The Year Without a Santa Claus

I love Rankin-Bass, obviously. So here's my second favorite of their specials. The Year Without a Santa Claus.

Santa's upset that no one appreciates Christmas. He's tired of working one day a year for free meals, housing, healthcare and amenities, and decides to throw a tantrum by taking a day off.

Mrs. Claus tries to point out that people still love Christmas.

Santa grumps. "Yeah, but the Gap mentioned Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Solstice in their ads. And the Old Navy greeters still say Happy Holidays even after our cease and desist."

Mrs. Claus has a few ideas, though. She calls up the head elves, Jingle and Jangle. She dresses up as Santa to see if she could do the job.

Jingle and Jangle show up to see her in Santa drag.

"No good, huh?" The elves and Mrs. Claus agree that it makes much more sense for the elves to go on a wild goose change that results in global warming rather than replace Santa with a minority.

Mrs. Claus tells the elves her plan: she wants Jingle and Jangle to go down to Earth prove to Santa that people do care by finding an example of Christmas cheer. Like a Target that only sells Christmas wreaths and refuses to stock menorahs. Or a young Glen "STOP THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS" Beck.

They pick Southtown, USA at random, and ride off on Vixen, a baby reindeer.

When Santa finds out, he scolds Mrs. Claus for sending such innocent souls into the world. He heads down after them.

Down on earth, Jingle and Jangle get a ticket for riding a reindeer. This results in them putting socks on Vixen to pass her off as a dog. (And, frankly, the cutest part of the movie.)

The elves try to talk to a kid named Iggy about Christmas spirit, but he blows them off. And soon they end up losing Vixen to the dog catcher.

Santa shows up next, riding a reindeer down to earth. Introducing himself as "Mister...um...uh...Clows," he asks Iggy if he's seen the elves. But Santa's more interested in whether Iggy himself believes in Santa. Iggy says no way and Santa grows upset.

Iggy's mom notices the strange man who popped out of the bushes to ask her son about Santa Claus and invites him in. Soon, Santa and the whole family rip off Yes Virginia in song form and burn copies of The God Delusion.

Iggy's a believer. Conveniently, he remembers what happened to the elves and their "dog." Santa leaps on his reindeer and rides him off into the distance.


About four hours later, Iggy and his parents realize that the guy was Santa.

Santa busts out Vixen and takes her home, putting her to bed. (The heat of Southtown was a bit too much for our gal.)

Iggy and the elves don't realize this and end up going to the mayor to ask him to release their reindeer. He'll spring Vixen--if the elves can get it to snow in the desert-like Southtown. And in fact he and all the other mayors in America will give Santa a day off.

After selling his eighth pardon of the day, the mayor takes a break to go take phone calls from Runner's World and John McCain, and for a song and dance number.

In the town, the people riot and burn the mayor in effigy in anger at the inefficiency and corruption of local government.

So with Mrs. C, the elves, and Iggy on shotgun, it's road trip time to see the Snow Miser, a guy who controls all cold weather, to ask him about snow in Southtown.

Hearing that Santa has a bad cold, Snow Miser responds, "That's too bad--I'd have given him a good one!"

"Don't you DARE make fun of Santa. He's as American as a Bible juggling, flag waving, sexually repressed talking apple pie."

"Kid, I've got icicles hanging off my nose. I'm hard core. I can break you."

"At least put some damned pants on, hippie."

Snow Miser agrees to the snow -- until he realizes it's in Southtown, which is under the control of his brother the Heat Miser.

At the Heat Miser's, they make their request, but it wasn't filled out in triplicate. Also, Heat Miser now demands the North Pole be warm and under his domain.

Also, that everyone at the North Pole style their hair like Troll Dolls.

The miser brothers end up fighting, so Mrs. Claus goes over their head to Mother Nature who tells Snow Miser to allow one nice day at the North Pole and Heat Miser to let it snow in South Town.

It does snow--their weather tampering works. A young Al Gore sobs silently.

Best of all, everyone agrees Santa gets a holiday and work together to send him cards and presents.

In Santa's honor, a group of ethnic stereotypes decide to film a United Colors of Benetton ad.

Santa's all set for his day off until he gets a card.

Santa blows his nose, teary eyed. Hey, at least she didn't spell Santa with a 6.

Inspired, Santa calls everyone into his office.

"Don't you realize that it's feasible that we can reduce the number of PC holiday celebrations by 80% in favor of Christmas parties? That we can raise the Nativity scenes in banks and city halls by 21% in towns where the Jews and atheists are too browbeaten to complain? Christmas is on!"

Vixen, who was sick in bed only a few hours ago, takes her place among the others, having been stuffed to the gills with NyQuil and Red Bull, with a "Solstice is for Pussies" bumper sticker on her ass.

Child reindeer labor laws, anyone?

Santa sets off happily but bursts into sobs of "No one loves Christmas" when he sees a house whose rooftop is adorned with a HAPPY DIWALI sign.

Vixen, it's going to be a long night.

Rankin Bass's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Once upon a time, there was a reindeer named Rudolph. His nose was so shiny, you could even say it glowed. Of course, not everyone thought it was so great. Santa, for example, showed up at Rudolph's parents house on the day Rudolph was born to tell them Rudolph would be a great failure if his nose didn't stop shining.

And I thought Nuclear Wintour was a bad boss--but even she refrains from showing up to fondle Heidi and Kate Moss's kids to make sure their hips aren't too thick and their faces are symmetrical enough to grace Vogue one day. (Well, she has since the restraining order.)

Rudolph thinks his nose is fine. He doesn't want to cover it up. "I don't want to, Daddy!"

But in the Donner household, democracy is for chumps.

Meanwhile, Santa and the Mrs. deal with disordered eating. Mrs. Claus invites Santa to, "Eat, EAT! Whoever heard of a skinny Santa?" And besides, her Feeder fetish website isn't going to get any hits if Santa doesn't bulk up.

Santa responds by threatening to eat her head.

At the reindeer games, Rudolph succeeds (well, come on, the only competition was Ben Affleck and Gary Sinise). He also meets a rather creepy coach, Coach Comet, who informs the reindeers, "My name is Comet. And even though I'm your coach, I wanna be your paaaaal."

Rudolph's friend, Fireball, and his reaction:

You and me both, Fireball.

Santa sees the nose and yells at Donner for not having had the sense to kick his mate in the stomach when she was pregnant, thus aborting Rudolph pre-emptively. He presents Donner with the traditional Bowie knife so he can commit harikiri. "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Rudolph flees.

But he meets a cute doe named Clarice, who proves that she's already a better mate than either Debbie Rowe or Lisa Marie Presley by saying that she prefers his real nose, that it's much better than the silly false one he was wearing.

But Clarice's dad shows up and sends Clarice packing. (Time for her to get her eyelash extensions redone.)

Rudolph meets up with a blond elf named Hermey whose life goal is to be a dentist. The two decide to head off together. They soon meet up with a strange red headed man who casually hurls a pick axe and alternatively claims to be looking for gold, silver, and peppermint.

Without much debate, they decide to hang out with the stranger. After all--he does have cute puppies.

Rudolph, Yukon, and Hermey Scrivello, DDS, escape the Abominable Snowman of the North.

They later find themselves at the Island of Misfit Toys, where an effeminate Charlie in the Box, a polka dotted elephant, and a weepy doll, among others, complain that no one wants them. (I recommend a name change, a home among hipster kids, and Xanax--in that order.)

Rudolph promises the leader of the misfit toys, a winged lion who wears a crown named King Moonracer, that he'll tell Santa about the plight. Then Rudolph sets out on his own because he doesn't want to put Yukon or Hermey Scrivello, DDS at risk.

Burl Ives narrates that Rudolph is beginning to grow up.

Sadako's reaction:

Okay, well, anyway. Where was I? Growing up...goddamnit, stupid sexy Rudolph!

Rudolph returns home to find that his father went out looking for him and told Mrs. Donner to stay home because "this was man's work." But Clarice and Mrs. Donner went out to look for Rudolph, too. Assuming that female reindeer are like guy reindeers but with no reason or accountability, Rudolph assumes they went to the Bumble's lair and finds the Bumble about to pull a Polyphemus on all three reindeer.

Yukon and Hermey Scrivello, DDS happen to wander by at the exact moment because apparently the Bumble's place is like the Central Perk of the North Pole. Formulating a plan, they knock the Bumble out and Hermey goes to work yanking out his teeth and then dances happily among a sea of molars.

Later, the Head Elf relents and lets Hermey become a dentist. Looks like dental school and being board certified are overrated--being a dentist just means having a knack for sadism. (Marathon Man and Little Shop of Horrors were right.)

The Bumble's strength apparently was in his teeth. He shrinks inexplicably and Yukon Cornelius hurls him off the cliff and falls.

Except he was just punking us 'cause Bumbles can bounce. At home, Santa welcomes Rudolph and the others home, telling our favorite W.C. Fields schnozz that suicide was too harsh. Rudolph can just live out the rest of his life as a Boo Radley esque social pariah instead.

Suddenly, a report comes in that the weather is too rough. (Santa, like Newman, doesn't go out when it rains.) Rudolph's nose starts to glow.


Santa decides to surgically remove the nose and attach it to his sleigh as a beacon, but when he realizes there's no time, he promotes Rudolph to the head of the sleigh.

When Santa realizes how financially viable having a glowing reindeer will be, he grabs Rudolph and whispers sweet nothings to him.

Viewer reaction:


Santa ponders going back for the misfit toys. He decides against it because it'll add to overhead costs. A year later, he rectifies this mistake after the public relations nightmare. (Hasbro threatened to organize a million toy march and Kanye West announced on national TV, "Santa doesn't care about toys.")

Well, the official story is that viewers complained that the toys got left behind, so Rankin-Bass edited in a sequence over the credits.

Did we mention he's a misfit because he's a bird who can't fly--he swims?

Santa's lawyers learned from the Planned Parenthood and ACORN debacle and reported that this elf absolutely wasn't acting on orders from above.

Have a holly jolly Tuesday.