The Santa Clause

and his son Charlie got to work. It was meant to be a one off, but Scott missed the fine print. You put on a suit, you're the big guy. What I'll buy you a Santa Claus? Then then there would be millions of disappointed children around the world. In this special Christmas edition, we unpacked the cult Christmas classic and share the unknown stories behind the Santa Claus. We are journalists Amy Kay and Sophie Torba, and this is outspoken.

The Santa Claus would be in my top three Christmas movies full time, and it was released in November nineteen ninety four, so we were five when it first came out. We didn't go to the movies to watch it. I specifically remember sitting down as a family and watching this on a Friday night, and that was when they used to play all of the blockbusters. Yeah, I think I have more specific memories of this film when I was around ten or twelve, and it just seemed to be

a tradition that you would always watch this. It would always be on the week leading into Christmas, and you couldn not watch it. It had to be a part of the rotation. Now, since The Santa Claus was released in nineteen ninety four, there have been two sequels, So The Santa Claus two was released eight years after the

first installment in two thousand and two. Well, the third movie, The Santa Claus three, The Escape Clause, was released in two thousand and six and since then a follow up TV series called The Santa Clauses aired last year in November twenty twenty two, and a new series is currently airing now. So in this deep dive, we'll be covering the first movie of the franchise. I'm usually not a fan of sequels, but in this instance, the sequels were

actually good. Well, I did touch on it before, but there was such a huge gap between the first and the second movie because they wanted to make sure it was right now. Tim Allen was not the first pick for the role of Scott Calvin. The role was originally written for Bill Murray, but after starring in Scrooge, Bill

had no interest in being in another Christmas movie. For a lot of actors, you wouldn't really want to be pigeonholed into Christmas movies because generally they're thought of his movies that don't do that well at the box office. You don't really get that much respect in the industry for appearing in Christmas shows. Yeah, it's not something you want to be type cast in now. Producers then tried

to get Chevy Chase. So five years earlier, Chevy had starred as Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation, so he already had a successful festive film under his belt. However, he was unable to do the movie due to scheduling conflicts, so he had to drop out. That really disappoints me because Christmas Vacation is my all time favorite Christmas movie and that is down to Chevy Chase. He is incredible in that movie. But you can't have Chevy Chase in

two iconic Christmas movies. It probably would have spoilt it. I don't know. I think he would have been great in this movie. Now, other candidates were Tom Hanks, Tom Selleck, and Mel Gibson, who all have ironically played Santa Claus at one point in their careers. Now, while Home Improvement, which Tim starred in, was incredibly popular at the time, the producers weren't sold on him as talent. They didn't think a TV star could open a movie, and they

were also concerned about his criminal pass. So in the late seventies, Tim was arrested for possession of cocaine and he was found with over six hundred and fifty grams of the illegal drug on him. Now, Disney has a really strict policy regarding actors with criminal records, but they ended up making an exception for him. It's quite ironic because since appearing in the Santa Claus franchise, Tim has also starred in another one of my favorite Christmas movies,

which is Christmas with the Cranks. So I suppose he has been typecast himself. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think I've seen him appear in any non Chris this movie, so he seemed quite happy to make that his niche maybe that is because he came from a TV background. Yeah. Now, Tim's character Scott shares an eight year old son, Charlie, with his ex wife Laura, and in the movie, Laura is remarried to a man

called doctor Neil Miller, who was a psychiatrist. And the casting of Charlie wasn't a straightforward process either, So producers were looking for a child age between six and nine who had a sense of innocence and sensitivity and who could access their emotions. So auditions were held in thirteen different states before they cast eight year old Eric Lloyd

in the role of Charlie. And it wasn't smooth sailing with Eric during filming because his two bottom teeth got knocked out during a baseball game with his family, so he had to wear denches during the film to ensure continuity. What a nightmare for producers because things like that can become so distracting in movies. It's pretty funny because in twenty fourteen, Eric revealed on Reddit that his head was superimposed on the movie poster as a cost cutting exercise.

He wrote, it's some other kids standing behind a cutout of Tim Allen and they just put my face on it so they didn't have to pay me for another day. Wow, he seems pretty dirty on it. Still, well, let's get into the movie. So the film opens on Christmas Eve when Laura and Neil drop Charlie off to spend the occasion with Scott, and the contentious conversation on when to tell Charlie the truth about Santa comes up. Now Scott wants Charlie to continue to believe. Well, Laura and Neil

think it's time to be honest with Charlie. When did you guys stop believing in Santa? My official word is that I have never stopped believing in the magic of Father Christmas because I think if you one, if you don't believe, you don't receive Our Mum always used to say that to that's big in our house. And two, Father Christmas still delivers presents to us, so at our parents' house there is always a present from Father Christmas. We

do have our Santa sax Field. But we did make the very devastating discovery when we were twelve, which I think is quite old. So how Mum always used to say, as you said, if you do not believe, you do not receive. And I think we had an inkling that something wasn't quite right because we would always ask our friends, look, can you leave a piece of paper, ask Santa to sign it when he drops your presence off, and then we're going to compare the signatures to see if they

match up. Unfortunately, though the friends that we had asked, they already knew that Santa wasn't real, so they just kind of fobbed us off. There is something magical though on Christmas Eve where you kind of second guess yourself. You're like, well, there's so much magic going on on that day, and you do get a bit funny, like I still put out carrots and milk and stuff as a bit of a joke on Christmas Eve? Does Dale eat them for you? Will they get eaten somehow? I

don't know. Well, in terms of this situation in the movie, I think it was very wrong that the decision about telling Charlie about Santa is being pushed by the step dad. I would be so pissed off if I were Scott. It seems like this is coming from a deeper place for Neil because as you touched on Kate, he is a psychiatrist and he thinks that there's all these unresolved issues if you feel like your parents are lying to you.

And it turns out that didn't he find out when he was two or something he was three because he didn't get a whistle that he wanted. Now, unfortunately, Christmas Eve didn't go to plans, so Scott ends up burning Christmas dinner and takes Charlie to Denny's. And is it just me or does Charlie seem really spoilt? Because throughout the start of the movie he's always rolling his eyes at his dad and getting fedter up, and it's pretty clear that Scott is trying his very best. As a kid,

you always loved going out to restaurants. That would be way better than having a home cooked meal. But isn't it because Scott is a bit of a distant dad, like they've gone through the divorce and the kid's not happy going from house to house. That's the thing. This movie was very of its time because in the early nineties that's when movies and TV shows really started exploring divorce, and as a kid who perhaps was from a divorced home. It would have been actually really refreshing to see their

experience reflected on the big screen. I did notice that there's a lot of nine stereotyping going on at the start of the movie. So Denny's the restaurant is full of men who can't cook and have have been involved in accidents in the kitchen. And there's also this old cliche at Scott's office of the boss having an affair with the secretary. I've also noticed in all of the Christmas movies the families have these epic houses that people

just wouldn't be able to afford. Now think if the home alone house is about five bedrooms, particularly if you've just gotten divorced as well. That's a common theme in American movies, though, because the houses are so much bigger than Australian houses. It is interesting to note that the movie was originally called Such a Clatter, which is in reference to a line in the iconic Christmas book. It was a stroke of genius to rename this movie because

the Santa clause. Instantly you know it's a Christmas movie. It's about Father Christmas. And again it's a fun play on words because it's about this special clause that means that whoever wears the red cloak and the hat is Santa.

And while investigating, the noise outside startles Santa while he's on the roof, who then slips and falls to his death, and Santa's body vanishes, and all that's left behind is the famous red suit and a business card that says, if anything were to happen to the man, to put on the suit and the reindeer will know what to do. Now. Originally, it was written in the script that Scott shot Santa because he thought he was intruderhow and it's just funny

to think how American that is. However, the CEO of dream Work thought better of it and decided a kid's Christmas movie couldn't start with the shooting of Santa. But it don't start with the death of Santa, which actually is very sad when you think about it, but it's all kind of glossed over. Yeah. I think it's because his body disappears. It's almost like this puff of magic, and I think if you saw his body dead it

would be a little bit different. Yes, probably also because we haven't actually been introduced to the character as such. We've only seen the character of Santa on the roof delivering presents. We don't know his personality at this stage. Well, Scott and Charlie get a shock when they climb on the roof and discover Santa's slay and reindeers. And looking at the movie nearly twenty years on, what do you guys think about the reindeers. Oh, they were very mechanical,

weren't they. Yeah, they definitely don't look real. They literally look like big puppets or robots. They remind me of the reindeers at the Adelaide Christmas pageant. Yes, on Santa's float. There are these reindeers for those who don't live in Adelaide, And I always thought they looked pretty cool when I was five, But now you see them and you're like wow.

I saw a video recently and I think it was from a pageant in America, and it was basically Santa's slay on this Bobcat and the reindeers were people and they were China Prance. It looked so messed up. That looks that sounds terrifying. Yeah, it was the mechanical reindeer vibe enhances my personal Christmas experience though, because it reminds me of the eighties and nineties, of a simpler time. And I'm seeing on TikTok that all millennials are loving

the vintage Christmas decorations. Well they're calling it taki Christmas. They're saying taki Christmas. To come back down to this bege Christmas. I do love the personalities of the Reindeers, though, Comma is such a bad ass. He literally farts and also brows at Scott to get him to do what he's supposed to do. The slave flying scene, though, looks

particularly bad. I know it was thirty years ago, but when you consider that Jurassic Park was out a year earlier, the CGI in the Santa Claus isn't up to scraps. Perhaps they didn't have the money to spend on it. During that scene where the sleigh begins flying, they move past a truck and funnily enough, the truck driver is Home Improvement's Benny. This reminds me of the Brady Bunch movie when they had Alice playing a truck driver. They

seem to have more of these cameos back in the nineties. Yeah, it was a nice little touch. Now, Scott ends up reluctantly donning the Santa suit and spends the night delivering presence with Charlie, and the movie answers the age odd question of how Santa delivers presence to children whose houses don't have a fireplace. I can answer that already. It's the magic ice key in Australia that it keeps in

his well. No, it's different in the movie. So in the movie, at each house, the sack of Presence magically refills with the toys for the children at the house, and Scott is confused when one of the houses doesn't have a chimney but just a very small vent pipe. So when he picks up the Santa sack, it lifts him and flies him over to the pipe and he magically squeezes down to spit inside again. It's some absolutely bang on graphics by the team, and then inside a

fireplace magically forms. Wouldn't have this been so fun to come up with? Yeah, it would have been. I appreciate that they didn't just fob everyone off and only pick houses that had proper chimneys. I would have liked to have seen though, the eski in Australia. I don't know if any other people grew up thinking that happened. Is that just an Australian thing because it's so hot. I hope it's not just an our household fee. Probably, I

wouldn't be surprised if that came out to be. In fact, they need some set rules for parents because there would be so many different variations at school to be some continuity. Now, Scott and Charlie spend the rest of the night delivering presents before the Reindeers fly them home to the North Pole and they make a grand entrance into the toy factory. And it's weird because no one seems upset at the news that Sander has died. That's what rocked me to

my core. Yeah, they look happy as Scott and Charlie arrive. No one seems shocked that the original Santa is dead, and the focus is just on the elves getting back to work. It kind of seems like a sweatshop. There's no morning of the original Santa. It makes me wonder is the job of Santa really dangerous and he's replaced a lot. Yeah, they could be the case. Also, you've got to remember that the elves in the movie, they're thousands of years old, so you can imagine how old

Father Christmas must be here. And maybe Santa's just a prick. I mean you said it seems a bit like a sweatshop. Maybe they're glad that he's got He is not a prick. I think you can see in the movie. In order to be Father Christmas, you need to be merry, and you start you start exhibiting the spirit of Christmas. Yeah. Well, another interesting element is there's no grieving missus clause, and in the sequel of the first movie, we learned that Santa has to have a wife in order to continue

his job. So where was the original Santa's missus clause? Like, was she just kicked it to the curb? She's gone? I don't want to think that deeply into it. It is a children's movie. They obviously thought, look, how are we going to have a sequel to this? And I think it was a pretty good idea. It is pretty funny because when they are at the North Pole, they again play homage to Tim being the tool man, so at one point he picks up a tool belt and

makes his famous noise let's throw to it. H I actually really enjoy when movies do this It reminds me of the Barbie movie when they made a joke about Oh, this would have been more of a pivotal point in the movie if Margo Robbie wasn't so attractive. It's kind of like, you know that the audience is smart enough

to be in on the joke. Yeah. Now, as for the Elves, the producers cast real children in the role, and this ended up being a bit of a problem on set when Tim Allen wanted to improvise, so a producer on the movie said, you didn't want the kids around. When Tim got going, he would go on these hilarious rants streaked with obscenity, and when he did go off on a rant, the production team used to interject when

he seemed close to swearing and put him in time out. Now, Tim would also get incredibly frustrated with his younger co stars and was known to yell at them on set, so the directors often had to remind him that many of the kids on set actually thought he was Santa Claus and that he needed to be nicer to them. Now, Tim himself has proclaimed that he isn't the biggest fan of kids, in saying that he does have three daughters of his own. Wow, that really doesn't paint him in

a good light at all. No, I was a little bit surprised when I found that out. Now, it is at this point of the movie that we meet head elf Bernard, and he stands out because he looks around sixteen.

All the other elves look under twelve. And he seemed like a bit of a ball breaker because he explains in quite a cutting way that by putting on the dead Santa suit, Scott is legally subject to a technicality known as the Santa claus and in putting on the suit, Scott has accepted all of the late Santa's duties and responsibilities. Bernard then tells Scott that he has eleven months to get his affairs in order before reporting back to duty

at the North Pole on Thanksgiving. That somewhat surprised me, because these elves, as you say, are busting their gut to get these presents out. But it seems like all Santa has to do is, you know, come a few months early, drop off the presence his role doesn't seem as intense. Well, it's a pretty big job, flying around the world in twenty four hours and delivering all those presents. Actually,

I'm just thinking about that now. That is incorrect because we do find out in the movie that part of Santa's role is to keep an eye on all of the kids to make sure who's naughty and nice. So he does seem to have extra duties there, and I think they were giving him a bit of leeway because it's just been sprung on him in the last twenty four hours that he is Santa. I do love that the North Pole provided Scott with personalized Santa pajama and he ended up falling asleep at the North Pole, confused

and overwhelmed. What's quite cool about this scene is that the pajamas are this really silky rad I've always wanted a pair of Christmas pajamas like this, and it has the initials s C on them, which is Scott Calvin but also Santa Claus. Yeah. Well, on Christmas morning, Scott wakes up in his own bed and believes the previous night's events were just a dream. However, he is still dressed in the personalized pajamas from the North Pole, and

he quickly realizes last night was in fact reality. When Charlie recalls what happened and is convinced that his dad is the new Santa Claus. Charlie tells his mum and stepdad Neil all about it and they become very concerned. Now, Scott did ask Charlie to keep the trip to the North Pole a secret, but he literally tells anyone who will listen, even though it affects his dad really bad.

So this kid is me as a child, I tell everyone's secrets, even me now sometimes Yeah, I mean he was only eight or something, so it'd be pretty exciting how everyone assumes that he's lying and it just makes sense. They also start thinking that Scott has completely lost it, particularly when he starts transforming physically into Santa Claus, because over the next year he puts on a lot of weight at a very rapid pace, which isn't helped by

his new love of milk and cookies. He also grows a very thick white beard that instantly regrows after he shaves it again. This one would have been difficult for the CGI back in nineteen ninety four. I think they do it better though than the slave. Yeah, it was quite good. Actually. Scott's hair also does turn white, even though he does try to diet a few times during the movie, but it instantly goes back to white. Yeah,

there's no way he can stop this center transformation. I did notice that in the office they were very happy to fat shame Scott. This definitely wouldn't be allowed in twenty twenty three. This would be an harm matter. I don't know. I think it is still very gendered when it comes to fat shaming. I think that men almost seem to be allowed to poke fun at one another and it's all in Jess. I don't think it would be brought up. Hang on a second, mate, you're looking

really old and fat because his hair was changing color. Yeah. Well, while the transformation was shown as instantaneous on the screen, it actually took four to five hours to turn Tim into Santa Claus, and then, on top of that, a further hour and a half to take it all off. The worst bit was this movie was shot during summer, so Tim ended up experiencing heat rashes, scars, scratches, and

infections due to the latex in the prosthetics used. He also had to wear multiple fat suits while filming, which were extremely uncomfortable during summer, and there was a rule that Tim could only be in the suit while filming for a maximum of six hours because of poor ventilation, and as the films progressed, Tim did say that they

got better at air conditioning him. That's the crazy thing about these Christmas movies is you don't realize, oh wait, this is actually filmed in the most non Christmas Eve time. They need summer, they need a film one in Australia. They can perfectly film it in winter. I saw a video on TikTok recently, and it was a Christmas episode of Dawson's Creek and they showed that obviously it hadn't snowed. They didn't have proper snow machines. They just had this

white cloth down that was meant to be snow. I saw that. They said that they didn't expect that HD would be a thing in the future because it was so obvious when you now watch it now. Tim said that he hated the process and called it terrible. He said, you can't describe how maddening the process is. The Santa suit itself also caused a lot of problems. Is that why he was lashing out at kids because he was

just so uncomfortable? Probably now the Santa suit itself also caused a lot of problems, so Tim had to go back and re record a bunch of his lines because when they watched it back, they realized that the bells of the Santa Suit were too loud when he walked, so they ended up using automatic dialogue replacement for most of the parts he was in in the Santa Suit. I'm going to have to go back and watch that really closely to see if his lips match up with

the words. Now, Scott wasn't just changing into set and to physically, but also mentally, so he got the ability to no children's names he'd never met and whether they were on the naughty or nice lipt. This got quite awkward because kids would instinctively know he was Santa. So there's this scene where Scott is at Charlie's soccer game and Laura and Neil witness a line of children queuing

up to sit on Scott's lap. Now they don't spell it out in the movie, but there is a bit of an undertone that perhaps Scott is a bit of a creep. Yeah, there's also the theme that Scott is just doing all of this so that Charlie wants to spend time with him. And Charlie loves him, so they think that he's gone to these extreme lengths to get

Charlie's attention. Yeah, yeah, Well, Charlie's mum, Laura, actually ends up taking him to a counselor with the aim to revoke Scott's visitation rights, and it ends up being more of a counseling session for Laura and Neil because the pair talk about their own Christmas disappointments, which center around

not getting what they wanted from Santa as kids. So Laura asked for a Mystery Date boy game, which I feel it was very of that seventies vintage, while at three Neil wanted an Oscar Meyer Weenie whistle, which I mentioned earlier, but Santa didn't deliver either, and after that, neither of them believed in Santraguin. Now I blame the parents in that situation because neither of those presents sound expensive. I think it is a parent's duty to uphold the

magic of Christmas. It sounds like lazy parenting to me. Now, Scott's visitation rights are canceled, but he goes to Laura and Neil's home anyway, and they allow Scott to talk privately with Charlie, and it's at this point where Charlie manages to convince Scott that he really is Santa Claus, so he shows him the magical snow globe that Bernard gave him and tells his dad how important it is

to the children of the world. Then Bernard suddenly appears and transports Scott and Charlie back to the North Pole. Laura and Neil think Scott has kidnapped Charlie, so they call the police and this is when the man hunt begins. And I think this is where it becomes really ridiculous, because police start arresting Santas all around the city and there's this scene where the police car circles a Santa

and then aggressively it grabs him and arrests him. And the producers clearly had a lot of fun with these scenes. Is they have this police briefing where they circulate a drawing of Santa and all the police officers are sniggering. And the thing that shocked me the most did they reveal that Scott is meant to be thirty eight years old in the film, and Tim Allen was actually forty one when he shot the movie, So it wasn't far off, but as I get closer to that age, it really

freaks me out. He does look quite young in the movie. I think it's because you're reflecting on watching it as a child and thinking that he's this adult, and that you put yourself in the shoes and think, God, could I be Santa Claus. Yeah, but Santa Claus, you don't normally think of him as being thirty eight. I know he gets significantly older or appears significant yeah, but at the start of the movie he seemed like a young,

cool sort of dad. I don't know. I think when you're little, you think forty is really old, and now, as we're approaching the age, you're like, no, it's still cool and young and hip. Now. There's also they are a really funny scene where they call Laura into a police lineup to identify Scott and there's the FAKEUS looking bunch of Santas with cheap Santa suits on, and there are a few that don't even match Scott's title ethnicity. It's like, wouldn't you make the Santas take their suits off?

Isn't that The joke of it? Though? That the only id they really have is that at Center. Well, they just make the police look fucking stupid. Maybe it's their way of having a bit of diversity back then in the nineties. Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Scott is working with the Elves on ensuring he's safe during the Christmas Eve deliveries. So the Elves have come up with this

new technology, including a fire retardant Santa suit. Scott and Charlie begin delivering presents and when they return to Neil and Laura's home, Scott is arrested whilst Charlie is on the sleigh on the roof. I always love this part of the movie because the North Pole ended up deploying this special team of Elves and they were called the

Effective Liberation Fight Squad or Elves for short. So they arrive at the police station where Scott is being held and they tell the police officer, we're your worst nightmare Elves with attitude. The joke of it is they just seem like little dweeps. It's about at this point where I normally fall asleep in this movie. If I'm being completely honest, the start of the movie is really it for me. I'm not really interested in the rest of it where he goes to the North Pole and stuff.

I'm just interested in the starting plot. I get what you mean, because I love the Christmas Eve vibe. At the start. It feels very exciting, and it does turn a little bit dark when Scott is accused of basically

grooming Charlie and pretending to be Santa Claus. Now, the movie does have a happy ending, so Scott ends up returning Charlie to Laura and Neil's home and insists that he spend Christmas Eve with them, and he ends up delivering this very heartfelt speech which convinces Laura and Neil that he is in fact Santa And in the end, Laura ends up burning the custody paper, so Charlie is

allowed to visit Scott whenever he likes. I mean, I suppose it's little bit difficult because he will be in the North Pole, But I supposed out pretty perfectly for her though. She gets this ex husband who pisses off because he's now Santa Claus, so she gets custody, full custody of the child. Yeah, it did work out well for Laura and Neil. One of the most magical parts of this movie is the snow globe that Bernard the

elf gives to Charlie. He says that if he ever wants to see his dad, he can shake it and he can see wherever he is in the world. It reminds me very much of a movie of the same vintage, the Richie rich movie, where he's got this high tech computer and he can find Dad wherever he is. Yeah. Well, in terms of those snow globes, there are only two of the original snow globes from the movie that still exist, and Tim and Eric are the only ones who own them.

So the actor that played Charlie said during a redder Ama that the prop team didn't fill the globes with the proper treating chemicals, so within a few years they turned brown. So it's not even like they've got a really cool prop from the movie. As a keeps say, I thought you gonna say that they smashed the rest of them accidentally, because that's what always happens with Christmas

snow globes. I did love at the end of the movie, how Scott ends up giving Neil and Laura the Christmas gifts they always wanted, So he drops a mystery date game for Laura and a weenie whistle for Neil. Now, the original cut of the Santa Claus was a lot longer than the version that actually hit the big screens, So thirty minutes from the movie ended up being cut

out because it was considered too long for a kid's movie. God, Amy, you would have been snoring bloody very early into it if they kept us original When wondering what they actually cut out, because it still seemed pretty long for me, Well, what they ended up cutting out were all of the individual scenes with Charlie, so he had a little bit more of a character development amongst the film. But they decided that if he wasn't in a scene with Tim Allen,

they didn't really want him. You know, I think that was a wise decision because I don't think we needed to see any more of this kid. There's also a scene in the movie that has been cut out of the DVD release since nineteen ninety nine. So when Laura dropped Charlie off at Scott's house on Christmas Eve, she handed him a contact list if there's an emergency, and he pointed at his ex mother in law's number and

said one eight hundred. Spank me. I know that number. Now, that number actually ended up being a real phone number of a sex line, so Disney started receiving complaints that children were calling the number, and apparently one kid in nineteen ninety six ran up a four hundred dollars phone bill on the sex line. Does that mean that one of the sex workers actually spoke to the kid? What sounds like it if they were able to break up

a bill. Yeah. Well, after all the complaints, Disney removed the scene from all of the home releases, starting with a nineteen nine DVD release. I think I have seen this original maybe it's floating around on YouTube now. In its opening weekend in November nineteen ninety four, the Santa Claus ended up date billing at number two, making nineteen

million dollars. So this figure was nearly the exact amount as the film's budget, and in an unprecedented turn of events, the movie kept performing and after almost one month after its premiere, came number one at the box office. This isn't surprising, because obviously it would have gone into a December and everyone wanted to see it was. This is quite surprising, though, for a Christmas movie to make it to number one, that's pretty unprecedented because usually Christmas movies

don't fare that well in these poles. Well, it ended up making one hundred million dollars in the US alone, and success was also felt personally by Tim Allen. So he had the number one movie at the box office, the number one TV show with Home Improvement, and was at the top of the New York Times bestseller's list with the book Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man, which he wrote while filming The Santa Claus. Look controversial opinion. I don't think the Santa Claus franchise is Tim Allen's

best Christmas movie. I would have to say Christmas with the Cranks is better. Look, I am a fan of Christmas with the Cranks, but I definitely think that the Santa Claus has more of a cult following because he has embodied such a joyful character of Santa Claus in Christmas with the Cranks. He's like the greench in that movie. He's one wanting to cancel Christmas. Yeah, but he's like his original character, like he's cranky when the movie first

times to eight sound. It's like that character was also closer to him. After hearing that he was quite rude to all of the children on this. So there's something about that movie though, because Joe Bot'scot Dewey, who was in Malcolm in the Middle. Yeah, and there's something about the whole community coming together to try and convince this

family that they need to sell a bet Christmas. Even how the daughter Blair was the popular girl in a Cinderella story, which was popular girl in literally every other movie time. She was probably like thirty five playing the roles of teen data. Yeah. Well, the success of the Santa Claus film did come as a surprise, so Disney was very keen to keep the ball rolling and film a sequel, but Tim Allen wasn't as convinced, and he wanted to ensure the second movie was actually a quality movie.

So at one point sixteen different contributors were involved in the Santa Claus two and Tim Allen almost walked away at one point. But eight years after the original, the sequel hit theaters in two thousand and two. It blows my mind that they waited that long. I do understand wanting to get it right. Obviously filming takes time, but you think that you would want to generate momentum off the back of the first one, Yeah, well. In an interview, Tim said, we gave up. We got to the point

where we all got frustrated. They green lit the script and I said, I don't want to do this, but we pushed through. It's quite interesting because the original director, John Pasquin didn't return to direct the two sequels, and Tim credited the new director, Michael Lemback, for helping make the sequels possible. He said, the studio and I were really disagreeing on which direction to take it, if we were going to take it at all. We really didn't

think they were going to do this. We were so far apart, and then Michael came in and made the thing. He came to the set every day with an attitude that was great. Now. Just last year, in twenty twenty two, Tim reprised the role of Santa again in a streaming series for Disney Plus. He said that this series was important because it answered longtime questions regarding what happened to the previous Santas and whether there were other Missus clauses.

I was quite surprised by this because I didn't hear anything about it back in twenty two. To be honest, I probably am not that interested in watching the series, are you guys? I reckon I will give it a go this Christmas because I think about it this way. If they spend eight years trying to perfect the sequel for Tim Allen to then do another sequel and then this TV show, he must see a lot of merit

in it. It seems like he hasn't wanted to bastardize this franchise, so I think it must actually be quite good. I don't know. I might be cynical, but maybe he's just chasing after the dollars now to end on a pop culture though. It's pretty funny because we all know how much the Kardashians love Christmas and apparently their favorite movie is The Santa Claus. Yeah, they watch it every

Christmas Eve. Apparently. Yes, so when Kim and Chloe were on the Red Carpet a few years ago, they actually ran into David Crumbholt, who plays Bernard the Elf, and they absolutely fan geld over him. I'm confused. Don't they have these huge Christmas Eve parties at the Kardashian households? Are they watching this movie in the morning? I want to know. Is this being screened at the party, not only at the party? Big movie screen. Well maybe when

they're getting glam for the party. Yeah. Well, that is where we are going to leave you today. We hope that you all have a very merry Christmas. We will be continuing through the holidays, don't worry. So we will be running episodes as normal on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday.