day 13 - s-a-n-t-a c-l-a-u-s hooray for santa claus!

ok.

it's often one of those "worst movie" list movies.

mst3k did an episode around it.

it has pia zadora! (as a kid. but still. other than her appearance in hairspray, and the references on mathnet, pia zadora sucks.)

but, come on, this is just one of the best movie plots i have ever seen:
"The story involves the denizens of the planet Mars, including Momar ("Mom Martian") and Kimar ("King Martian") who are worried that their children Girmar ("Girl Martian") and Bomar ("Boy Martian") are watching too much Earth television, most notably station KID's interview with Santa Claus in his workshop at the North Pole. Consulting the ancient 800-year old Martian sage Chochem, they are advised that the children of Mars are growing distracted due to the society's overly rigid structure; from infancy, all their education is fed into their brains through machines, and they are not allowed individuality or freedom of thought. Chochem sadly notes that he had seen this coming "for centuries", and states that the only way to help the children is to allow them to have freedom, to be allowed to have fun. To do this, they need a Santa Claus figure, like on Earth. Leaving the sage's dwelling, the Martian leaders decide to kidnap Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars to make toys for the children of their planet. One warmongering Martian, Voldar, is in constant disagreement with this idea and repeatedly tries to kill Santa Claus, as well as two kidnapped Earth children, as he believes that Santa is corrupting the children of Mars and turning them away from the race's original glory. Throughout the movie, Santa Claus makes several jokes to the kidnapped children, laughing to himself and met with silence. He then slowly laughs in disappointment each time.

When they arrive on Mars, Santa and the children build a factory to make toys for the Martian children. However, Voldar and his assistants, Stobo and Shim, sabotage the factory and change the programming so that it makes the toys incorrectly. Meanwhile, Dropo, a Martian who has been acting silly ever since Santa came to Mars, puts on one of Santa's spare suits and starts talking and acting like Santa Claus. He goes to the toy factory to make toys, but Voldar mistakes him for Santa Claus and kidnaps him. When Santa and the children come back to the factory to make more toys, they discover that the machine has been tampered with. Voldar and Stobo come back to the factory to make a deal with Kimar, but when they see the real Santa Claus in the factory they realize that their plan has been foiled. Dropo, held hostage in a cave, tricks Shim, who was guarding him, and escapes. Kimar then arrests Voldar, Stobo and Shim. Santa notices that Dropo is acting like him, and says that Dropo would make a good Martian Santa Claus. Kimar agrees to make Dropo a Santa Claus on Mars and sends Santa and the children back to earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Conquers_The_Martians)"

yes, i am talking about "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!"

ok. it's bad. worse than bad. but this was the early/mid 60's. comic-surrealism in sci-fi was in. best of all, it's a christmas movie that lacks a lot of the sappiness and moralizing that christmas movies do. yeah, it's shit. bad acting. bad effects. bad directing.

but could they make a movie like this good? no. not at all. it's kind of like ed wood at his best/worst (before he sunk into porn and westerns) where it really tries to be a good movie, which probably makes it worse. it's certainly made with good intentions - were there any sci-fi/comedy/christmas movies yet? no. and it was at worst an appeal to its target audience - the kids who were spending a buck or two on a saturday matinee with their friends, looking for dumb, entertaining, cinematic fodder to waste their time and money on, while mom and dad were at home decorating the tree and thinking of nice "good" christmas stories for the kids.

it's absolutely the kind of movie you would expect to see on basic cable/uhf stations during the holiday weekends (see the included video). i particularly love their co-opting of the star wars music for their commercial... and it does include the awesome theme song!