Hallmarked! Battle of the Santas

Transcript by Raina Harper

[Upbeat Christmas music plays]

Kyle

Oh-ho-ho! Welcome to Hallmarked! I’m Kyle.

Hallie

And I’m Hallie. Here, we do roughly Hallmark-related things once a year as the Hallmark season, also known as the holiday season, rolls around. Last year we did Cars.

Kyle

[Laughs.] We sure did.

Hallie

Yeah! So we needed something to top that this year, and we thought long and hard about that one.

Kyle

When we think of the holiday season, and love and joy, obviously we think of war.

Hallie

[Laughs.] Yeah.

Kyle

This year is the Battle of the Santas!

Hallie

Santa… fights. That’s what he does.

Kyle

Santa v. Santa. Yes, this year Hallie and I have each picked a Santa Claus origin movie. We’re going to summarize our movie and then present a case before a panel of five lovely judges to figure out definitively which movie is the best Santa Claus origin movie.

Hallie

That’s not necessarily which is the better film, it’s which is the better Santa origin story, a fact I forgot when I was writing my 3,000 word summary which is no longer 3,000 words.

Kyle

So, we’ll start with my movie. We’re gonna go through the summary of Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.

[Christmasy stinger plays.]

Jessica is a beleaguered, beautiful young woman in Sombertown, a dim and depressing town run by the tyrannical Burgermeister Meisterburger, a man so miserable he even outlaws toys. One day after starting her new job as a school teacher, Jessica meets a colorfully-dressed man giving out children’s toys. Now, Jessica is upset by this. Toys have just been outlawed, and as she says herself, they’re frivolous, impractical, unproductive and… and Jessica is cut off when this beautiful young red-headed man gives her a little doll, one she always wanted as a kid.

This man introduces himself as Kris Kringle and asks for her help handing out all the toys. After… I wouldn’t say her heart was melted, but after having this moment of joy given to her she helps him out, even though moments before she was saying it shouldn’t happen.

Unfortunately, Burgermeister Meisterburger has a very fierce rule on his town, so he immediately—well, first he tries to imprison the children.

Hallie

[Laughs.]

Kyle

He flat-out says take these children to jail at which point Kris Kringle says don’t imprison the kids, it’s me you want. He has a lot of good lines in the movie, like turning from the window and saying “I’m a man now.”

Hallie

[Laughs.]

Kyle

I can’t share all of them. Anyways. Because of that, the mayor doesn’t imprison the kid but he does destroy all the toys. Jessica, however, she can’t let this slide, so she goes into the treacherous mountains which are commanded by the fearsome Winter Warlock and searches for Kris, bringing him a satchel of letters from children asking for more toys. It’s actually not that perilous a trip because Kris, as it turns out, had actually given a gift to the warlock who now just goes by Winter and had melted his heart and learned how to see through a magic seeing ball. He just casually on his way back home befriended a wizard.

Because of that, he’s able to make the trip from his home to Sombertown relatively easily, so together the two keep delivering toys. However, Burgermeister Meisterburger, after each delivery, increases his security. The first time the kids keep their doors shut, but the ones who are waiting for toys unlock it, then everything is shut, so Kris goes down the chimney because that’s the only way in, and then finally when the toys are found even then and Burgermeister Meisterburger, as I said, in a really shockingly totalitarian move, is full-on searching houses for toys, Kris decides to hide them in the stockings that the kids dry above the fireplace at night. It’s a boring thing, so they’re never gonna check.

However, eventually Burgermeister Meisterburger goes on the offensive and he captures not only Kris but he captures the warlock and Kris’s entire family of toy-making elves. Just a few days ago in time, just a few minutes ago in the story, Jessica who had wanted to follow the rules completely but is finally realizing how her town has in many ways betrayed her, and how Kris has instilled a sense of love and joy and wonder… she sings about it in the animated sequence that definitely got all of the budget.

[00:05:00]

There’s one point where she’s looking at her reflection in the water. Again, this is the late 70s. The reflection is clearly just a printed off image of her that they put at the bottom of the water. I love it. I unironically love it.

She finds the warlock in the prison. As a part of becoming good, he has unfortunately lost all of his power. The only thing he has left are some little corn nuggets that make reindeer fly. So, Jessica runs to the reindeer friends that Kris had made, because Kris befriended pretty much every animal in the woods like a fucking Disney princess. She finds eight of them, gives them the corn, and they help jailbreak Kris, the warlock, and his family.

Everyone runs back home but finds that it has been razed by Burgermeister Meisterburger’s ‘army’ for lack of a better word, so they decide that they are going to essentially go on the run. They make their way to a far-off place distant from everywhere else, the North Pole. On their way, because no town would take them in as outlaws, they get married under some trees which the warlock, using his last bit of magic, lights up.

From there, they make it to the North Pole, they build a house, a factory. The legacy of Kris Kringle goes across the country, although he is now renamed Santa Claus. The Claus part is because that was a tag he had on him when he was a baby left at the Kringles’ doorstep, and then Santa because it literally means Saint and people started to see him as a saint.

From there, Santa Claus started delivering to more and more kids. Eventually there were so many that he decided he was gonna do it on one day of the year, the day with the most love and affection, which is Christmas Eve, and he does it every year with his loving wife Jessica by his side.

Also there’s a penguin. I didn’t include the penguin in the summary, but Devin, one of our judges, pointed out that there is a penguin. His name is Topper and he’s just vibing the whole time.

Hallie

I love Topper so much.

Kyle

Topper’s great. He’s very bad, though. At one point Kris goes down the chimney, because Topper points up the chimney, but he’s honking in the middle of the night as they’re doing a stealth mission. The movie even calls Santa Claus Robin Hood. This movie is just Kris Kringle commits crimes.

Hallie

[Laughing.] Yes it is.

Kyle

We’ll get into that when I get to my arguments, but it’s really just a lot of crimes and then you’re at the North Pole. Yeah, that is a very brief summary of Santa Claus is coming to town.

[Christmasy stinger plays.]

Hallie

[Clears her throat.] Thank you, Kyle.

[Laughter.]

Kyle

That was so… That sounded so formal.

[Flat and stern.] Ahem, thank you, now for my presentation.

Hallie

[Clears her throat dramatically.]

Kyle

[Clears his throat dramatically, with a vaguely French accent.]

Hallie

Ahem. Klaus is a story about letters, and the letter it starts with is a summons to our protagonist Jesper Johansson, cadet at the postal academy. The summons is from the headmaster who is also Jesper’s father. Jesper as we learn has been intentionally taking school so he can go back to living a life of luxury doing absolutely nothing, but Papa Johansson sees through this and one-ups his son with a combined punishment and power move. He makes Jesper a full-fledged postman and sends him to establish a working postal service in the town of Smeerensburg. Sorry, {Shmeerensburg}.

Kyle

[Amused.] {Shmeerensburg}.

Hallie

{Shmeerensburg}. Within one year. They use the metric of 6,000 letters sent, and if he doesn’t meet that by the time the year is out, he’s gonna be cut off from his family’s considerable finances.

Kyle

I forgot how much this movie really was about letters.

Hallie

Mm-hmm! It’s cool. I’ll get to that in my arguments. For now, suffice to say that Smeerensburg sucks. It’s cold, foggy, dark and dilapidated, and everyone there just hates each other on account of a feud between two families, the Krums and the Ellingboes. No one has any letters to send because they’re just not writing to anybody off the island.

Kyle

They fucking hate each other.

Hallie

Yeah, or each other. They’re sending nothing.

Kyle

I really like that in Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town no one does anything just because they’re sad, they’re so full of sadness, and in this movie everyone is so full of rage.

Hallie

Oh yeah, everyone just… genuine murder happening in the streets. There are two women who escort what is clearly a corpse between buildings. Children push an old man in a wheelchair down a hill. It’s bad.

Kyle

I really want to change this argument now to Smeerensburg or Sombertown, which one is the worst town.

Hallie

Which is the worst place to live? Suffice to say, no one is sending letters, so Jesper’s only bite comes when a child’s drawing comes fluttering through a window straight into his hand. The kid is like hey, will you return that, and Jesper’s like no, but what you can do is mail it. He tries to convince the child he has to pay postage to mail his drawing back.

[00:10:00]

The child’s father is not amused and chases Jesper off his lawn with the child’s drawing still in Jesper’s satchel.

Weeks go by with no greater success, and wholly demoralized Jesper finally notices a spot on the Smeerensburg map that he hasn’t visited, a place to the far north labeled Woodsman’s Cabin.

When he arrives there, the whole place looks abandoned. There’s clearly a house and buildings, but no one is there, and he kinda creeps his way into this darkened barn full of toys, and then he gets stuck there. There’s a whole scene where he tries to get out because there’s a large frightening shadow with an axe approaching, and he runs away and he leaves his satchel behind.

It’s the woodsman who was the large frightening shadow with the axe. He happens to see the child’s drawing, which as I just mentioned was still in Jesper’s satchel, and the child’s drawing is really cute. It’s just a sad face of a little kid behind a window, just like the child.

Kyle

I love the sad kids in Christmas movies.

Hallie

Right?

Kyle

In The Year Without A Santa Claus where Santa just gets fucking guilted by a girl singing Blue Christmas.

Hallie

Yeah! It’s just a sad little kid who this woodsman has never even seen or anything, presumably, but you know, something is inspired in the woodsman. He tracks Jesper down and more or less forces him to deliver this little toy, a small mechanical frog that he has wrapped as a gift.

The child is delighted and he spreads the news that if you write a letter to Mr. Klaus he’ll give you a toy. This means children are suddenly clamoring at the post office to write and mail letters, and Jesper might just have a way out of his predicament.

As Jesper and Klaus continue making nighttime deliveries, their mishaps result in the formation of Santa myths along the way such as going down the chimney, leaving presents in stockings, and most importantly that only good children receive gifts. This is because, in their effort to stay off the made-up naughty list, the children help with chores and clean up the town and aid their neighbors, and this causes a ripple effect throughout the entire community where slowly other people are inspired, including the adults, and things just start getting better.

A once vengeful and dilapidated community becomes colorful and kind and bustling, and effect that is beginning to rub off on Jesper himself. But like, what is the man supposed to do as he grows closer and closer to reaching his goal, like stay in this town forever delivering the mail, forging relationships and being happy, never wanting more? This isn’t Stardew Valley but post office, it’s a Christmas movie!

Kyle

What the fuck does that mean, Hallie?!

Hallie

I don't know, but I wrote it in my thing!

Kyle

[Laughing.] What does that mean?

Hallie

“What is this, Stardew Valley but post office?” Because that’s what you learn in Stardew Valley. You go to the small town. This is classic Christmas Hallmark stuff. You’re like “wow, life is great.”

Kyle

Yeah, I was gonna say, Stardew Valley in a Christmas movie… The only thing that makes Stardew Valley not a Christmas movie is that it doesn’t start at Christmas.

Hallie

Right. I maintain that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

So, as part of Jesper’s plan to reach his goal, he proposes that Klaus begins to make new toys because they’re going through Klaus’s warehouse of toys and they’re using up things he’s clearly already made. Jesper’s like what if you made more and then we give each and every child a new toy on Christmas morning, because he’s hoping this will result in an influx of letters that will help him reach that 6,000 letter mark.

It is on Christmas Eve among his new best friend Klaus, the other friends he’s made along the way, and a bustling workshop formed by members of the community as their project has grown, that Jesper’s initially selfish plan is revealed, as must happen in these Hallmark-esque movies, and he must choose between the lavish life he’s always wanted and the new purpose he’s found here in Smeerensburg.

I won’t tell you which one he chooses because I think that everybody already knows and I don’t want to insult my audience.

Over the years, Jesper and Klaus continue expanding their project and delivering to an increasingly wider radius until Klaus passes on at the twelfth year. But don’t worry, as Jesper explains, he’s stopped trying to comprehend what happened to Klaus after he passed. All he knows, he says, after tucking his own children into bed on Christmas Eve, is that once a year he gets to see his friend.

Kyle

I forgot how sweet that line is.

Hallie

It’s so sweet!

[Christmasy stinger plays.]

Kyle

Alright. Now that we’ve introduced our movies, Hallie and I are gonna get into the details, into the weeds. We’re gonna argue about how our movie is the best Santa Claus origin movie. Each of our judges will have the opportunity to ask us a single question during the process. I split mine into three arguments, Hallie. Are yours split into different arguments or is it just—

Hallie

[Laughs.] Yes, I also have three arguments.

Kyle

Do we wanna just do the same order, me-you, me-you, like last time?

Hallie

Yeah, let’s do it.

Kyle

Okay. So, we have to look at this as a Santa Claus origin movie. I personally think that for mysterious larger-than-life characters like Santa Claus it’s nice to have a little bit of mystery, unless you’re a kid.

Hallie

[Chuckles.]

[00:15:00]

Kyle

I really love, for kids, the opportunity for them to go in and explore and get all the details. Christmas is for all ages, but I do really think a large part is tapping into childlike joy. This movie answers, with the exception of how does he get to every house at night, literally every single question about the Santa mythos, even the ones you wouldn’t think of, and the answer to a lot of them are because he did crimes. So, I’m gonna go through them.

Why is he called Kris Kringle? He was adopted as a baby by the Kringles and they named him Kris.

Why does he work with elves? Those are the Kringles.

Why do the elves make toys? That was the Kringles’ profession. They actually used to work for the king. I’m counting those two as the answer to one question.

Why does he wear a red outfit? Because that is the garb of the Kringle family.

Why does Santa go ho-ho-ho? He was friends with seals!

Hallie

[Laughs.]

Kyle

That is not a joke. They talk about how he can gallop like a deer, he can climb things like a squirrel, and he goes ho-ho-ho because it sounds like a seal.

Anyways. Why is he called Santa Claus? Because he was an orphan baby, he was left with a nametag that said Claus, so he had the name Claus as basically a codename when he went on the run, and then people started to see him as a saint so he got the Santa part.

Why deliver at night? Again, he was a criminal.

Why go through the chimney? Because the doors and windows were locked, because he was a criminal.

Why stockings? Because cleaning stockings, washing them and then hanging them up by the fireplace to dry, is a boring chore for children. It’s actually used as one of the ways that Sombertown is basically just no fun for kids. So, Santa hid them there because he was a criminal.

Now, how does Santa know if you’re good or not? That’s because the Winter Warlock packed together snow into a seeing eye and gave it to Santa Claus and was like now you can see anything.

Let me get to the next one… Oh! Why reindeer? Because corn magic gets them to fly and they’re Santa’s friends.

Why letters? That’s how the kids ask for toys, because they had to covertly ask for toys because Santa was an outlaw.

Why does Santa have a beard? Because he’s on the run and it makes him look different from the wanted signs. Also, the Kringles have beards, but that part is secondary to him being on the run.

Hallie

I would agree.

Kyle

Why does he go to the North Pole? Because he’s on the run from the law and there’s no law in the North Pole.

[Laughter.]

Hallie

There’s a lawless land.

Kyle

Why does he have a Christmas tree? Because he was an outlaw, he wasn’t able to be married in any church, so he could only get married under I think some pine trees.

He and Jessica exchanged gifts under the tree, so that’s why you exchange gifts under the tree. They were wedding gifts.

And then finally, the Winter Warlock wishes for just a little bit more magic for something to happen and as a… well, it probably wasn’t Christmas at the time, but as a Christmas miracle the tree lit up. So, that’s all the parts of the Christmas tree.

Finally, why Christmas day? Santa was having too many orders and had to leave too often, so he decided, you know what, I’m gonna do it all on a single day and he chose Christmas because it was, as the movie says, the holiest day and a day of profound love.

That is 15 details about the Santa mythos.

Hallie

That is a lot of details.

Kyle

Some of them, wholly unnecessary to include. We don’t need to know why Santa has a beard, but by God, if you had a question about Santa Claus, this movie’s gonna fucking answer it.

Hallie

In a movie that’s only like 50 minutes long.

Kyle

Alright. I did my first argument. Hallie, do you have anything you want to add or do any of our judges have any questions before we move to Hallie’s first point?

Hallie

I have nothing.

Kyle

Alright. No questions from the judges, so Hallie, we will move on to you.

Hallie

Okay! My first point hits a lot of similar points to yours.

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

It starts with the fact that I think it’s neat that Santa is two people, the visible and the invisible. The visible is everything that a familiar Santa is: he is a kindly old man with a long white beard who is good at making toys and wants children to be happy. The invisible part of Santa is the asshole, and that’s Jesper. Everything that we know about the Santa mythos comes from Jesper, this random postman in this film.

Examples: Santa comes down the chimney because that is how Jesper sneaks into these houses. A lot of these families in Smeerensburg have guard dogs or traps in their yards, so Jesper’s gotta sneak in. His design is really funny, he’s like a stick person, so he just squeezes himself down chimneys.

Kyle

I like that my movie is Santa as a criminal and yours is Santa is an asshole.

Hallie

[Laughs.] But like genuinely though! This section is called The Duality of Santa. He’s such an asshole.

[00:20:00]

So, down the chimney, that’s the chimney. He leaves gifts in stockings, and that’s because sometimes Jesper can’t get all the way into the house because there are guard dogs, so he just has to sneak them into the stockings and then climb back up the chimney.

Santa likes milk and cookies because Jesper just eats whatever is laying out while he’s in their house. Most importantly, Santa only gives gifts to good children. That is because, on Jesper’s first day in town, a child threw a snowball at him and said go home, loser. On one of his other deliveries Jesper recognizes that he is in that child’s house, so instead of giving him the gift he puts a random piece of coal into the stocking, and as he leaves he says who’s the loser now, you little brat, which is a great line. That is a great line.

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

But the next day the child shows up at the post office and he’s throwing snowballs, and he’s like hey, you didn’t deliver my letter, I didn’t get a toy. Jesper’s like oh, devilish little tadpoles like yourself, actual quote, don’t get toys from Klaus. And the kids like how would he know what I’m up to unless you ratted me out.

And Jesper clearly has one of those ‘oh, you haven’t heard’ moments of divine inspiration where he’s like oh, I didn’t have to tell him, he already knows. He scares the child into believing Klaus has all these omniscient magical properties. It is the best. It is genuinely very funny. I think that myth particularly coming from a moment of spite is extremely funny because ‘only good children get toys’ is kind of what directly leads to the ripple effect that improves the community as a whole.

Kyle

It’s also an interesting thing because in Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, Santa says the same thing, I gotta see if they’re all good or bad, but without that spite it’s really hard to argue that there are bad kids, so he has to say ah, they’re all good. Actually, of the things they don’t cover, yeah, we don’t even cover coal. My movie couldn’t justify giving coal to depressed children in a place called Sombertown.

Hallie

There are plenty of genuinely shitty little kids in this one. I think that level of personal spite from Jesper is just great, especially because Klaus never knows. He never tells Klaus ‘hey, I made up a naughty list,’ it’s just something that he took into his own hands. That’s another thing I love about the Santa is two people myth because so much of the Santa stuff is just made up. In yours they’re like, oh, the flying reindeer came from… we fed corn and now they fly.

Kyle

Magic corn, Hallie. Please. It was magic corn.

Hallie

[Stammers.] Magic corn, and now they fly.

Kyle

Don’t you disrespect the Winter Warlock like this.

Hallie

And you know, the Winter Warlock has the magic ball where he’s looking to see if all the kids are being good, but in this one, that’s just not a thing that Klaus does. He just made it up. There’s not a set point of origin for these myths, it’s something the kids saw and ran with because they’re kids and they’re excited about getting toys. So they’re like, Mr. Klaus comes through the chimney and he does this and he has magic and he does this… and-and-and it’s great.

There’s a great scene where their deliveries are getting so big that they have to switch out their one horse for like eight random wild reindeer, and their cart loses its wheels, and then it hits a ramp, and it’s flying through the air momentarily, and a child happens to be awake and looking outside, and he’s like oh my god, Klaus can fly. I think that’s really great, that during the course of the film… he cannot, this is not a magical thing, these kids are just eating it up and that’s really, really cute.

I really like that when the kid looks out the window he just sees Klaus, the visible Santa, because Jesper is hidden because he’s on the other side. I think it’s really funny that there’s this secret asshole.

Kyle

A secret Santa, if you will.

Hallie

Hey! [Silly noises.]

Kyle

[Silly noises.]

Hallie

Hey, hey, hey. It also speaks to, or starts to speak to, the quote-unquote “moral” of the film. The fact that Santa was also this secret invisible person backs up the quote that Klaus references once or twice in the film: a true selfless act always sparks another. Jesper’s initial act was not selfless because he wants to get home to his rich house, but Klaus’s was. He was just like, oh, this kid is probably sad, I’m gonna give him a frog. That one selfless act led to other selfless acts even though Jesper was also being selfish at the same time. I think that duality of Santa makes for a really strong Santa origin story.

Kyle

Okay. Any questions from our judges before we get to the second round?

David

Yes. Hi, this is David from Catching Up David. I just had a question for Hallie.

Hallie

Yes, David from Catching Up David?

David

Are, um… Are Jesper or Klaus friends with seals in this movie by any chance?

Hallie

They are not. There are no seals in this movie despite the fact that Smeerensburg is on a frigid northern island.

Kyle

It would be a very good place for seals.

[00:25:00]

Hallie

It would be. That’s what I’m thinking. Is there a single seal? No, there is a whale skeleton, and that is the best I can do.

Kyle

[Laughs.] We don’t have a seal, but we do have a skeleton of a whale.

Hallie

That’s the best I can do. It’s like the pawn shop thing.

Kyle

We do have a corpse.

Hallie

Here we go. They are not friends with seals.

David

Interesting. Okay, well thank you very much.

Kyle

Alright. I’m gonna get to Argument 2 which relates quite a bit to Hallie’s first one. I’ve talked about how this movie serves as a Santa Claus origin movie and really gets into the nitty-gritty of the details, but to be a good Santa movie you can’t just be Santa, you have to distill the essence of Christmas itself.

I haven’t talked much about this movie’s animation, but Rankin/Bass is THE Christmas animation style. If you have seen any sort of animation that’s trying to be Christmassy, it is imitating this very specific, very janky but very charming animation style. And it endures. It’s still being referenced today. For example, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, a movie that’s coming out, has a short where Sonic saves Christmas that is animated in this style.

Hallie

[Laughs.] Yeah, it’s great.

Kyle

Because everyone associates this style with Christmas. This movie also really respects the classic Christmas songs, the ones that really came out in and around the 50s. I mean, the name is Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. The movie does that by not only referencing the lyrics all the time… Santa will explicitly say: tell them that I can see them when they’re sleeping, and I know when they’re awake, so they better be good for goodness’s sake. And it’s cute. It references those classic songs, but also… it’s a musical. And the music isn’t half-bad, honestly!

Hallie

You’re right.

Kyle

It’s pretty catchy.

Hallie

You’re right.

Kyle

The best song, because there’s a bunch of songs, but the best song which I think is gonna get to the next point is… so, this Winter Warlock is gonna flat-out murder Santa. He’s gonna murder Kris Kringle. Kris is like, okay, before you kill me… and again, he’s not saying spare me, he’s just saying before you kill me can I give you a toy. I’ve got one left. And that’s all it takes to melt the Winter Warlock’s heart. And the Winter Warlock is like, but I’ve been bad for so long, how can I be good? And I genuinely think this is an inspiring way of looking at it.

Kris is like, turning good from bad is easy, you just basically do it one step at a time, it’s like taking one step after another. And then there’s a whole song about walking!

[Singing.] You just put one foot in front of the other!

It’s a good song.

Hallie

It’s great. It’s a great song.

Kyle

That’s the other thing. This movie has a heavy focus on redemption, love and generosity. Toys in this movie are treated less as a marketing or a physical thing. All the toys are, you know, they’re wooden toys, they’re handmade. He’s not taking Barbie dolls or Nintendo Switches. I mean, he wouldn’t because they weren’t out at that point, but they’re not treated as “oh, look at these cool objects,” instead toys are treated as love and joy manifest.

Through the simple process of giving someone a toy, Kris Kringle literally melts a warlock’s heart. He warms up Jessica and gets her on a path of seeing the world in a brighter way. They are hated by someone who exists literally to ruin fun. And the simple act of sharing inspires other acts of love. It gets the warlock to invite the Kringles to his mountain so they can live closer to the kids they’re working for. In the song where Kris gives them the gifts, kids start being kind to one another.

Yeah, it’s just that toys and the act of giving is treated as something generous. It’s not treated as if it’s gonna fix everything. They even say explicitly at the end Christmas doesn’t fix everything, but it makes things a little better. And as the chat said, it almost got Burgermeister Meisterburger to stop being an antagonist, but he fucking sucked. There was no saving Burgermeister Meisterburger.

Hallie

[Chuckles.]

Kyle

But finally, I think one of the biggest differences between this movie is the way it treats Santa Claus. In Klaus, Santa… you know, he has some mystical things at the end, but he’s treated very much like a human man. ‘Here’s how this could have happened.’ This movie really leans into Santa as a larger-than-life figure, as a man who is inherently good and will do everything he can, and his mere presence inspires others to act like him. The movie even calls for us to act like him.

Christmas has a lot of Pagan elements, but fundamentally it is in many ways a Christian holiday, so for me it’s really important that Santa Claus isn’t just an ordinary man, Santa Claus is Jesus Christ.

[00:30:00]

The movie doesn’t… It’s a religious studio but it doesn’t hammer your head. They mention God like three times. They mention it’s the holiest day for example. But Santa really is just kind of a Christ figure in this movie. He’s an outcast, he gets ridiculed for his clothing, he gets persecuted by the people for his acts of love and joy, and yet he persists and does them nonetheless. As time moves on and those toxic repressive views go away, he is respected for the love that he gave to the world and still gives to the world. I don't know what else to say than I think Santa is Jesus is a good myth.

Hallie

[Laughs.]

Kyle

I like larger-than-life Santa. I like tying into the mythology. Even though this explains every single detail of his life, there’s still something about him that feels like someone we can hope to be.

Hallie

And that person is Jesus.

Kyle

Yeah, that person is Jesus.

Hallie

Alright.

Scarlett

Hello there, Scarlett from the hollowed-out husk that used to host Queer Dungeoneers. My question is for Kyle. Really I just want to ask, have you considered that your movie is Footloose?

Hallie

[Laughs.]

Kyle

I would like to thank Scarlett for that additional fourth argument for why this is the best Santa Claus origin movie. I don't think I have anything else to say. Alright, we have a question from Devin.

Devin

Hi. Yes, I’m Devin. I’m from just Bluesky, kommacrazy. My question is for you, Hallie. Since Kyle has been talking about a bunch of music and musical lyrics and stuff, does Klaus have much musical factor to the movie?

Hallie

Yes. There is no… it’s not like a musical where the characters will break into song, but there is one song that was written for Klaus by Zara Larsson. It actually plays during a scene I’m going to describe in my next argument.

Kyle

Alright. Well then, go ahead with your argument.

Hallie

Okay. Building off of my previous arguments, specifically referencing the part in the movie where it is the belief that a child must be good in order for them to receive toys from Klaus, I argue that this is the better Santa origin because Santa here is the result of a community building upon each other and making the world a better place. He is both the result of this and the cause of this in a weird circular chain of events reinforcing each other that I think is just wonderful. In this ripple effect is an increase in the town’s literacy. Bear with me, it’s great.

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

Yeah! Didn’t think I was going there? Santa helps kids learn to read!

Kyle

I’ll have you know, Sombertown kids could already read and write, so take that.

Hallie

They weren’t fighting for their lives every day! So, there’s a character named Alva. She is a school teacher but she has been turned into a fishmonger because nobody sends their children to school in Smeerensburg lest their children mingle with the spawn of their sworn enemy. So, without any kids to teach, she’s just desperately hawking fish in order to make enough money so she can get off the island and start a new life somewhere else.

However, at a certain point in the movie when the letter-writing to Klaus really starts off, some of the kids are like I’d really like to write a letter but I don't know how to write, like, I can’t read, I can’t write and I’m sad. So, Jesper sends them to Alva who tries to kick them out at first and tries to ignore them. She’s like no, I don’t do that anymore, that’s not who I am, but they just hang out and bother her enough that she’s like, okay, if I teach you one thing, will you leave me alone? And that thing she teaches is she teaches a little girl how to write her name.

The little girl is writing is slowly and gratingly on the chalkboard with the chalkboard sound. Alva is so clearly annoyed, but then the little girl looks at the words and she’s like “that’s my name?” And Alva’s like yeah, yippee, that’s your name. And all these other kids are like, well, I want to spell my name. Can you teach us more? And it’s such a cute scene.

Kyle

I forgot about that. That’s so cute.

Hallie

It is so good! All these kids wanting to learn how to become literate so they can send letters through the post office so they can contribute to Christmas! It is so, so good.

Kyle

You are so invested in this movie which is clearly funded by Big USPS.

Hallie

[Laughs.] Big USPS. So, this whole Santa origin story, because of Jesper’s involvement as a postman and because he’s trying to give Alva a hard time and because he’s using these children’s desires for toys for his own selfish gain, has led to increased literacy and increased happiness and kindness in the community because the kids are going back to school and they’re having a lot of fun with it.

Similarly, there is a child in this movie named Margu.

Kyle

I love her. She’s one of the few things I remembered.

[00:35:00]

Hallie

Yeah. Margu, hands down the best character. She is from an indigenous peoples from northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, that area, called the Sami. She doesn’t speak English, and the movie doesn’t translate for us or anything like that, she just shows up at the post office speaking Sami. She clearly wants to send a letter, but Jesper is an asshole so he just kicks her out of his house all the time and kicks her off the porch and is like ‘I don’t have time for you.’

So, eventually there’s a point where Jesper oversteps with Klaus that has to do with his tragic backstory, and he feels really bad about it, and because he’s feeling really bad he’s like alright Margu, I’ll throw you a bone, and he takes Margu to Avla’s house. There, they spend a whole night going over… Alva clearly doesn’t speak that much Sami either, but they’re working It out, they’re trying to translate little phrases, they’re helping her write a legible letter to Klaus that’s in enough English he’ll know what it is, and that is when the original song Invisible plays, and it is really, really sweet.

Eventually she writes the letter, but Klaus and Jesper are fighting by that point, so Jesper starts to make her toy himself, and he does just a shit job. Klaus happens to come back when Jesper has fallen asleep working on it and they make up while they work on the toy and the song keeps playing in the background. They go and deliver it to her village, which is just outside the town proper, and they wait for morning.

Morning comes and she is so excited. They built her this cute little sleigh that has a sail on it, and it’s like a little sailboat for the snow! And she’s so happy. The music crests as Jesper feels what it’s like to give something for the first time in his life, and it is magical, and it all happened because he is accidentally partaking in the formation of the Santa…

Kyle

He’s accidentally being a nice person.

Hallie

He’s accidentally being a nice person! It’s so… It’s so great. So, this ripple effect has caused this circle of larger reinforcing actions that just continued. Even if you argued it started with children were selfish and they wanted a toy, the fact that they’re still keeping it up… it doesn’t condemn the incentive for being good and it in fact seems to support that being good is easy if you make a habit of it.

Kyle

Yeah.

Hallie

And that being good leads to other wonderful things such as a functioning postal service, and literacy.

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

All these things are tied to the act of just one selfless act of giving a child a toy. As a result, Santa is both the cause and the continued result of community betterment and involvement.

As a further example, the Sami people, to thank Klaus and Jesper for making Margu a sled, they come to Klaus’s workshop and they end up helping make all the toys because they want to help with the larger project as well, which is just really nice. That’s where Jesper starts to find community, because before now he had a couple interactions with Alva, and he was mostly with Klaus, and they had been steadily bonding over the course of the movie, but now it’s like a hustling bustling workshop, because by this point they’re committed to the whole Christmas thing.

Klaus, his tragic backstory is he had a wife and they wanted kids, so he made all these toys in preparation for the children, but they never came. It just didn’t happen for him and his wife, and then his wife passed away. So, he’s got this really sad family tree carved into the wall, but there are just two figures on it, him and his wife.

Kyle

That’s so depressing.

Hallie

It’s so depressing. But when the Sami people come in, they all make their own figurines and they put it in Klaus’s family tree.

Kyle

That’s so cute.

Hallie

Because Santa and Christmas are the friends you made along the way!

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

And they’re a family now. Then he puts Jesper’s name on the sleigh, and it’s just like… look at all these wonderful larger community connections you’re forging because of one nice thing, Santa.

Kyle

That’s such a wonderful family.

Hallie

It’s such a wonderful family.

Kyle

I wish it had a penguin, but you know.

Hallie

It could. I will admit, it could stand for a penguin.

Kyle

[Laughs.] Alright. I’ve talked about how, to be a good Santa Claus origin movie, it has to explain the origin of Santa and it has to embody the spirit of Christmas. For my last point, I want you to think back about how I framed the summary, because I went from Jessica’s point of view for a reason.

Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town is a movie about a professional woman who doesn’t appreciate Christmas but she gets her heart warmed by a hunky smalltown man with a humble profession. Together they not only save Christmas but fall in love. This is a fucking Hallmark movie! The only difference is instead of her coming to the small town he comes to her small town and makes it better. Also, to further reinforce this, I forgot to mention this, she does put down her hair during her big revelatory moment.

Hallie

[Laughs.] She does. She does do this.

[00:40:00]

Kyle

Which is the Hallmark look. She really does go from the stereotypical focus on the law and her job to someone who celebrates Christmas and joy. Because of that, when Hallmark—We rate Hallmark movies, so I’m gonna quickly go through the criteria and tell you how Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town… so that I can show it is a good Hallmark movie instead of just arguing it is.

Now it’s not perfect on all things. For example, Merry Marketability. How Christmassy is it slash how much does it make you want to buy Hallmark products? This is a very Christmassy movie, both of them are. Wanting to buy things, not so much. Again, I think this is one of the movie’s strengths, that it focuses on the core of Christmas rather than marketing, but I do have to admit it makes it a little less of a Hallmark movie.

That being said, Carey-ism. How romantic is it? It is very romantic. Romance is the core of this movie. Jessica is a very active character who, through her love of both Santa and Christmas, helps save Christmas through, again, a magical reindeer jailbreak. She also has her whole romance song focusing on how she loves Kris and how he’s changed her approach to the world. That song is the one that by far gets the most attention animation-wise.

I don't know if they just thought it would be boring for kids or what, but they go ham. There’s a bunch of 2D animation. There’s that weird print at the bottom of the water that’s supposed to be her reflection. For a 50-minute movie, the romance gets actually a pretty big focus.

Criteria 3, The Hans Gruber Memorial Award for Compelling Conflict. How good is the conflict? More points if it includes magic. Well, the Winter Warlock, one of the two main antagonists, literally has magic as a core to his character. The other one, Burgermeister Meisterburger, I would claim is the second-most iconic Christmas villain behind Snow Miser and Heat Miser who are from another Rankin/Bass movie.

Fridge Placement. The cover. That one doesn’t get great points, it’s missing Jessica. But again, two out of four and really high points in both isn’t too bad.

Then we go to the bonus rounds. Do the leads have Christmas names? Kris is a religious name. Jessica is also apparently a religious name. It’s based on Isaac, I googled it.

Hallie

[Reluctant.] Okay.

Kyle

Is there a tragic child? Bonus points if their tragedy is magically fixed through the power of Christmas spirit. Santa goes down the chimney for the first time because he really needs to give a Noah’s Ark toy to a very, very sick girl. This is literally the only time the girl is mentioned, in this one scene, which I feel like makes it even more of a token Hallmark tragic child.

Hallie

[Chuckles.] Yeah.

Kyle

Finally, is there a magic and/or unsettling Santa? Santa is the hunk in this movie so I’m not gonna count this as a magic or unsettling Santa. He doesn’t get the bonus point there, but again, three out of four possible bonus points is not bad at all.

Then, finally, our Naughty or Nice. This movie is nice, Klaus is nice. They’re both nice movies. I’m not gonna claim either of them aren’t.

Hallie

They’re both great. You should watch both of them.

Kyle

You should. I will however argue that this movie is more iconically associated with Christmas which again is not necessarily an indication of quality, but I do think, Naughty or Nice, should this go in the Hallmark criteria, is this a must-watch. And again, I do think you should watch both, but I do think because of the legacy this movie and honestly all the Rankin/Bass movies leave you gotta watch it once, even if you end up not liking it.

Hallie, let’s do your final round and then we’ll get the last two questions.

Hallie

Okay. I have talked a lot about the duality of Santa and the importance of community in the origin story in Klaus, so I want to acknowledge why just Klaus is Santa. The movie is very interesting in that Jesper is the protagonist but the movie is called Klaus and Klaus is the one who takes over the mantle of Santa Claus. That is because Klaus is the one who needs to be Santa according to the backstory. Jesper doesn’t need that. What Jesper needs is the Hallmark movie experience, because I will argue Klaus is also Hallmark. Jaded rich city man comes to small town, is charmed by—

Kyle

I was thinking about that too. I would say it is in the Cars way where it’s got the main character beats, but it is… I know there is a romance, but it’s like a Cars thing where the romance is not the thing that changes him.

Hallie

[Smirks.] Okay. It’s not as important or good. Similarly to Cars, if this was gayer, it would be better.

Kyle

Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town is the best Santa Claus movie. Klaus is the best Cars movie.

Hallie

[Laughs.] Okay. Alva the school teacher and Jesper end up together. It was just like, oh, these are the protagonists and a woman and a man. They end up…

[00:45:00]

Kyle

Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a tramp stamp like in Cars.

Hallie

That we know of. The cars don’t wear clothes so you can see them a lot easier than in Klaus.

Kyle

I don’t want to think about the fact that cars don’t wear clothes. I don’t like the thought of Lightning McQueen being a fully nude man with just two lightning bolt stickers on his cheeks.

Hallie

But Klaus as a person is also built. He is a sexy Santa, and I’m glad that we as a community seem to be moving towards big lumberjack axe man Santa. I think it’s great.

So Klaus’s backstory, he wanted a family, didn’t get it, very sad, and he just falls into a deep depression for a long time. It’s implied he’s been alone with his toys and the woods for a very, very long time before Jesper shows up. So, although all of the myths come accidentally from Jesper’s actions, Klaus is the heart and soul. He’s the one who has the toys. He’s the one who does the selfless act, because he’s like, oh, this child is sad, here’s a frog. That is recognized by the film itself by naming it Klaus, even though Jesper is arguably more of the protagonist, and by the fact that the magic of the universe chooses Klaus.

Something that I have left out of my telling is that there is this magical wind motif that keeps showing up through the film. At first Klaus tries to throw away Jesper’s satchel when he finds it, but then the wind blows it open and blows the letter to his feet.

Kyle

This movie is very realistic and doesn’t do magic except for when it does.

Hallie

Except for when it does! When Jesper comes to make his case at first, when he’s like, oh man, all these kids are writing you letters, I don't know why, I had nothing to do with it, but it would be really cool if you gave them toys so that they kept writing these letters… while he’s making his case, he’s reading aloud from the kids’ letters which he told them to make intentionally sad.

The wind kind of swirls and picks up behind him, and they play dramatic magic music while Klaus has a moment looking at it, and then the wind disappears as soon as Jesper looks up, but it’s clearly like a divine intervention kind of a thing.

So at the end, when I say that Klaus passed on, what happened was he was in the woods and the wind piped up and he was like “I’m coming, love,” and then he walked into the woods and was never seen again, but in like a good way.

Kyle

So he died like a fucking cat which just leaves the house to die alone.

Hallie

No! He got swept up. It’s cute. His foot walks past a tree and then you don’t see the foot on the other side of the tree. Like, there’s magic going on. Something I love is that there is no magic initially but their actions lead to magic. The magic is kind of loose and undefined, and I really like that the whole movie is Jesper and Klaus bumble-stumbling through inventing Christmas by accident, and then whatever force the universe has is like you know what, yeah, this guy, this guy is gonna be Santa. Not the postman who invented all the myths, we’re gonna take what he’s done and then give it magically to this Klaus man.

That is because Klaus is the recipient of that kind of really mundane making the world a better place magic himself because of what Jesper was able to give him back, so Klaus as the recipient is the one most equipped to continue passing that magic on. I think that is a really, really nice way to combine the idea of Santa as a duality with Jesper representing the asking via letter and Klaus representing the giving via toy maker Santa Claus with our image of Santa and all the things that he does and continues to do.

I think it’s very sad. Not “sad” sad. I think it’s very poignant. I think it’s very, like… two good friends did this, this is nice. I like that they both did this and then magic decided it was going to continue forever. I like that you never see him as Santa Claus proper. You see him as Klaus the last time when he walks into the woods. Then, the last shot of the movie when Jesper is like once a year I get to see my friend, it’s just Jesper looking hopefully up at the roof because he hears sleighbells, and it’s so, so nice.

Kyle

Sleighbells ring, are you listening?

Hallie

Are you listening?!

Kyle

[Laughs.] Dad? Dad? As Jesper just cries, huddled into the mess.

Hallie

Dad, are you okay? He’s got two really cute kids. I kinda wish we saw more of them. Because he and Alva are married, like the straight tokens. But on that note, it is easy to see gay subtext if you’re looking for it. Very, very easy.

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

I did want to end my arguments with this movie: Santa gay? Question mark. And it’s nice to see the letter function of Santa involved. It is nice to see a postman be involved in the Santa creation myth, so God bless the postal service.

Kyle

Before we have our judgments from the judges, do we have any questions from Kristen and Emily?

Emily

I’m Emily from Quest Friends.

[00:50:00]

Does it make the movie better if Santa’s hot? Like young Santa, or charming, or in some way appealing.

Hallie

Yes.

Emily

Mm-hmm.

Hallie

That’s a full yes.

Kyle

Yeah.

Hallie

I think we all yearn for hot Santa. I think that even though he is a tiny little stop-motion figurine Kris Kringle is very cute.

Kyle

It’s one of those things. I do like the bigger Santa design personally, as a person, stepping out of my argument here, but I’m gonna argue that hot young Santa is more important purely for the Hallmark factor. If I want to argue that Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town is a Hallmark movie, which I do think makes it a better Santa Claus Christmas movie… yeah, he’s gotta be young and hot. But he does end up as old Santa at the end. We get our full Santa. We see the transition.

Hallie

You get the full Santa.

Kyle

And honestly, he’s still a cutie. More in like a grandpa kind of way, but god he’s adorable.

Hallie

Oh! Adorable. He’s so cute. He’s just a little figure that moves weird, but he’s so cute.

Kyle

Alright. Kristen, do you have a question?

Kristen

I do have a question. I cannot remember because it was at the top of the episode if you circled back to what happened, and this is for Kyle, to what happened in—Oh! I’m Kristen. I’m from Catching Up David.

[Laughs.] I’m wondering, do we ever circle back to what happened in Sombertown after Kris Kringle has fled the law?

Kyle

Yes. The town ends up improving where… the narrator, who is also a postman. He’s just the narrator though, but he is a postman.

Hallie

I forgot about that!

Kyle

Yeah, no, yeah. The postman—

Hallie

I forgot he was also a random postman! God, what a good combo.

Kyle

Yeah, Fred Astaire is a postman, it’s great. He basically says the Burgermeisters, so the family, died out and then lost power and then people realized their laws were kind of silly after all. They faded into obscurity. We see a picture on the wall of Burgermeister Meisterburger fall to the ground, break, get thrown in the trash, and then a picture of Santa gets hung up instead.

So, a little more realistic approach. And again, the movie ends by saying that it won’t fix everything, so the town itself doesn’t fully transform, but as time goes on eventually the town gets better because the Burgermeisters just all fucking die.

Hallie

Because the Burgermeisters are gone.

Kyle

They just all die!

Hallie

Because Santa launched a coup.

Kyle

Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town takes the Luigi approach to solving societal problems.

Hallie

Ha! Just what I wanted for Christmas.

Kyle

Alright. With that out of the way, it is time for us to hand over the microphone to our judges for the last time. Judge, I want each of you to pick one movie. Which movie between Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town and Klaus do you think is the better Santa Claus origin movie? Let’s be honest, the best one, because it’s one of these two, and why.

Devin

Alright. I’m gonna have to say, between the two of you, it was very, very close for me. Kyle, your sticking to the Christmas spirit and Santa is a criminal were two big points for me, and the musical with one step in front of the other, that’s a very big song for me, but I’m gonna have to hand this one to Hallie.

Hallie

Woo!

Devin

Reason being is I really love—

Kyle

I fucking knew it. When I got all that praise at the beginning, I’m like fuck, Hallie got this one. God damn it. Sorry, Santa damn it.

Hallie

[Laughs.]

Devin

My reasoning for that is because I really do like the explanation of the turnaround of the main character, Jesper, especially with the language barrier, the Klaus getting a family by just doing one kind thing after another… but the biggest thing that got me was the fact that Klaus didn’t have any kids and couldn’t achieve his dream which was to give all these toys to the kids that he had with his wife. Then comes along Jesper with the drawing and the letters and being pointed out to him to be able to achieve his dream of doing that, to kids that aren’t even his own. That’s my reasoning for giving it to Hallie.

Hallie

Thank you, Devin. You’re so smart.

Kyle

That’s lovely. Fuck you, but lovely. Who wants to go next?

David

Alright. Well, having never seen either of these movies, which I understand is on-brand for David of Catching Up David, I had not heard of either of these. I didn’t realize they were both animated until that came up during—

Kyle

You haven’t heard of the Rankin/Bass movies?!

Hallie

Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.

Kyle

What the fuck?!

David

I’ve heard of Rankin/Bass. I have not heard of this particular one. I know their Hobbit, I know the Hobbit movie.

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

We really did pull David out from under a rock. Rankin/Bass? Yeah, The Hobbit.

David

Yeah!

Hallie

You know, that’s what they’re most known for.

[00:55:00]

Kyle

They did do The Hobbit, it’s just one of those, like… for most people it’s Rankin/Bass, you know, the people who do those Christmas movies, they also made a Hobbit adaptation. Not, Rankin/Bass, you know, the people who made that Hobbit movie, they also made some Christmas movies.

Hallie

I guess they also do Christmas.

Kyle

Anyways, go ahead, David.

David

Alright. Well, I think I’m gonna have to go with Kyle’s film.

Hallie

[Sighs.]

David

Klaus, I admit, does sound delightful, and I do like the idea of a dual Santa figure as part of the myth, however Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town sounds absolutely insane in the best sort of 1970s animated film sort of way. There’s the threat of children being thrown in jail, there are Christmas crimes, there’s a warlock, a bad man named Burgermeister Meisterburger, and most importantly Santa is friends with animals including seals which explains his most famous catchphrase.

All of this is completely nuts, but Santa Claus is a very weird holiday figure, and by playing up the strangeness of Santa’s mythology, I’m gonna have to go with the Rankin/Bass of Hobbit fame classic that I had never heard of, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.

[Laughter.]

Kyle

One detail I forgot to mention about the movie is all the names are great. Burgermeister Meisterburger, which is just mayor in German and then mayor again but with…

Hallie

Switched?

Kyle

His main assistant is named Grimsley, and all of the Kringles have a name like Bingle, Zingle, Gringle.

Hallie

And then Kris!

Kyle

And then Kris. Alright, who is next?

Scarlett

This was very difficult for me. I initially went in thinking it would be Klaus. Over the course of the episode I leant back more towards Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. At the end of the day, it really came down to which of the two Santa Clauses best embodied the spirit of early Christian piety from the fourth century Anatolian bishop Saint Nocholas of Myra who was of course the original inspiration for Santa Claus. I finally get to use my history degree for something.

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Scarlett

And so, I think for that it could have come down to either. Unfortunately, I am gonna have to give it to Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.

Hallie

Ugh!

Kyle

I love that it was predicated with an “unfortunately.”

Hallie

[Irritated.] It’s good!

Kyle

Why is that Santa more like the original Santa? Was that guy also a criminal?

Scarlett

Saint Nicholas of Myra, his whole idea was this idea of secret gift giving. That was a big part of it. Also frequent miracles. He was very well-known for doing a lot of miracles. So, the just rabid nature of the gift-giving to the children that I don’t think is embodied quite as well in Klaus, although it is there, I think the crimes that have to be committed are very good for early Christian martyrdom. I also think, yeah, just the more frequent and more obvious miracles that are absolutely embodied in Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. I’m really sorry, Hallie. I think Klaus is objectively the better film.

Hallie

[Sighs.]

Kyle

[Laughs.] It’s so much better. It’s a much better movie.

Hallie

It is. It’s so good.

Kyle

It’s a very good movie.

Scarlett

But yes, I’m afraid because of Santa Christ it has to go to Kyle.

[Laughter.]

Kyle

Alright, our final two judges. I’m gonna have Emily go first because we’re following the order in which people asked questions.

Hallie

Oh, so we are.

Emily

I am very torn. I originally was leaning Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town because it’s just… it’s such a classic, and I think one of the big parts of the magic of Christmas is in the nostalgia of childhood and traditions and that kind of stuff. But, I really enjoyed all of the cultural inclusions in Klaus, and I think Santa being a sad bear is a really strong choice, and having a rude twink postman as his sidekick…

Kyle

You can say you just like it because it’s maybe gay, Emily.

Emily

No!

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Emily

I just… Here’s the thing. I think both of them have very fun character designs, but I feel like the nostalgia is maybe hurting my enjoyment of the more classic Claymation character designs because I have seen them more often, whereas I feel like some of the stylistic choices of Klaus are more interesting to me.

[01:00:00]

Hallie

Klaus also did invent a whole new type of animation.

Kyle

I understand. I understand. Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town is just so iconic it can’t be voted in. I understand.

Hallie

Okay, but like, but like…

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

Okay, but I do, just… this wasn’t part of my arguments, but just to shill for Klaus as a movie that everybody should watch, they invented a new type of animation for that film which was 2019, so it hasn’t had that long in the cultural zeitgeist yet. It’s 2D animation but it looks 3D and they accomplished it by using a special form of lighting. I have the art book. It’s so pretty.

Kyle

Both movies have a fascinating legacy with animation.

Hallie

Yeah, they both just love animation so much, and I love that for both of them.

Kyle

Yeah. Klaus just knocks it out of the park. It tries things new. It’s beautiful.

Hallie

The designs are so fun and so bright.

Kyle

And Rankin/Bass, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town by comparison is not nearly as good-looking, but there’s something so iconic about its charm. I love that I could just see that ‘oh, that is just… they just took a picture, and they just put it at the bottom of this river and they called it a day.’

Hallie

Yeah.

Emily

I will say that the strongest argument Kyle had was crime.

Hallie

Crime was a good argument.

Kyle

Alright. We have two votes for Klaus, two votes for Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. It finally lands on Kristen…

Hallie

Oh for God’s sake.

Kyle

…who, for important context, loves Klaus and hates Hallie.

Hallie

[Laughs.]

Kyle

All in all, it balances out. Could this be a Christmas miracle for Hallie? Kristen, I will hand the floor to you.

Kristen

I love Klaus. I think it’s a wonderful movie. Coming into this, I have not seen or do not recall seeing Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, so coming into this I was very much like, listen, I’m not saying that Kyle’s gonna make bad arguments but I’m saying that he’s gonna have to make some really good arguments to try to counteract Klaus even though it is being campaigned for by Hallie.

I’ve listened to your arguments and I’ve come to a conclusion. I think a lot of this decision comes from the fact that in my own childhood was I was a nosy little son-of-a-gun, and I would ask Santa a lot of questions. Each Christmas I would leave out a note that had like at least ten… I guess ten isn’t a lot, but like kind of a lot. Santa’s a busy guy.

I would just be like, what are you doing for Christmas, what have you gotten for Christmas, which kind of cookie is your favorite, etcetera. So, I have a lot of things, I have a lot of questions, I want to know a lot of things, and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town has answered so many questions.

Hallie

Santa Christ!

Kyle

Hell yeah. It’s a Christmas miracle!

Hallie

No, it’s not! It’s not a Christmas miracle!

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Kristen

So, I think that, from what I’ve heard of Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, it is the better Santa origin story because it seems to thoroughly scratch the itch, for me, of the mystery behind the classic American Santa mythos. Although Klaus is a lovely interpretation, it feels like an interpretation. The Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town story “is” Santa from how I feel about Santa growing up, and as Kyle said, it checks every box that it needs to and it gives a backstory to Mrs. Claus who I feel like is wholly underrepresented in Santa media.

I also can’t deny my love for the animation and the style and the charm. Each Christmas I like to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, so that is a point that Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town had in its favor, so Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town comes out on top.

Kyle

Alright. Well, Hallie…

Hallie

What?

Kyle

You had the better movie. You had the better arguments.

Hallie

Yeah. Yeah! What the fuck is this about? This is the fucking…

Kyle

[Laughs.]

Hallie

This is what the patriarchy is all about. I had the better movie and the better arguments. You had Jesus. You were just like I’m gonna go straight to Jesus Christ, and I was like, look, I have a different label on mine called the duality of Santa, the visible versus the invisible, and still the man comes out on top. Thanks, panel. God!

Kyle

Thank you so much, everyone.

Hallie

Thanks, three out of five panel.

Kyle

Three out of five? Three out of five voted for me, Hallie.

Hallie

Two out of five panel. Yeah, well thanks sarcastically to three out of five panel. Thank you genuinely to two out of five panel.

Kyle

Thank you everyone for joining us, for listening.

Hallie

I’m mad.

Kyle

If you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas. Otherwise, have a fantastic week, Happy Holidays, all of that, and we will see you next year for something that probably isn’t as competitive. Do you have any goodbye lines, Hallie, or are we ending it on that?

Hallie

No, I’m just reading Scarlett’s comment. To be clear, if Kyle hadn’t mentioned Jesus, I wouldn’t have judged the way I did.

[01:05:00]

Look, that’s reasonable, but I feel like Jesus is like when you pull out ‘gun’ in the game of rock, paper, scissors. It’s not fair. You pulled a Jesus Christ on me.

Kyle

I’m sorry. Jesus was relevant. I literally was watching the end of the movie and I’m like, oh my god, Santa is Jesus. I was watching the movie and that’s what they were… he’s Jesus!

Hallie

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Kyle

Alright, I’m gonna stop the recording.

Hallie

Uh-huh! Uh-huh!