It’s often hard to fathom why a particular film comes to be so well-loved when it’s quite clearly so undeserving. Take John Pasquin‘s The Santa Clause for example. It has a legion of devoted fans for who it’s their go-to Christmas film and yet it looks like a cheap direct-to-video film that got lucky, found a theatrical release and became one of the most successful films of its year despite all its many shortcomings. At the time, all this was probably understandable – star Tim Allen was at the peak of his career having found fame as the lead in the popular ABC sitcom Home Improvement (1991-1999) and it was a film pitched squarely at children, who should have found its mix of cloying sentimentality, silly humour and noisy action scenes more palatable than the grown-ups. Why those kids would still cling to it now that they’re in their twenties is inexplicable and what they made of the frankly weird and why they warmed to the somewhat unsettling storyline is anyone’s guess.

Allen plays toy salesman Scott Calvin (note the initials) who is that staple of this sort of thing, the grown up who refuses to believe in Santa Clause. He’s going through a refreshingly unmessy divorce from Laura (Wendy Crewson) who is now shacked up with psychiatrist Dr Neal Miller (Judge Reinhold), shares custody of their young son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) and has him staying for Christmas. On Christmas Eve they’re awakened by a noise and find Santa Claus on the roof, complete with sleigh and reindeer. Santa is accidentally killed in a fall (an early draft of the script had Calvin shooting him) and thanks to the eponymous “Santa clause” Calvin is forced to take over, having a year to get into character and prepare for his big night. As the year wears on, Calvin gets fatter and grows a long white beard that defies all attempts to shave and with Charlie’s help comes to term with his new destiny.

The premise is very odd for a supposedly feelgood family festive treat – man accidentally kills Santa and is forced against his wishes to take his place for the rest of his life, without ever being asked if he consented. What sort of message is this sending out to its young viewers? It’s all very peculiar and not a little disturbing, as is the scene where Calvin appears to be flirting with a female elf very obviously played by a young girl.  And when Charlie says at the very end that he wants to follow in the family business one has to remember that the only way he can do that is if his father dies, an odd sentiment for Christmas Day. Somehow, this is all meant to be “heart-warming” and “uplifting.”

The success of The Santa Clause rests entirely on the shoulders of Tim Allen, taking his first leading role in a feature film. At the time, Disney had a policy of not hiring anyone with a criminal record but made an exception for Allen (he’d been imprisoned for two years at the end of the 1970s for smuggling cocaine) as Home Improvement was so huge in the States. If you like Allen, the film will be an easier ride. If you find him rather uncharismatic and unfunny, it’s going to be a lot more hard work. Perhaps it might have been more fun if the original choice for lead, Bill Murray, hadn’t passed on the script – a warning sign if ever there was one.

There are elements of other, better Christmas stories in Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick‘s script. The grouch who finds redemption at Christmas is straight out of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol of course and Calvin’s struggles to get people to believe that he really is Santa Clause recalls George Seaton’s Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Inviting comparisons to much better stories is always a bad move and compared to those two, The Santa Clause is found particularly wanting. The thin idea –  that a man is slowly transforming physically into Santa Claus – has, by necessity, to be dragged out over a year’s worth of story and there’s a lot of padding in the mid-section to keep the thing lumbering forward.

The cheapness of the production shines through constantly – the CGI effects are awful, the animatronic reindeer little better and when the original Santa falls from the roof the “snow” is instantly revealed to be nothing more than a white mat which rides up as he tumbles to his doom. It feels less like the blockbuster it eventually became but a straight-to-video cheapie that got elevated above its station.

The jokes are very obvious and corny. Kids hearing them for the first time might appreciate them but surely most adults would have heaved a weary sigh at hearing them trotted out again. The “Rose Suchar ladder”/”[a]rose such a clatter” pun is particularly dreadful and were farting reindeer every funny? It’s all so cookie cutter, so calculated and so shop worn that it’s hard to care much about either the film itself or its characters.

And yet people did care and they still do. There’s no denying success and The Santa Clause was a huge hit, thanks in no small part to Allen‘s inexplicable popularity at the time (there’s a visual gag relating to Home Improvement when Allen looks disapprovingly at a toy tool belt in his new North Pole factory). It was one of the many films re-released to cinemas during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic when new films were becoming increasingly hard to find and its initial success ensured two sequels, both much worse than their ancestor – Michael Lembeck took over the reins and the reindeer for The Santa Clause 2 (2002) and stayed around for the final desperate instalment, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause in 2006 before the franchise was revived for television by Disney+ in 2022 as The Santa Clauses.

Crew
Directed by: John Pasquin; © 1994 Walt Disney Pictures presents in association with Hollywood Pictures an Outlaw production. This motion picture was created by North Pole Productions, Inc.; Executive Producers: Richard Baker, Rick Messina, James Miller; Produced by: Brian Reilly, Jeffrey Silver, Robert Newmyer; Co-producers: William W. Wilson III, Caroline Baron; Associate Producers: Jennifer Billings, Susan E. Novick; Written by: Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick; Director of Photography: Walt Lloyd; Editor: Larry Bock; Music by: Michael Convertino; Costume Designer: Carol Ramsey; Key Make-up: Barry R. Koper; Key Hairstylist: Janice Miller; Special Make-up and Animatronic FX Created by: Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr; Visual Effects Supervisor: John E. Sullivan; Special Visual Effects by: Buena Vista Visual Effects Group; Production Designer: Carol Spier; Casting by: Renée Rousselot

Cast
Tim Allen (Scott Calvin/Santa Claus); Judge Reinhold (Neal Miller); Wendy Crewson (Laura Calvin Miller); Eric Lloyd (Charlie Calvin); David Krumholtz (Bernard, elf); Larry Brandenburg (Detective Nunzio); Mary Gross (Ms Daniels); Paige Tamada (elf, Judy); Peter Boyle (Mr Whittle); Judith Scott (Susan Perry); Jayne Eastwood (Judy, waitress); Melissa King (Sarah, little girl); Bradley Wentworth (elf at North Pole); Azura Bates (elf in hangar); Joshua Satok (elf, Larry); Zach McLemore (Bobby); Joyce Guy (Principal Compton); Lindsay Lupien (kid 2); Alexandra Petrocci (kid 3); Jesse Collins (ad executive)