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Holiday Triumphs 2010, Seasonal Fare

Holiday Triumphs: Several Tidings of Great Joy

Continuing the fabled tradition begun all the way back in 2009, Scratchbomb presents Holiday Horrors and Holiday Triumphs: an advent calendar of some of the more hideous aspects of this most stressful time of year–with a few bits of awesomeness sprinkled in.

I can not, in good conscience, let my last holiday post be about Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny. So here’s a few of my favorite Christmas-y things to spirit us through the depressingly brief portion that remains of this festive season.

First off, a Yuletide rocker that is quite popular in England but that has never caught on here in the US. It’s “I Wish it Could Be Christmas Every Day” by Wizzard, a band headed by Roy Wood, formerly of The Move and ELO. It sounds like an outtake from the Phil Spector Christmas Album in the best possible way, very Wall of Sound-y, with Motown-esque beat that shall not be turned away from the inn.


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Holiday Horrors 2010

Holiday Horrors: Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny

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Continuing the fabled tradition begun all the way back in 2009, Scratchbomb presents Holiday Horrors and Holiday Triumphs: an advent calendar of some of the more hideous aspects of this most stressful time of year–with a few bits of awesomeness sprinkled in.

santa&icbunny.jpgA few years ago, three gentlemen associated with Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett) started an online business closely related to their former endeavor called Rifftrax. They record audio tracks that you can download and play along with the hideous movie of your choice. This skirts one of MST3K’s biggest stumbling blocks: usage rights. Getting the rights to a movie like Avatar so it can be mocked in an MST3K-esque format is impossible, but nobody can prevent you from creating a commentary track for it.

Until very recently, I had not enjoyed any of Rifftrax’s products beyond a few YouTube clips. I knew they existed, I just hadn’t sought them out. I’d gone to see Cinematic Titanic–another group of bad movie riffers made up of MST3K alumni–live, but that’s because that group includes Joel Hodgson, and I would do his jail time if he asked me. Apart from that, I’ve stayed away from most of their post-MST3K endeavors, figuring they would pale in comparison with the originals.

However, within the last week or so, all of the Rifftrax guys tweeted about how they’d just released a full-length work, video and all, on an obscure holiday movie called Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny. Each of them described it in nigh-apocalyptic terms and shuddered with the memory of how punishing it was to watch this film.

Now, this is nothing new. I recall reading in some retrospective MST3K article that the cast, immersed in hideous cinema, would often protest that each week’s offering was the worst they’d ever seen. But then, I saw many tweets from several folks who watched this film and were stunned by its badness. So I gave myself an early Christmas present, purchased the Rifftrax disc, downloaded, and began to watch.

Look: We all know that Manos: The Hands of Fate is the worst movie ever made. It’s like the Bad Movie Speed of Light–a constant that can never be approached, let alone equaled. Only hypothetically can something achieve even a significant fraction of Manos‘ hideousness.

Well, it’s hypothetical no longer, because Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny is very, very close to Manos levels of WTFitude. I’d say it travels at about 95 percent the crazy-speed of Manos, a hitherto unheard of percentage.
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Holiday Triumphs 2010

Holiday Triumphs: MST3K’s Santa Claus

Continuing the fabled tradition begun all the way back in 2009, Scratchbomb presents Holiday Horrors and Holiday Triumphs: an advent calendar of some of the more hideous aspects of this most stressful time of year–with a few bits of awesomeness sprinkled in.

For many years, I’ve lauded the virtues of “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,” a special holiday episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I must watch this show at least once every holiday season in order to have the most Swayzeist Christmas of them all.

mst3k_santaclaus.jpgHowever, there is another Yuletide episode of MST3K that I also watch each year around this time. It dates from the Mike Era and is simply entitled “Santa Claus”. If I don’t love it as much as “Santa Clause Conquers the Martians,” it’s only because “…Martians” is in the pantheon of Greatest Things Ever, whereas “Santa Claus” is merely fantastic.

Like many of the better episodes of MST3K, this one benefits from using a film that is straight-up bonkers. “Santa Claus,” a Mexican production badly dubbed into English, pits Kris Kringle against Satan himself. Or at least, one of Satan’s mincing minions, who prances around our earthly domain trying to get kids to bust windows and disobey their parents.

Santa Claus does his best to combat the forces of evil by gathering together a collection of children from around the world to sing Christmas carols–thus simultaneously offending every race ever. He also races through the sky on a sled pulled by mechanical reindeer, whose hellish cackling will haunt your dreams. There is some truly deranged stuff in this movie nearly on par with monstrosities like “The Attack of the Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.”

But it’s not just the movie that delights. Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank engage in a one-sided “Gift of the Magi”–Frank shaves his head to buy his boss a watch fob, and Dr. Forrester (who’d forgotten all about him) gives Frank a $35 savings bond. Mike and the Bots play a Dream Theater-y tune as the prog rock outfit Sänta Cläus, exchange an odd assortment of gifts, and make an attempt to write a multicultural holiday carol, “Merry Christmas (If That’s Okay)”.

“Santa Claus” also has some of my favorite lines from the show ever:

  • “Santa’s laughter mocks the poor.”
  • “Is it a good idea to jingle all the way?”
  • “Santa’s tendrils reach far and wide. There is no escaping the KLAUS organization.”
  • “Is this weird enough for ya, kids? How does make you feel about Santa?”
  • [over a shot of slack-jawed children] “Santa’s army of walking corpses!”

What I’m saying is, even if you’re a Joel Partisan like myself, do not sleep on “Santa Claus.” It will reward you with plenty of nightmare fuel and buffalo shots of a demon in furry red boxer-briefs.