Netflix. But when the show originally ran on Comedy Central, they only had two Christmas episodes to speak of and one of them is clearly superior to the other.
It's 1959's Santa Claus, a Mexican holiday fantasy film directed by René Cardona. That's it. That's the answer.
Think of it this way: what other movie depicts Santa Claus living at the North Pole with his best friend…uh…Merlin the wizard, and a workforce of multicultural kids who sing nothing but their own national songs? And he has a giant eye on a stalk to spy on people? And a giant ear attached to an oscillating fan to listen in on conversations? And he has to visit the Greek god Vulcan to receive a magic key to open any door? AND THE WHOLE FILM IS ABOUT HOW HE FOILS THE PLANS OF THE DEVIL?
Thankfully, Mike and the 'Bots make this bizarre film watchable at best, or more bizarre at worst. The jokes are great for a fifth season episode. It introduces MST3K's own recurring devil character, Pitch, modeled after the pantaloon-wearing devil of the film. It might be one of the best episodes to show to new viewers because it's just so strange. The Devil's big plan is to get children to misbehave so that Santa will get mad and "lose", but it's nothing but pratfalls and kids being goody-goodies. And the meta commentary by Mike, Tom Servo, and Crow is some of the best of the series.
Now, there was a second Christmas-themed MST3K episode that ran earlier in the original series run, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians from 1964, which somehow looks worse than Santa Claus from 5 years previous. It's…well, let's just say that the title does a lot of heavy lifting. It sounds like it should be worse than it is, and the season three jokes from Joel are less stellar than the jokes for the season five Santa Claus.
The movie is public domain at this point, so you'll have no problem finding it on YouTube or on the MST3K Gizmoplex app. If I had my way it would be required viewing every Christmas!
Check back tomorrow for even more Heistmas Advent Calendar Goodies!
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