Rotten Tomatoes audience rating: 84%
After Rudolph and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Rankin-Bass must have realized they were onto something. But what other legendary Christmas tales were left to be told? None, so they just made one up.
Shirley Booth (Mrs. Claus) tells us the tale of that fateful year when Santa Claus decided to quit his job. When Santa (Mickey Rooney returning to the role) is feeling under the weather one December, he calls the world's most misanthropic doctor, who assures him that the whole world is beyond saving and there's no need for Christmas anymore. Santa admits that he has been feeling the same way, so he decides to stay in bed for the foreseeable future.
Mrs. Claus thinks the old man is giving up too easily. First, she muses in song that she could take over Santa's job. For some reason she rejects this eminently sensible option, and instead she sends two elves, Jingle Bells and his brother Jangle, to scour the world for some trace of Christmas spirit. When the elves arrive in Southtown, Santa's fears seem confirmed. A local constable cites them for violating draconian laws prohibiting reindeer and elf costumes, and the kids in town don't care that Santa isn't coming. (The kids have read in the newspaper that Santa has called it quits, but they say they don't believe in Santa. What kind of world is this where newspapers are printing press releases from the North Pole, but the children somehow don't believe that Santa Claus exists?)
Worried for the elves' safety, Santa has hauled himself out of bed and followed them to Southtown. Disguising himself as "Mr. Klaus" (they'll never figure that out), he meets a young agclaustic named Ignatius Thistlewhite. Invited into the Thistlewhite home, Santa sneezes in the most disgusting way possible, surely infecting the entire family with an exotic North Pole illness. Then he sings about believing in Santa Claus. Mr. Klaus reveals his secret identity by flying off on a reindeer to rescue the elves and the baby reindeer they rode in on.
The reindeer is at the pound, disguised as a dog. The professionals at the pound fail to realize that this hoofed creature is not a dog, so the elves and Ignatius have to persuade the mayor of Southtown to intervene. He agrees to help, but only if the elves can conjure up a snowy day in Dixie. Unbeknown to them, Santa has already sprung their reindeer friend and rushed back to the Pole. Before Santa can make it home, Mrs. Claus jets off to Southtown to collect the elves (and Ignatius, for some reason) to pay a visit to an old friend.
Mr. Snow Miser, the frosty giant who controls winter weather, is the only one who can bring snow to Southtown. After a jaunty ragtime tune about himself, Snow Miser explains that he'd be all too glad to make it snow down south, but he's certain that his brother Mr. Heat Miser would turn it to rain. Heat Miser hates his brother (though not enough to think of a different theme song), and the two can't be made to agree. If Mrs. Claus wants it to snow in Southtown, she'll have to get Mother Nature involved. Mother Nature tells her miserly sons to play nice, and they agree to horse-trade a snowstorm in the south for one spring day at the North Pole.
The snow inspires the world's children to guilt Santa into reinstating Christmas, so they send him gifts and letters and sing "Blue Christmas." Their trick works, and Santa resumes his duties.
TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS:
1. It never snows in the South except by supernatural intervention.
If you think it does, you're just remembering wrong.
2. If you only work one night out of the year, you can't really afford to take a sick day.
But if you're going to be sneezing all over the world, maybe it's not such a bad idea.
Rotten Tomatoes audience rating: 54%
There is also a live-action version of this movie, and it is an abomination.
As much fun as it sounds like to see the great John Goodman as Jolly Old St. Nick, I implore you to stay away from this monstrosity. There is not a single sympathetic, likable, pleasant, or interesting character in the entire movie. The closest you get are Jingle and Jangle, played here by Eddie Griffin and Ethan Suplee, but even they can't bring any cheer to your TV screen. Chris Kattan is in this movie. Chris Kattan is in this movie. Stay away, in the name of all that is holy.
If you must indulge your curiosity, please confine it to this production of the Heat Miser and Snow Miser song. It features Michael McKean as Mr. Snow Miser and Harvey Fierstein as Mr. Heat Miser. But I caution you, this is something that, once seen, cannot be unseen. You've been warned.
I don't know what masochists in the audience have been giving this a positive rating. They are probably very sick people.
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