Culture Junkie: On B-movies, holiday traditions and ‘The Santa Clause’

Disney’s “The Santa Clause,” starring Tim Allen, debuted 25 years ago, on November 11, 1994. I know that because I saw it for the first time on Tuesday, November 22. I remember the date I saw “The Santa Clause” because it’s the same date my first wife, Gladys, died of cancer.

(I promise, this column is going to get lighter in just a moment. It will even include the phrase “reindeer farts,” so bear with me.)

Gladys and I had been divorced a few years by that November.

As I once described our relationship, everything that was good about us had been crushed under the weight of everything that wasn’t. So we split up, and our lives moved on, with our focus going to raising our two kids, Jenna and Andy, as single parents living 45 miles apart.

When Gladys was diagnosed with lung cancer and Lymphoma shortly after Easter, the whole world changed.

As their mother got sicker and sicker, Jenna and Andy were spending more time at my house, which I shared with my relatively new girlfriend Susan. The day Gladys died, I’d taken the kids out of school (they lived with her in Fairfield at the time), and they were playing in the back room of our house when I got the phone call saying that Gladys short battle was over.

While Susan stayed with the kids, I took a walk, heading downtown to give myself a moment to figure out how I was going to tell my children. They knew their mother was sick, of course. But she’d promised them she’d get better, and that everything would go back to normal.

And they believed her.

I decided I should bring home something special, something sweet to undercut the sadness. After considering donuts and a cake (nope, too macabre. Cakes are for birthdays, not death days), I found myself at A Circle of Friends, an invitingly ecclectic gift shop that was then on Kentucky Street, a few spots down from where Copperfield’s is now. Cheryl Wagner, the proprietor, assisted me as I selected some chocolate truffles, and I found myself telling her all about what I was preparing myself to face with those truffles. I don’t remember what Cheryl said, exactly, but it has something to do with trusting myself to know how to say exactly what needed to be said. Her words helped, as much as any advice could, and I headed home with the chocolate.

After telling the kids the horrible news (easily one of the worst conversations of my life, but done as gently and kindly as I could), Susan and I were at a loss as to how to spend the rest of the day. Having known for a few weeks that Gladys was unlikely to pull through, recognizing that we’d be bringing the kids to live with us soon, we’d already scheduled a couple of walkthroughs of larger houses. So we decided to go ahead, after lunch, and keep those appointments.

I’ll never forget the frozen look of slight confusion (and something like shock) on the face of one real estate agent when Jenna, then eight years old, earnestly informed him that her mother had died that morning. For a split second, I felt worse for that agent than I felt for myself and my kids. Once the house hunting was completed, not knowing what else to do, we decided to take Jenna and Andy to the movies.

We’d already seen “The Lion King,” so we picked “The Santa Clause.”

It’s the story of a selfish dad who accidentally kills Santa Claus (sort of, it’s a little vague), and then is contractually obligated to take Santa’s place, becoming a better man and a better father in the process.

Twenty minutes into the film, when Santa plummets from a roof and soon after vanishes, pretty clearly having fallen to his death, I remember thinking, “Oops.”

Should have picked a different movie.

Should have seen “The Lion King” again.

But wait. No. That’s the one where Simba’s Dad dies.

What is it with Disney movies?

After a short while, though, the kids got into it. The exploding turkey, the epic trip to the North Pole, the elves with attitude, and yes, those aforementioned reindeer farts, all had Jenna ande Andy smiling and laughing and exchanging faces of delight.

I know, I know. It’s a B-movie by any stretch of the word, but that moment, for 90 minutes - during which Jenna and Andy almost forgot they’d just lost their mother - “The Santa Clause” was, to me and Susan, the best movie in the world!

Critics, of course, have not been so kind to the film.

At the time of its release, the British film magazine Empire called “The Santa Clause” “bloated and wretched.” Michael Sragow, of the New Yorker, dubbed the film a “sappy, unkindled big screen Yule log.” And Richard Schickel of Time Magazine wrote, “You can get the same emotional and imaginative kick staying home and rereading your Christmas cards.” Despite such pans, the movie was a huge hit for Disney, and hatched two sequels. Its screenwriters, Leo Benevenuti and Steve Rudnick, who pen scripts as a team and cut their teeth writing for such comedians at Carol Burnett, Jeff Garlin, Tom Arnold and Dennis Miller, went on to write the “Santa Clause” sequels, and the screenplays for the feature films “Space Jam” and Will Ferrell’s “Kicking and Screaming.”

In their original script, Santa doesn’t slip from the roof and plummet to the gound. THat first draft had Allen’s character mistaking Santa for a burglar and shooting him with a shotgun. Disney said “Absolutely not” to that, finding a way to still kill off Santa while somehow also delivering a genuinely Christmasy film.

Today, a quarter century later, many consider “The Santa Clause” (original title: “Such a Clatter”) to be a true Christmas classic. To celebrate this year’s anniversary, Funko Pop! (the company that makes those little squashy vinyl figurines of iconic movie and TV characters) has released two different “Santa Clause” collectibles.

The movie has even inspired numerous pop cultural homages and tributes. A couple of years ago, a web-based filmmaker with the name AceInYourFace had a viral sensation with his hilarious (and genuinely scary) parody film trailer, in which “The Santa Clause” is recut to look like a horror movie. Last year, the YouTube channel Kroginator’s Top Movie Clips posted a package of the best moments from “The Santa Clause,” calling the film “One of the greatest movies of all time and a holiday classic,” somewhat deliriously adding, “Tim Allen is a genius in this movie. It is a must watch during the holidays.”

Well, it certainly is a must watch in my house.

And has been since that first afternoon at the movies. In the midst of such emotional uproar, it was good to have permission to laugh together. I’ll always be grateful for that.

The following year, when Christmas rolled around again, marking the end of our first full year without Gladys, “The Santa Clause” had been released on VHS. So, we popped up some popcorn, gathered in the living room and watched it again together. And a family tradition was born.

We did the same the next year, and the next.

We no longer watch it every single year, and it’s rare that all four of us get to watch it together. Sometimes, we actually choose a different movie. Last year, on Andy’s recommendation, we gathered to watch “The Christmas Chronicles,” another comedic Santa adventure in which Kurt Russell plays the big guy. Susan and I recently caught the new animated Netflix film “Klaus,” and look forward to sharing it with the kids the next time we’re all home together. All of that said, there’s no denying that “The Santa Clause” will always hold a very special place in my family’s history and our combine connection to Christmas.

In fact, in 2015, I premiered a one-man-show based, in part, on my family’s experiences that Christmas, and my ensuing obsession with keeping the spirit of Santa Claus alive for my kids at such a challenging time. Titled “Polar Bears” – that’s a whole other story – I performed the show myself for a couple of years, and included the story of that day in 1994: the phone call, the truffles, “The Santa Clause.” Onstage, I even used the actual VHS tape, demonstrating who it has worn out from frequent re-watching.

This year, Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theater asked me to direct a run of “Polar Bears” (running through Dec. 15 at the Luther Burbank Center). Sonoma County native Mark Bradbury is now playing the role, stepping in to tell my family’s story with a degree of generosity, humor and sensitivity that, some nights, takes my breath away.

A few weeks ago, on Friday, Nov. 22, it suddenly dawned on me that it was the 25th anniversary of the day Gladys died. After exchanging some messages with my kids, I dropped a line to Mark, letting him know that the story he’d been rehearsing for weeks began on that exact date.

His reply was perfect.

“Maybe we’ll watch “The Santa Clause” tonight,” he texted back, with a little green Christmas tree emoji. And he did. He gathered his own family together, assembled some snacks, and continued the tradition my own family started all those years ago.

Some things never get old.

Including elves with attitude and flatulent reindeer.

However you and your own family celebrate the holidays, my family and I would like to wish you much love, laughter and warmth this holiday season.

(Culture Junkie runs every other week or so in the Argus-Courier. Contact David at david.templeton@arguscourier.com or at 776-8462)