Ho, ho, ho, everyone, I'm Em and welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 326, Santa Claus the Movie. This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know, and movies you don't, that's here to announce the prophecy has come to pass that there would come to us a chosen one. And that he, having no child of his own, would love all children everywhere. And that he himself would be an artisan and a craftsman and a skilled maker of toys. And now, chosen one, come forward. From this day on, now and forever, you will bring all our gifts to all the children in all the world. And all this to be done on Christmas Eve. Welcome to Verbal Diorama. Whether you're a brand-new listener, whether you're a regular returning listener, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. It is Christmas, and I'm so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of Santa Claus the movie. Huge thank you, if you are a regular returning listener, for regularly returning to this podcast, listening and supporting this podcast. Thank you so much. It is the biggest Christmas gift to me that you are here at Christmas listening to an episode that's coming out on Christmas Eve. So thank you so much for your support. It genuinely means so much. This is the third and final episode of Three Christmas movies this year, a verbal diorama and the last episode of the year. This Christmas, we've had Jingle all the Way, which famously had a reindeer in it. That we had Scrooged. A Richard Donna Christmas movie. And we've got a Donna here and all of Santa's reindeer. But that's not the only reason why all of these movies are so perfectly linked. And I'm going to come back to that later because there's a wonderful link between all these movies. But making a movie like Santa Claus, the movie needs a lot of elf esteem, elf confidence and elf belief. It's a good job that it's being produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Then here's the trailer for Santa Claus the movie.

Hundreds of years ago, a master toy maker and his wife deliver gifts to local children. They get caught in a blizzard and are found by elves. The ancient elf declares the man is the chosen one and he will become Santa Claus. He's given immortality and chosen to deliver toys to all the children of the world. Centuries pass, the mythology and traditions deepen surrounding Santa Claus and children start to believe in him. By the late 20th century, Santa Claus is exhausted by his ever increasing workload and his wife suggests he employ an assistant visionary elf. Patch gets the role, but struggles with toy quality. After being replaced in the assistant role, Patch leaves the North Pole and finds himself in New York in the business of an evil toy manufacturer. Let's run through the cast. We have Dudley Moore as Patch, John Lithgow as BZ, Judy Cornwell as Anya, Burgess Meredith as the ancient elf, Jeffrey Kramer as Towser, Christian Fitzpatrick as Joe, Carrie Kee Haim as Cornelia, and Santa Claus as himself. Santa Claus. The movie has a screenplay by David Newman, Dory by David Newman and Leslie Newman, and was directed by Jeannot Szwarc. They both wear red. They both fly. They're both a shining beacon of generosity, kindness and spirit. One is Santa Claus, the other Superman. But what does the man of Steel have to do with Santa other than being the toy of choice for many children this year, and probably many other years too. Quite a lot when it comes to Santa Claus the movie. For non British listeners who may be wondering what this movie even is, it's very much a British cult classic. Adored at Christmas. It's like the British version of A Christmas Story in that it's a movie we embraced wholeheartedly over on this side of the Atlantic that just didn't hit the same on the other side of the Atlantic. Santa Claus was in many ways the ultimate ip. A character literally known worldwide across countries and cultures, and a character in the public domain. Santa was seen as having franchise potential similar to Superman, A mythic figure that could anchor multiple films and generate merchandising revenue with no copyright to worry about. A movie that created the definitive Santa Claus origin story and modernization. Something that would become the cinematic version of Santa for generations. Much like Superman would be the definitive version of that character in the 70s, until he was rebooted multiple times. But that's by the by. The core inspiration for the legend of Santa claus came from St Nicholas of Moira, a 4th century Christian bishop in what is now Turkey. He was known for his generosity, particularly towards children and the poor. Various legends grew around him, including stories of him secretly giving gifts like dowries to poor families and miraculous interventions. His feast day, December 6, became associated with gift giving in many European countries. St Nicholas became Sinterklaas and Dutch settlers brought the Sinterklaas tradition to America. This figure arrived by ship, later adapted to a sleigh and left gift for children. The name Santa Claus is derived from Sinterklaas. Over here, he's generally called Father Christmas. But the two names are used interchangeably. The modern image of Santa Claus was significantly shaped in America during the 19th century by Washington Irving's 1812 revisions for the history of New York which mentions St. Nicholas flying in a wagon. The 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas which is commonly known as Twas the Night Before Christmas established many key elements. 8 Reindeer with names coming down chimneys, the sleigh, his jolly appearance and Christmas Eve delivery. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast created influential illustrations in the 1860s to the 1880s, then established Santa's workshop at the North Pole. His list of naughty and nice children and his rotund bearded appearance across the 20th century. Santa becoming his own standard. Various advertisements, stories and media helped standardize Santa's image. The red suit, the white fur, trim, black boots, a herd of reindeer and his home base at the North Pole with elves as helpers. While Kofa Karola's 1930s ad campaigns featuring Santa didn't create the red suited image, they did help popularize it globally. And of course they do have some product placement in this movie. But em, I hear you cry. Why didn't you mention the actor David Huddleston in the cast list? Isn't he credited as playing Santa Claus in the movie? Well, I think it's important to note that while a man calling himself David Huddleston is credited for playing Santa, I think we all know that this man is the real deal. And if you don't believe me, watch the behind the scenes documentary where various actors and the director all confirm he is the real Santa Claus. That he came from the North Pole to star in a movie about his life. It's true and that is what this episode is going to go with. Apart from Santa himself, we had some other men to thank for bringing this story to the screen and that's the Salkins again. We've got to mention Superman because they were instrumental in that series too. The Salkins father and son team, Alexander and Ilya Salkind specialized in adapting beloved previously known properties with built in audience recognition. They also did the Three Musketeers in 1973 and the Four Musketeers in 1974. The Salkinds typically operated outside the Hollywood studio system. They would get the international financing and they would shoot in Europe, often using plywood studios here in the uk. This gave them creative freedom, but it also meant they were taking on significant financial risk themselves. And being honest, finances weren't in the best shape. Superman had been a huge hit both critically and commercially and that had been filmed back to back with Superman 2, which was a risky, highly ambitious move. And that led to a breakdown in the relationship between the Salkins producer Pierre Spengler and Superman director Richard Donner. I go into it in detail in episode 231 of the podcast. In that episode I also go into Superman 3, which was very different to what they originally intended, with Richard Pryor's campy, broad comedy, leaving Christopher Reeve feeling cold over the whole ordeal. Superman 3 wasn't as big at the box office, but still enough for the Salkinds to move on to Supergirl, directed by Jeannot Szwarc, the same guy who'd made Jaws 2. When Superman 3 underperformed critically and commercially despite still making money in 1983, the Starkins could recover from that. But Supergirl flopped outright in 1984, making $14.3 million on its 35 million dollar budget. It weakened their financial position and industry clout considerably. This made it harder to secure funding and distribution deals on favorable terms. So it would lead to the Salkinds selling the Superman franchise to the Cannon group and then then making Superman 4 the quest for peace. But again, episode 231 goes into the whole story of all of that. Back to Santa Claus though, because this had been a project that predated Superman 3 and Supergirl. Even back in 1982. The Salkinds had placed a six page ad in Variety announcing their movie All About Santa Claus with Alexander Salkind, who wasn't shy or modest about money, announcing it was the most expensive picture ever made, costing $50 million. And as I mentioned last episode on Scrooged, movies just didn't cost that much money in the 80s. Except for Rambo 3. But Alexander Salkind first had an idea about a Santa Claus movie before Superman in 1975. He wanted to make an origin story for Santa, a film that explained how he came to be, rather than a movie about who he is. It was Salkind who came up with the story and got David and Leslie Newman to write the screenplay. They'd also been involved in writing the first three Superman films. As it turned out, only David Newman would end up credited for the screenplay, with David and Leslie Newman credited for the story. And it's worth noting as well that a lot of the crew from Superman are also working on this movie, including in the effects team. But not only did the Salkinds produce this movie, but also their producing partner P.S. bengler was involved as well. There's a lot of stories online about John Carpenter being asked to direct and that he was unhappy with the script, wanting it to be rewritten by himself, as well as composing the score himself. It's worth adding that Pierre Spengler has refuted this claim about John Carpenter, but allegedly Carpenter wanted to cast Brian Dennehy as Santa and also wanted final cut. But the Salkinds are not really the sort of guys who relinquish control of their movies, and so that would lead to John Carpenter allegedly being taken out of the equation. Lewis Gilbert, who directed Alfie as well as three Bond films, you Only Live Twice, the Spy who Loved Me, and Moonraker, was approached to direct, but disagreed with aspects of the script. Robert Wise, very famous for directing west side Story, the Sound of Music, and Star the Motion Picture, basically also thought the same, and he also declined to direct. Ultimately, the Salkinds went to Jeannot Szwarc because he was reliable, he made movies on time and on budget, and they'd shared a good working experience with him on Supergirl, despite that movie flopping quite badly. Even before filming started, Ilya Salkind was talking to the press about sequels. He even preempted it with the name Son of Santa Claus. Spoiler alert, we never bought a Son of Santa Claus. They were so certain whatever they made would be a huge hit, because who doesn't know and love Santa Claus? Salkind wasn't the only one who believed in Santa Claus. The movie either. Media Home Entertainment paid a reported $2.6 million, then, the biggest ever advance for home video rights. You've really got to love their enthusiasm for the project, and it's not like it's even misplaced, because a film about Santa Claus is practically an excuse to print money. But I'm going to come back to money a bit later. So they had a script, they had a director, they had a lot of money invested, and they had the real actual Santa on his way from the North Pole to star in a movie about his life. But they needed to cast some more people, and leading their cast would be one of the biggest, but also diminutive British box office stars of the day. And the late Dudley Moore was a comedy phenomenon. He was a leading figure in the British satirical comedy boom of the 60s and was known for his double act with Peter Cook. They worked together regularly, most famously on the 1967 hit Bedazzled, but also on the BBC on Not Only But Also. By 1978, Moore moved to Los Angeles to further his film career. He starred in Foul Play in 1978, 10 in 1979 and Arthur in 1981, where he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor and won the Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy. Dudley Moore was a huge coup for the movie. He had input into the script, into the characterization of Patch, named after Moore's son. Patrick. Moore had even become an unlikely sex symbol after starring opposite actual sex symbol Bo Derek in 10. The Sulkins agreed to pay him $5 million, 10% of the budget to get him in the movie. They needed around 500 extras to play elves. They needed to be all men around 5 foot tall, 5 foot 2 at their tallest. To cast so many elf sized men, the production had to source them from outside of the acting profession. Many of them actually became actors after their experience on this movie. The role of the ancient elf was written with James Cagney in mind, but in 84, Cagney turned the role down because of his age. Fred Astaire was considered, but when this eventually came to nothing, Dudley Moore suggested his friend Burgess Meredith for the role. Meredith would end up fourth bill with only eight lines of dialogue. Not bad work if you can get it. It's really easy to see Superman's influence all over this movie, and no more so than the movie's very own Lex Luthor, an antagonistic businessman who just wants to make as much money as possible and doesn't care about injuring children to get it. Superman, of course, had Gene Hackman, and the producers wanted someone of a similar stature to play BZ. They offered the role to Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Burt Reynolds and Johnny Carson, who all turned it down. It was offered to John Lithgow and he really is just perfect for the child actors. Working with someone like Lithgow might have been intimidating, but Carrie Kei Heim, who played Cornelia, wished that she had more scenes with him. She was interviewed in the early 2000s about her role in this movie, and she has very fond memories playing on the set with Christian Fitzpatrick, who played Joe because they were around the same age. Heim would go on to star in the Pirate Trap 2 in 1986, but retired from acting shortly afterwards. Fitzpatrick had a role in vice versa in 1988, but also seemingly retired from acting after that. The cast was rounded out by quite a lot of British sitcom talent, actually, including Judy Cornwell, Don Estelle and Melvin Hayes. And honestly, I didn't put two and two together until very recently. That Anya was Daisy from Keeping Up Appearances, famously filmed not far from where I live in Bindley woods on the outskirts of Coventry. And I guess the question on everyone's lips is if this is a movie about Santa Claus and all of his reindeer. Why is there no Rudolph? Well, there's a very simple explanation for this, because unlike Santa Claus, Rudolph is not in the public domain. But all of the rest of Santa's reindeer are. So we've got Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. And you don't just cast random reindeer for these roles. The team went to Norway to research herds of reindeer just to find the perfect ones. Although there are only eight in the movie, the production wanted 20 animals specially trained. Animal trainers found 4,000 deer on a farm in Lapland, and the owner arranged for the 20 best animals, specifically those that would respond to training. These were wild animals, after all. All of the deer had to be trained to be handled, harnessed and trained to work with other reindeer, which is something not many reindeer will actually do, because reindeer have hierarchies. And so getting eight of them to work together is quite some mean feat. Reindeers also lose their antlers every year, so when they were chosen, they had no antlers and shooting had to accommodate them to be at their most antlerious, I guess, is the best word. Antlers generally take three months to grow. The selected reindeer were put into quarantine before being transported to England for filming, where they were put to the test pulling wagons as a team across the Buckinghamshire countryside before moving to Pinewood Studios and filming on set. Which would have also been a very strange experience for these animals. But in all honesty, they handled it like pros. But despite them being at this point professional actors, they couldn't do everything that was needed for the reindeer in this movie, especially for some of the more emotional scenes. So they decided to use animatronic reindeer. And so co art director Malcolm Stone supervised the building a full sized model reindeer as well as reindeer head and shoulder models. The full size reindeer were used for sleigh pulling scenes or at the start with the reindeer claps and the head. Only reindeer were used for when they were in their stables. The animatronics here were built by Derek Meddings and the main puppeteer for Donna was actually Brian Henson, the son of Jim Henson. Derek Meddings had worked prolifically with Gerry Anderson on shows like Stingray and was the special effects supervisor on Thunderbirds. He also worked on the Bond movies in the 70s, all the way through to Goldeneye in 1995, creating various miniatures. He also worked on Batman and unsurprisingly, he also worked on Superman. Like I said, the expertise behind the scenes on this movie is immense. For the full size reindeer, they Built a platform in which they put a body with jointed legs which were controlled by about a dozen people underneath the platform with various levers, rods and cranks. When they needed to fall down for the blizzard scene, the controllers underneath would literally push the crank and the reindeer would fall over the head and shoulder. Puppets were incredibly detailed. They could chew, wrinkle their face, make their ears move, blink, and they are literally one of the best things in this movie. It blows me away how detailed these animatronics are. This movie, need I remind anyone, is 40 years old this year. And the reindeer look fantastic. The scenes of the reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh on the rooftops was filmed at Pinewood with the actual real life reindeer. The scenes of Santa's sleigh flying through the night skies were filmed at Pinewood on a crane. Obviously not with the actual real life reindeer. The sleigh was full scale and the cityscapes were added in post production by Oscar winning optical effects supervisor Roy Field, who, let's say it together, also worked on Superman. They used miniatures for some of the trickier flying sequences which were remote controlled deer molded in plastic with small motors in their heads and necks. But while all of this was going on, specifically the reindeer training, actually Alexander Salkind was at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival in May 1984 and he arranged for 15 propeller powered planes to fly as Santa Claus, the movie banner in the skies above the festival, to promote the movie and announced that production was due to begin. These are the levels that the Sulkins were going to to let the industry know about this incredibly expensive production. It's worth adding that the reindeer used in the movie lived the rest of their lives out in the UK in undisclosed parks. And I'm sure they had some great stories from the set to tell their grandchildren. Do reindeer have grandchildren? I don't know. But anyway, the other thing that always blows me away is the grandiose set of the elves workshop. Built on multiple levels and brimming with more pine furniture than your grandparents dining room. It truly is an astonishing achievement. In fact, this is a movie very much of two halves. The first is an introduction to Santa and the second is the modern day showing Santa struggling under the weight of the industrialized 20th century and greater consumer demands and facing new competition from toy making companies. Now all of the elves had to be choreographed in the workshop. Playing past the parcel and painting toys with beards. It is so whimsical and so fun. All of the toys in that workshop were handmade by professional Carpenters too. And after filming ended, they were donated to children's homes and charities. So all of those beautiful wooden toys found a home. As I said, the movie was filmed at Pinewood Studios, specifically on The Albert R. Broccoli 007 stage between 20 August and 20 November 1984. Pierre Spengler's original plan for the elaborate Elf Factory set was to keep it up at plywood, and he wanted the studio to run Santa Claus the Movie Tours. Cyril Howard, who ran Pinewood Studios in the 80s, declined that request because renting stages for movies was far more lucrative than running Santa Claus the Movie tours, which probably would have only been held at Christmas. So the entire set was destroyed shortly after filming. Now I'm thinking of it. How magical would a Santa Claus the Movie set tour have actually been? Especially that beautiful toy factory. Speaking of a toy factory, or Toyland, shall we say. Time to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode. And if you are new here and you don't know what that is, it's where I try and link every movie that I feature with Keanu Reeves, because like Santa Claus, he is the best of all men. And this is a really easy one, actually, because Keanu, Reeves said, starred in a Christmas film called Babes in Toyland alongside Drew Barrymore. It was actually the following year in 1986, so Drew Barrymore was like 10 at the time. It is a Christmas movie. Santa does appear in it. And I distinctly remember this movie because there's a very specific song that spells out a very specific American town. The School for Babes in Toyland was actually done by Leslie Bricusse, who wrote songs for this movie with Henry Mancini. Speaking of which, the score for Santa Claus the Movie is composed by Henry Mancini and the movie includes the Aled Jones song Song Every Christmas Eve, which is written by Mancini and Leslie Bricusse. Aled Jones is also famous at Christmas in the uk, mostly for the Snowman and the song Walking in the Air. But he didn't sing Walking in the Yellow for the movie the Snowman. He only sang the version that was in the charts. Alec Jones does sing the song for this movie. There's also a theme song for this movie called Christmas all over the World and they wanted a big pop star to sing that theme song. It was originally written with Freddie Mercury in mind, but he declined because Queen were committed to School Highlander at the time. The producers approached Bryan Adams, who did a demo for them, as well as Paul McCartney, who was also asked to produce songs but ultimately didn't. So it ended up being Sheena Easton, who'd enjoyed movie tie in success with her 1981 bond theme for your Eyes Only. She ended up singing Christmas all over the world for the French release. Pierre Spengler was told about a 16 year old girl with a beautiful voice to potentially sing the French version of the song. He wasn't too impressed, so it never happened. But that girl was Celine Dion. So he really did miss the boat in having Celine Dion sing the theme song. No pun intended either. Her heart did indeed go on when it came to marketing this movie this film is known as both Santa Claus and Santa Claus the Movie. At the start of the movie the title simply says Santa Claus, but the VHS, DVD, Blu Ray and 4K releases of the film have Santa Claus the Movie on the cover simply because the Salkinds wanted to make sure that people knew that their advertisements were advertising their film and not Santa Claus. As a whole. Santa Claus can't be trademarked, but Santa Claus the Movie can be. So all tie in material, the soundtrack, novelizations, toys, etc were marketed as Santa Claus the Movie tie ins. One of the ways the Sulkins raised the $50 million they needed to finance the film was from product placement deals and at the time Tristar who distributed the movie were owned by Coca Cola. Joe is seen sipping a can of Coke and feeling very refreshed afterwards. There's also a scene in which BZ's factory has been emptied of all the employees, leaving only an abandoned warehouse with a bright red Coca Cola vending machine. McDonald's also had product placement with Joe outside the window of a restaurant peering in to see customers enjoying their burgers and fries. The chain actually gave away Santa Claus the Movie books in customers Happy Meals and of course this was an expensive movie and of course they wanted a very lavish premiere. So they did have a very lavish premiere in London with the then Prince Charles in attendance. Santa Claus also appeared at the premiere and greeted the Prince. And by that I mean the real Santa Claus from this movie. Santa Claus the Movie was released on the 27th of November 1985 which was Thanksgiving weekend in the US. It was released the same week as Rocky 4 which went to number one. Such of course the movie only had one day that week to make a splash and ended up debuting at 12th. It jumped to second in its second week before dropping to fifth in its third week and it would stay at fifth till its fifth week before it dropped to 13th which coincidentally was the week after Christmas. Elias originally wanted the movie to be released in October 1985, believing that more of a run up to the festive period would have meant more money. He actually is quoted as saying it would have made $100 million if it had been released in October, but Troy Star refused to release it in October. So let's talk about money because we know the Soulkin spent some serious money on this movie. And when it came to the box office, it's safe to say this was a notorious flop. It grossed $23.7 million domestically in the US. It was released on 29 November 1985 here in the UK, where it became the seventh highest grossing movie of the year, earning just over $5 million, which is a big deal. And as I said, we love this movie here in the uk. So not only was it a financial flop, it was also a bit of a critical one. Now it currently has a 22% of rotten tomatoes from 23 reviews which date from 2001. So these are not reviews from the time the audience rating though the popcorn meter is 67%. As I said, the people love this movie. Roger Ebert noted that there were some positive points to the film. He would say it does an interesting job of visualizing Santa's workshop and his elves. He also praised the special effects, particularly the New York City flyover sequence involving Santa. Ebert had praise for Lithgow's nice, hateful performance, but wrote that the villain wasn't drawn big enough. He basically seeded that young children would probably like most of the film, but the older children and adults are likely to find a lot of it a little thin. Vincent Canby of the New York Times was less positive than Ebert, calling the production elaborate and tacky, and had no praise for the production design. Alonso Duraldi, the author of have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas, called it shrill, overdone and obnoxious, listing it in the chapter of World's Worst Christmas Films and also included it on a list of seven Christmas films so bad, they're bad. So yeah, we obviously never did get Son of Santa Claus, did we? Sorry, Ilya Sulkind. And while there's never been a sequel, probably never a remake either. It's worth adding that this film has recently had a 4K restoration by British company Silver Salt Restoration. And that 4K remaster was released in cinemas in 2023, but only here in the UK. It did actually make a little bit of money and it is now available on 4K disk as well, which I have not seen, but I did buy it on Blu Ray so I do have the Blu ray version of this movie in 2023. Also, the Guardian listed the most aired films over the Christmas period in the uk. They analyzed five decades of Christmas TV airings and only one in eight films was actually Christmas themed. Of the non Christmas themed films, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins and the wizard of Oz came out on top of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is actually the number one Christmas film in the UK of all time. It's not a Christmas film and I think also that's very British as well. I don't know many Americans who know Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but anyway it sounds quite rude, but I promise it's not. But the most listed Christmas themed film between 1973 and 2022 in the UK with regards to yearly airings was Santa Claus the Movie. Since its release in 1985 it has appeared 21 times. I'd wager that is now 24 times since it's been 2 years since the article, 3 years since 2022. It really is a perennial Christmas favorite. Its closest competition in that list was 1951's Scrooge. I have seen this movie a few times, but I paid extra attention this watch and several things stood out. Firstly, the grimness of the idea of Claus and Anya essentially freezing to death. I hadn't really thought of that before. There's definitely a moment of wondering if they actually died. The next thing is the emotional core of childlessness that I feel so very strongly from both Claus and Anya and the ended with them essentially adopting two orphan children. I'd argue that Cornelia might be missed by her nanny, but honestly, the thing I noticed more than anything, and maybe this is my verbal diorama head talking, but it's the stunning production design and the in camera visual effects. I adore the reindeer, the elf workshop is stunning. Everything about this movie screams $50 million. And while it may be extravagant, it's all on screen for me. For every slightly dodgy 80s effect, there's some truly wonderful set design that I never appreciated quite as much as I do now. The first half of the movie works really well. Claus becoming Santa Claus, spending centuries becoming the mythical icon until the 20th century comes along and he can no longer cope. It makes total sense in a way. A workshop full of elves and wooden crafted toys can't sustain the levels of commercialism we've already seen on recent episodes. And this is how these movies link together so perfectly. The capitalism and commercialization of Christmas in Jingle all the Way and Scrooged lead to exactly what happens in the second half of this movie. The pressure to build more and more leads to prodigious Elf inventor Patch fully automating the workshop to meet demand. But Patch's ambitions float higher than his abilities and after toys are returned, he dispatches, excuse the pun himself to New York and naively aligns himself with bz. And this is possibly the reason why this movie resonates so much with the British public. BZ is the pantomime villain perfectly played by John Lithgow. Lithgow's got a record to say how much he hated the experience of making this movie and doesn't understand why Britain loves it so much. But honestly, him shouting Christmas too is as great an example of American capitalism as anything. And how BZ managed to get a teddy bear with glass and nails into production, who knows? I'm not even going to think about that. This may be a British American co production, but this is a wholly British institution. Many of us grew up watching this movie in the 80s and for a generation of grown ass adults this is the pinnacle of Christmas movies. It undoubtedly nostalgia goggles, but also has a purity and naivety to the story of the origins of the Santa myth. The idea that all of these Christmas traditions like the Naughty and nice list came from centuries of Santa's story evolving, it struggles more in the modern day and the movie attempts to introduce conflict. And as much as I love John Lithgow, no elf respecting businessman would agree to give away a product for free. Even if Christmas too in March will be a chargeable product. The idea of a lollipop that makes children float is so silly it's almost beyond panto. And don't even get me started on the super duper new pup. It literally does not make sense. But the idea that Santa is becoming disillusioned in the capitalist nature of modern Christmas and gift giving, becoming corrupted by greed. It at least tries to comment on that. There's some seriously brilliant talent both behind and in front of the camera on this movie and it deserves so much more respect than anyone ever seems to give it. This is an old fashioned Christmas movie where the first half is great and the second half, let's be honest, was bettered by Elf. But the idea that the Salkinds had to profit from Santa Claus perfectly summarises this movie. This was their Christmas too. The absolute irony of the film's anti corporate message and stand against the commercialization of Christmas is undermined by the fact this film is essentially a cash in on the Santa Claus brand. Americans put it on the naughty list, but the UK has it on the nice list and probably always will. Forty years later, the British public's love for it shows no sign of abating. It's pricey, overly stuffed, extravagant, best enjoyed, winner tipple, and full of nostalgia. A bit like a traditional British Christmas. And as for Santa Claus himself, he sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle and away they all flew like the down of the thistle. But I heard him exclaim and he drove out of sight. Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night. Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Santa Claus the Movie and thank you for your continued support of this podcast in 2025 and beyond. If you wanna show your support in multiple different ways, you could leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast. You could tell your friends and family about this podcast or you can find me and follow me on social media and you can share the podcast that way. I am at Verbal Diorama. You can share posts like posts, comment on posts. It all helps really to get the word out there and to hopefully get other people to know this podcast and know what I've been doing. I genuinely love doing this podcast and anything you could do to help would be so appreciated. If you like this episode on Santa Claus the Movie, you may also like the following episodes of this podcast. Now, I am not going to list every single Christmas episode that I have ever done. However, I am going to recommend you listen to episode 185, the Muppet Christmas Carol, because I've recommended that in the last two episodes as well. So I might as well carry on. It is a fantastic Christmas movie. But specifically for this episode I also wanted to append episode 281 which is on Elf and Elf is a fantastic modern Christmas movie that, as I say does do the Elf in New York stuff a little bit better than this movie does. But that's not to discredit this movie because I really genuinely think it's fun and kind of love it. As always, give me feedback, let me know what you think. This is the last episode of 2025. I am taking a short break over the Christmas period, but I will be back in early 2026 with animation season. Yes, it is returning again for the sixth year running now I believe and we are starting the year 2026 as has been tradition to do so for the past few years with a Pixar movie and with one of their crowning achievements in animation storytelling Wonder and scares. I'm so excited to finally be bringing Monsters Inc. To Verbal Diorama. So please join me for the very first episode of 2026, I believe. January 9th, I think. I'm just quickly checking my calendar. Is it January 9th? No, it's not. It's January 8th. Verbal Diorama will be returning with the history and legacy of Monsters Inc. I hope you will join me then. If you enjoy what I do for this podcast and you have some spare change and you want to support an indie podcaster who does literally all of this, everything on her own, I have no assistance. I have no one helping. I have no one doing research. Me, I have to do it all by myself. And it's really hard sometimes. It's really tough. But if you enjoy and you get something out of these episodes and you have the means to help, you're under no obligation, of course. But there are a couple of ways you can help if you have the means to. You can make a one off donation@verbaldiorama.com tips or you can subscribe to the patreon@verbaldiorama.com patreon and all money made goes back into this podcast by paying for things like software subscriptions and website hosting and sometimes even new equipment as well. A huge thank you to the amazing patrons of this podcast. To Simon, Laurel, Derek, Kat, Andy, Mike, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Ian, Lisa, Sam, Jackson, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas, so Kev, Heather, Danny, Stu, Brett, Philip M, Xenos, Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle, Aaron and Connor. If you want to get in touch, you can email verbaldiorama@gmail.com. you can also go to the website verbaldiorama.com and you can fill out the contact form. You can say hello, you can give feedback, or you can give suggestions, or you can just say, I listened to this episode and I watched the movie and this is what I thought of the movie. I would genuinely love to hear from you. You can also DM me on social media as well. I really love to hear from people and I always try to respond as quickly as possible. I'm hugely grateful to you all for your support. The only thing that's left is to wish you and your families a very merry Christmas, Happy holidays, a fantastic new year. Thank you so much for your continued support of this podcast. And remember, if you give extra kisses, you get bigger hugs. And finally,

Bye.