The Weekly Planet - The Santa Clause 2 - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

We're right back into covering Tim Allen's Santa Clause trilogy with the second in the series, uniquely titled The Santa Clause 2. And here's the thing, he's older, he's wiser, he has an evil robot doppelganger. Also his son is on the naughty list and he needs a wife...look there's a lot going on. Thanks for listening!SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/aZCvocYUjhcJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-moviesThe Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I've recorded if you're ready to record. I'm also ready to record, yeah. Welcome back everybody and a very Merry Christmas to all of us. Ho ho ho. I'm including myself in that. That's fair, if no one else is going to do it. We are, of course, returning to talk about the Santa Claus 2. And the bizarre universe of the Santa Claus in general.

Absolutely. If you could leave a like on this video, that would be great because it helps this video and it helps me, which is what this is about, right? Yeah. If no one else is going to help you, you should help yourself. That's what Christmas is all about. Exactly. Now I realized,

and a few people pointed this out on last week's episode, when we talk about the first one, we didn't really say whether we liked it or not. Oh, right. I mean, it's better than this one. I think this one's better.

Really? I think of the trilogy having, having shotgunned all three of these in a very short span of time. I think the second one is the best one. Interesting. I think it's got the, it's got a nice, simple plot. Like the world, you know, the happiness of the world is at stake,

blah, blah, blah, but not really. We're just mucking about. And I think it's got the best villain, which is to say it's got a villain. Well, the third one's got a villain, which we'll come back to. Okay, that's probably fair. I think also the implications of this universe are not as bad in this one. However, they do bleed over into the third one. Oh, I've still got questions.

There's some stuff that I really want to talk about. This one I think is also the least schmaltzy. Right. Not that I have anything against the child actors in the first one or the third one. I think this one, it's mostly like teens and it's just being silly. And I think that... Teens being silly. Yeah.

It's interesting though, because to me as well, it felt more toothless. And it's also because this one is G as opposed to the previous one, which was PG. Did you get that sense? Yeah. I mean, obviously in a PG movie,

Tim Allen gets to do more. In a, in a, in a G movie, obviously he's restricted to one. He gets one big. They've got to know exactly where to place it. You know what?

Yeah, absolutely. So this movie, one of the big plot points is that Charlie, the boy from the first movie, he's now turned bad. He's evil. He's putting on a beanie. He's spray painting. You know he's bad news. Yeah.

I think this is a bleed over from the Hollywood executive thing which we talked about last week where like a lot of these movies from the 90s are about dads who are spending too much time in boardrooms. And this is just an extension of that, where their kids have grown up and they're like, my kids are delinquent. What?

I need to go back and fix my delinquent son. Do you think this is just that? Do you think there's maybe a movie executive who's spent too much time, he's not spent enough time with his children, and he's like, if I just keep making movies about a dad who improves, maybe my own kids will come back to me. Maybe that's what's going to happen. I think it's a very real possibility.

But where do you think the line is on the naughty list in this case? I mean, we know it gets tweaked by an evil villain. That's true. Well, doing a big graffito. Yeah, obviously. Obviously, that's naughty. But what if you scrub out the graffito? Does that then wipe you off the list?

Who's writing the list? Is it automated? Who's specifically watching? Who set the rules? Was it the original Santa Claus? Yeah. Because in these movies, Tim Allen's Santa Claus is like, you know, if you're kind of nice, that counts as being nice.

But apparently the rules are like, no, if you do even a single, you're on the naughty list. Forever, yeah. Yeah, right? It counts as being nice. But apparently the rules are like, no, if you do even a single, you're on the naughty list. Forever, yeah. Yeah, right? Is it one of those situations like in the movie Wanted with the loom of doom which tells you who to kill? Is it like that situation? Is it automated in magic?

So I reckon maybe there's like when the first Santa arrived at the North Pole, there was like a chasm, like a yawning chasm with some glowing green ooze in it. And it's just like, decide which children are naughty. And he's like, okay, glowing green ooze and a chasm. I guess, I don't know. Anyway, this movie has two plots. It does, yeah.

They're shoehorned in two, which I quite enjoy, which is one, naughty kid, as you mentioned. His own son is on the naughty list of what can he do. And two, the elf forgot to tell me how to find a wife like eight years ago. Yeah, absolutely. He doesn't find a wife. Okay, which leads to questions, obviously. Yeah.

Number one question is... With the gaping hole like, you must find a wife or you can't punish children. Sacrifice her to me. First of all, when Tim Allen Santa arrived in the North Pole in the first movie, there wasn't a Mrs. Claus. No. So I guess my question is, did the previous Santa

have a Mrs. Claus? And if so, when he died, what happened to her? Did she just clutch her heart and collapse and they threw her into the chasm? Did she lose her Mrs. Claus powers and then she just wandered out into the frozen waste of the North Pole to die? Well, there are options.

Yes. Those two of which you mentioned. There's also the possibility that he wasn't married and he hadn't been Santa for that long. Because, again, he was a bad Santa Claus. He was a bad Santa. We talked about it. He seemed like a mean, awful man.

Yeah. Or at least incompetent. So maybe he went eight years and he was a bad Santa Claus. He was a bad Santa, we talked about it. He seems like a mean, awful man. Yeah. Or at least incompetent. So maybe he went eight years and he was just like, I just can't. And he knew right at the start you needed a Mrs. Claus and he just couldn't find anyone because he was too busy. Because he's a drunk. He's a drunk.

Why is he getting people the wrong prezzies? What a strange situation. And it's also like, I mean, I get it because if you're the president, for example, not to use any real word examples, but if you're the president and then you're no longer the president, you can't be the president, the first lady can't. And they don't let you drive anymore. Oh, that's right.

They don't let you drive anymore. The first lady doesn't keep being the first lady. They bring in a new one. But what's the retirement? They wheel one in like Hannibal Lecter on that journey. But what's the retirement plan? And also, if you don't want to be Santa, and we'll touch on this more in the third one,

is there a way to retire without just reversing all time and space? Like, do you have to die or reverse all time and space? Good question. And also, it's never really established in this movie what does happen if Santa doesn't find a Mrs Claus. Like, it seems to be like... I guess there's just no Christmas? Well, that's the thing.

Why didn't they tell him? It's pivotal information. Like, if you de-Santificationize, as he starts to do in this movie, and you get all the way back to being human, what happens? Do they pick another? Does the chasm pick another Santa Claus? Or does Christmas just end for everybody? I guess it does.

I mean, also Christmas continues regardless of whether there's a Santa or not because parents are still buying presents maybe. So I don't know if it makes that much of a difference. Oh, capitalism destroys the planet. Oh, okay. Oh, here's another hypothetical situation. This is right at the start of the movie,

so if you could start there. Right at the start, there is like an observational radar plane that goes over the North Pole and it nearly discovers the existence of Santa's workshop and they go into stealth mode. Stealth mode.

Oh, very good. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Can you hear those cheers, Mason? No. Okay. Well, I guess my question is is What happens if it doesn't work And these people do discover Are the elves going to shoot the plane down?

That's a great question Isn't it though? Has this never happened before? I mean surely Maybe there's an elf with like a surface to air missile And he's just shaking and he's like I don't want to do it man I don't want to do it

Elf with a gun These kids are all on the nice list They're on the nice list. They can't kill him. I reckon there's one Elf. And Santa's like, take the shot. There'd be one Elf who would do it. I reckon Bernard would do it.

Because he's all about protecting the secrets of Christmas. And this new guy, he's no good. And he ends up taking over his role, which, again, I feel like I'm going to say this a lot, but happens in the third movie. But, yeah, I think they're in a situation where they will do terrible things if they have to, to preserve Christmas. What I don't understand is I genuinely do not understand why they didn't tell him day one that he needs a wife. Like it is a miracle that he met, literally, that he managed to pull that off.

And it's a trick because the curse that is him being the Santa Claus, right? Yes. He then has to glom onto somebody else and have it infect them. Yes, to spread the virus. And ruin their livelihood because she's a working woman. She's doing really well at like educating. Mean principle. Yeah, but she's also one of those mean but fair principles.

You know what I mean? And he takes that away from her. Yeah. He's a terrible person. Yeah, yeah. I do like, though, in these movies that you do get the sense that Tim Allen could snap at any minute. And I don't know whether that's the actor himself

or just the way he does it. But do you get that sense that he's a Santa who's just like, just one more thing, I'm going to fucking lose my mind. Do you get that sense? Maybe in the third one more than this one. Yeah, that's probably more accurate, yeah. So I wanted to also talk about one of the things that bothers me about a lot of Christmas movies.

And this one specifically is the toys that they have in this, they're not accurate to what kids like. It's like tin trains and wooden horses and wind-up kangaroos, like all this shit that nobody wants outside of collectors purchasing them because they had them in the 50s. Where are your Game Boy Advances? Where are your Lego Ninjagos? Where are your Razor Scooters?

It was 2002, Mason. I was going to ask you, did you Google 2002 hottest toys? Hot, hot toys. You're absolutely right. Maybe, again, the conceit of this movie seems to be that your parents buy you presents, but also Santa provides some presents with magic so maybe the presents you remember are the game boy advances that your parents buy you

sure and the ones that santa gives you are the ones you're like haha cool and then you sort of shove them aside like under the under the dinner table for at christmas and then you just sort of forget about them i mean who knows how long they last? Maybe they disintegrate. It's entirely possible. Like after 24 hours and you just forget about them. Maybe the elves come and collect them and just recycle them. Speaking of Santa magic, I do have some questions. First of all, you did mention that he eventually does attract a Mrs. Claus.

Yeah. I mean, he goes on a bloody bad date though, mate. She's wearing his face. She's wearing his exact face. Not like a picture of Santa Claus. It's Tim Allen's face on her T-shirt. Do people know what Santa actually looks like? That's Santa magic, James.

Okay, I guess it is. Anyway, great appearance by Molly Shannon. If you wanted like a super hyperactive weirdo in the early 2000s, you'd get Molly Shannon. Or even now. Yeah, I guess that's probably true yeah um but do you think it's kind of cheating because the way he gets the way he attracts the principal as his mrs claws like he doesn't hypnotize her which i'm assuming his santa

powers allow him to do like he just channels the void the green void and she's she's enraptured but like he does take her on a sort of a magical sleigh ride with no driver and he does like It's got reindeer or whatever. Yeah. And he does sort of conjure up the present she always wanted as a child. Yeah. Isn't that cheating? Yes.

Like a little bit. He doesn't use his actual charm. You know what it's like? It's like when they go on The Bachelor and it's like, thank you for the great dad. I can't believe we got to go on a helicopter and we visited the Eiffel Tower. The guy didn't organise that. Outside of the show, he can't do that. Right?

She needs to recognise who he is at his core. That's what I'm saying. And also, right at the end, he's like, you know me, I was there when you were a kid getting all your presents. What? First of all, you weren't. The curse of Santa Claus was, and I guess you're channeling that, but that's creepy, right?

If you were, real weird. But speaking of presents also, and you did mention this as well, he also, in order to charm her, he livens up the boring office Christmas party. Boy, does he. Using his Santa charm and also by giving everybody a bunch of presents. Yeah. But I thought it was odd. All the adults get presents that they never got as kids.

And they're like, oh, nostalgia Christmas magic. Surely there's some people who are out there who are like, oh, just what I always wanted, cash and booze. I was going to say, isn't that the perfect situation to go, look, you're in a public school, funds are limited. You each get 10 grand. You each get 10 grand. Do with it whatever you want.

I mean, presents are all good, but that's the kind of shit you kick under the table after a day. Yeah. Because none of those gifts to me looked good. No. I don't want any of this ever. I mean, they did. They all were like, you know, like new in box.

Yeah. Like dead stock, like these toys. But I'm like, they smell a bit mildewy, if you ask me. They have been sitting on a shelf for a long time where did he get them though for real i don't know i mean i reckon i reckon he went through time and he stole them off other deserving children from like the 60s or 70s what i also found very odd about this movie is when he goes to reveal to her that he needs a wife and that he is santa he's like yeah you know how I got all those presents out of nowhere

and it snowed that one time? Well, guess what? I'm Santa and magic is real. Like, you don't want to have other examples of things happening? Well, he had run out of magic, but I agree. He should have done something earlier. He should have been like, look, my hands are empty. Nintendo Switch.

That's from the future. It's not even from now. Look at it. Look at the high-res graphics. Look at this. You can dock it. You's from the future. It's not even from now. Look at it. Look at the higher-res graphics. Look at this. You can dock it. You can play it handheld. I mean, that would work if you wanted somebody...

I'm from hell. I mean, the North Pole. That would work if you wanted somebody to be enamored with the Nintendo Switch. But the focus needs to be on him, doesn't it? I guess that's probably true. But yeah, he really kind of leaves it to the last minute to tell her. And then when it turns out that, hey, you know, she believes him and they're back at the North Pole.

And she's like, oh my God, this is all real and elves are real and whatever. Maybe I can move up here. He's like, look, I don't want to put any pressure on you, but if you don't marry me in the next few minutes, Christmas is cancelled forever. That's a lot to put on a person. It really is, isn't it? It's like a very public proposal.

Yeah, exactly. Where you bring in dancers and a choreographer team. Everybody's family's there. like a very public proposal. Yeah, exactly. Where you bring in dancers and a choreographer team. Everybody's family's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then immediately when they get married, he ages 40 years and puts on 100 pounds, which, look, I guess is a metaphor for marriage in general.

And then in the credits, she's also aged up. Yeah, she got sick all of a sudden. That's right, which is reversed in the next movie. But that might be when you have a baby, they take those things away from you so you can do it. But I don't know. That's a lot to throw on a person and a lot of expectations. And I think it just is going to lead to disaster. That's what I think. I mean, it doesn't ultimately. No, because Christmas magic. Speaking of Christmas magic, we haven't mentioned this, the villain of this piece.

Really great. I think so too. So in order to do the dual thing of get his kid off the naughty list and also find a wife, the elves concoct a scheme where they build a robot duplicate of Santa who takes care of the North Pole workshop while he's back. Good makeup and everything. Just an abomination of a thing. Just a horrible, glossy, rubbery,

just a real Max Headroom of a monster. Just horrifying. Yeah, I think the performance adds a lot to it too. Because I think Tim Allen gets to do the thing that he's always wanted to do in these movies, is just scream at kids. I mean, I know he's screaming at Albs, but in real life, they're children.

Like he's screaming at children. So I think that's why he's enjoying it so much. And you see a lot of the performance and a lot of the funniest moments in the movie comes through in those moments and the introduction

of like the tin soldiers is really fun and they have these super clunky suits that real people had to wear which they hated and then there's a moment

where the elves attack them and it does look like pure joy from actual children getting to just go ham on these tin soldiers I have written that scene just a note that just says continuous screaming because that's when from actual children getting to just go ham on these tin soldiers. I have written that scene, just a note that just says,

continuous screaming. Because that's when you know kids are really having fun. It's just constant, ah, snowballs. Exactly. But you know what? He's a good Santa, it turns out, because he saves Christmas. And it is mentioned that kids are 86% happier since he took the job, which is a massive increase. It really is.

I mean, how bad was that guy prior? Seems like he was the job, which is a massive increase. It really is. I mean, how bad was that guy prior? Seems like he was the worst, yeah. But on top of that, I think also the virus curse slash whatever this thing is that glommed onto his personality, I think his years in marketing meant that he was able to do things previous Santas couldn't. I see, right. Because he's got modern 90s marketing skills that can be adapted into 2002 Santa Claus policies.

That's probably true. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. What do you think about the inclusion of seasonal figureheads? Peter Boyle returns, who was his boss in the last movie, is Father Time. Mixed on them. I think they're probably fine. I like Aisha Tyler.

The Tooth Fairy, I feel, gets a bit too much play and there's a moment where he needs to pull a tooth and they pick the front tooth. Like, you don't want to grab, like, a molar at the back. But hey, whatever. And then you see Charlie, who actually, you know, he comes back to save the day at the end. He has pulled out one of his front teeth. That's an adult tooth, man.

It's not coming back, right? I mean, it does come back. Because of Christmas magic. Because of Christmas magic, but yeah. And the other thing I wanted to mention about that group is the rabbit is fucking terrifying. Oh, yeah. That is a spooky, that's the spookiest thing in these movies. I'm still a little bit spooked and I saw this, you know, as an adult.

Imagine if we'd seen it as children. Exactly. Anyways, I think it's all right. I like the first one more because the first one kind of feels kind of dangerous and weird in a way that this one for me doesn't as much. Okay, sure, right. But the things like, you know, the evil Santa and other inclusions and, you know, and trapping a woman into a weird magic marriage, I guess those are all good things, aren't they?

They sure are, absolutely. Yeah. And also I'll say this, the DVD extras was that moment in time where people were just going all out on them. This is the era of like Lord of the Rings DVD extras. Animated menus, all kinds of stuff. All of those things. They're doing things like they'll do like a tour of Santa's workshop and the behind the scenes, but everybody is still in character.

You know what I mean? Like all the elves and all the kids are still pretending to be elves and it's all for real and it's all movie magic. Now, there's not really anything like that. It's just like you want a DVD extra? Here here's the trailer which you can also find on youtube here's a deleted scene so yeah that's kind of a lost art which i think is also coming back more in streaming services you see it more on like disney plus and behind the scenes stuff but there there you go mate this has been the santa claus 2 no extra title it's just the santa claus 2 it doesn't

have like an extra it feels like it should have an extra bit like um it should be the same terror yeah the santa claus 2 brackets wherein it's revealed that santa claus has a hibernation period that's weird right i don't remember that he's like i sleep a lot of the time and it's like what from the curse it would be the curse from the brain worm that's eating into his brain. Almost certainly, yeah. Yeah. Santa Claus 2, sweater palooza. Some great sweaters in there. Very much so. Just amazing. Anyways, of course, we will be back next week to cap off this trilogy

with the escape clause. That's what it's about, isn't it? And Martin Short's in it and other things happen in that movie and it's a much weirder and worse movie in a lot of ways, isn't it? In a lot of ways, it's the worst one. Yeah. All right, thanks for watching this this is Caravan of Garbage

these come out every week and if you want these early you can go to bigsandwich.co we've also got our podcast the weekly planet ad free feed we've got our bonus podcast

where we talk clickbait articles we've got movie commentaries galore don't we Mason that's right so check that out if you do want to sign up I'm at MrSundayMovies on Twitter I'm at WikipediaBrown on Twitter

do you love the Santa Claus let us know that question's for me. It's alright. Okay, great. This is all for me, Mason. Christmas is about

me. No, I get it. Thank you, I appreciate it. Goodbye. Grub that you. Remember that

Simpsons gag where he kills Wilson? Yeah. Back to jail for me. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, it's good. This podcast is part

of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want. It's up to you. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies

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