According to the narrator, Santa’s palatial estate is directly above the North Pole. But it’s not like 1,000 feet above the pole, best I can tell it’s about 347 miles above the North Pole. Jeez, no wonder Santa only comes to visit us earthlings but once a year. The mileage alone must cost the guy a fortune.

It appears Santa is sharing neighborhood association dues with two other crystal castle owners. I’m pretty sure one of them is Jesus. Santa makes mention of Him a couple of times throughout the film, so apparently he knows the reason for the season. It does my heart good just thinking that Santa and Jesus hang out together. Why I can just picture them grilling out in the summer and watching the Super Bowl together every February.

The question, then, is who owns that third palace? At one point, I would have sworn the movie mentioned that’s where Merlin lived. Yes, Merlin, as in the magician.

Now I am really going out on a limb here that Merlin is the owner of the third castle, not because he doesn’t appear in the movie (and oh boy will you know it when he does), but rather because Merlin is ALWAYS at Santa’s place. He has a laboratory there you know.

Actually, you probably don’t know that, but rest assured, you will.

As I mentioned above, Santa is very fond of why there is a Christmas; in fact, the movie begins with the jolly old elf examining his nativity set.

And it’s quite the nativity, as he places feathers in the baby Jesus’ crib. I don’t remember that in the book of Matthew. Maybe it was in Luke, not sure. But regardless, Santa excuses himself so that he can go get the presents ready for all the kids.

I have no doubt you think I am making all of this up, so here’s some audio proof.

I especially like Santa scatting Silent Night in the most off-key manner possible.

Santa doesn’t have elves building toys for him in this movie. Instead, he plays an organ while children that I can only guess he has kidnapped from earth put together crap for him to take down on Christmas Eve.

Oh, and they live in what appears to be a prototype of the It’s a Small World ride. I always thought that they just ripped Uncle Walt off, but it turns out this movie came out years before the ride came into existence, so maybe the Imagineers saw this and decided to do some thievery of their own.

Bizarre? Yes. But let’s make it patently offensive as well by plugging in every single stereotype imaginable. For instance, here’s the children from Africa…

…complete with bones in their hair and spears. WOOF. Are you a child from the middle east? Then it’s belly dancers and machine guns for you! I’d go through every country, but I trust you get the gist. I should note that all this happens while children sing even more horrifically than Santa himself. Maybe everyone in this film is tone deaf. But it’s not just all horrible singing and ignored child labor laws. For Santa also has an arch nemesis.

And that would be Pitch.

See, Satan doesn’t really want to mess with St. Nick himself, so he just tells one of his cronies to do the dirty work for him, and Pitch is the guy for the job despite failing repeatedly in the past apparently. Pitch doesn’t even seem to want to do it, but Lucifer tells him if he doesn’t make all the children in the world do evil, his henchman will be forced to eat chocolate ice cream. Pitch is completely against this, as it is bad for his delicate innards.

Again, I understand you not believing me, so here you go.

Finally, we get back down to earth. Or up to earth. Whatever. Time for us to be introduced to the children of the film.

First up, we get a small boy whose daddy is quite rich. We know that because the narrator informs us that he is a “good little boy whose daddy is quite rich.”

Personally, I would have expanded on that, with my version being “here is a good little boy whose daddy is quite rich…and has a killer pencil thin moustache that would make John Waters jealous.”

Next up we meet a mother who is poor. So very, very poor, as we will discover throughout the film. Her daughter is the criminally cute Lupita, the child with the heart of gold that would bring a tear to Robert Gibson’s glass eye. More on her later.

Finally, we get three rotten little kids whom the devil decides to recruit in his anti-Santa crusade. He hatches his nefarious plot by producing three rocks, which the kids throw at an animatronic Kris Kringle.

Somehow this causes a real rock to hit the real Santa in the head. Yes, in his spaceship castle above the North Pole. I’d attempt to explain it, but instead let’s just laugh at Santa’s misery. Just puts you in the holiday spirit, no?

Santa, now aware of Pitch’s antics, heads to his magic observatory to do some spying. And let it be known that this is, in fact, a VERY magic observatory which has “some wonderful instruments such as the Earscope, the Cosmic Telescope, and the Master Eye!”

Ok, all those things are creepy, but nothing can touch the Teletalker. That looks like some kind of sexual pleasure device or something. Maybe I’ll ask Blade about that later this weekend on the Christmas edition of WrestleCrap Radio. That looks like something he’d know about.

Anyhoo, Santa soon sees Pitch attempting to talk Lupita into stealing a doll. See, because she’s poor and otherwise wouldn’t get one for Christmas. Thankfully, the narrator, who apparently moonlights as Lupita’s conscience, chimes in and tells her to put the doll back.

She listens, which causes Pitch to go into hysterics, complete with gibberish-laden babbling. You’d think the devil would be throwing out profanity, but that’s not the case here unless somehow “bahabbaabbababaaahhhCURSES!” is a four letter word. Before I go any further, I need to make mention that Pitch can appear and disappear at will. That in and of itself wouldn’t be strange, but his materializations are always accompanied with the world’s most annoying piano strike. Sounds like this.

The plotline of the rich boy is next, as we learn that for Christmas he wants his parents…wrapped up in a giant box. All I can say is that if I were a spoiled brat and my parents wrapped themselves up for me to open on Christmas morning, I’d be mighty disappointed. Maybe that’s why when he opens the boxes mom and dad look like they’re laying inside coffins. Coffins with spotlights, mind you, but coffins nonetheless.

Time to head over to Lupita’s house. Remember when I mentioned that her parents were very poor? Let me explain how poverty stricken they are. Not only do they live in a one-room shanty, the only wall decor they have is old newspapers and crowbars. If you’re ever bemoaning the fact your wallet is empty, take a look at your wall. If you’ve got something up there other than a CROWBAR, you’re Elon Musk next to these folks.

Into Lupita’s dreams we go, as giant ragdolls dance about and chastise her for not stealing the doll from that street vendor. Even without them belittling the poor girl for her honesty, I’d know this dream was the work of the devil…the 45 minute sequence of those ”toys” is the most frightening thing I’ve seen since…well, I guess since the Teletalker. It’s really a toss up as to which is more traumatic.

So we get more scenes of Santa looking into kids’ dreams and eavesdropping on their conversations and him reading his mail and telling the stork that he needs a little brother for a kid and using an antique belt exercising machine and then going off on a diatribe about how the devil is centuries older than he is but he hasn’t been well lately and then barks like a dog. How did Clement Clarke Moore leave all that stuff out of the Night Before Christmas?

So all this stuff happens and then suddenly Santa realizes that it’s Christmas Eve and he needs to get a move on. But before he can head to earth, he has to visit his old pal, Mr. Merlin, the Wizard. It’s a scene that goes on forever.

FOREVER.

I originally couldn’t believe they cut this out on the MST3K version, until I watched it again for this write up, and saw the sun rising and setting and then rising and setting again before it finally ended. It goes on and on and on, with the running joke being that Merlin keeps forgetting to carry an urn over to the table where he mixes the ingredients. He forgets the thing like 20 times and each time Santa laughs harder and harder as I just keep reaching for the fast forward button. So Merlin finally outfits Santa with all he’ll need for his trip, namely the flower to disappear, the powder that makes kids fall asleep, which he formulates using, no joke, MORPHEUM. Well, at least NOW I get why Santa was laughing.

Before Santa can leave, he has one more stop, and to get the key that opens all doors from his blacksmith. His big, brawny, SHIRTLESS blacksmith, who apparently lives in the castle with him. If you thought those dancing dolls in Lupita’s dream were disturbing, they’ve got nothing on the shirtless blacksmith, who puffs up and flexes his unkempt red chest hair as Santa looks on approvingly in a VERY distressing manner. You know, I always thought Santa hanging out with elves was somewhat questionable, but after seeing his lustful glances at the shirtless blacksmith, I am totally fine with it.

Time to load up the sleigh and get down to earth. The slave kids toss box after box into Santa’s magic bag as the old guy sings a song in which no lyrics come even close to rhyming. If ever there was a Christmas song Mariah Carey needed to cover, it’s this one.

With all the presents onboard, Santa cranks up the reindeer and gets them ready to go. You may recall in my original write up, I found these mechanical reindeer exceedingly creepy, what with their bizarre laugh and all. Don’t get me wrong, they are still rather unsettling, well…I’ve seen the shirtless blacksmith. In comparison, these things look like Bambi.

So Santa heads out to the bar, becomes a waiter (?) and gives them his specially made “Cocktail of Remembrence” which causes the parents to remember they do have a kid, it’s Christmas, and yeah, maybe we should spend a couple minutes with him. Sadly, Pitch doesn’t show up to counter drug them with a “Cocktail of Your Kid Sucks, So Stay Here and Get Smashed Instead of Going Home.” But I guess then the little rich boy wouldn’t have been very happy, so everything turns out ok.

Seventy-five minutes into the film, Pitch finally – FINALLY – comes up with a good idea, as he cuts open the bag that contains the dreaming powders and the flower to disappear, causing them to fall to the ground. Even better, Santa is oblivious to Pitch’s actions. Yep, it’s all coming Pitch’s way now!

So Santa lands, and heads to the next house…and is immediately run up a tree by Pitch’s dog! Please don’t ask why Pitch had a dog…just nod your head and say, “Well, if Pitch WERE going to have a dog in this film, at least his name is Dante, so I’ll buy that” and we can move on.

Oh, and yes, on his way back to outer space, Santa stops by and drops off a giant doll to Lupita. What, you didn’t think this would have a happy ending?