Who the heck is Santa Claus?
I’ve been watching all these Christmas specials and movies, and I’m confused. In the modern classic Elf, he’s a round, friendly but low-key Ed Asner, but in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer he’s an exceedingly cheerful fellow who appears to be strangely svelte under his Santa coat. The Santa Clause and the great masterpiece Ernest Saves Christmas suggest that Santa is essentially a job title, with various people stepping in to take on the role as needed, but the David Huddleston/Dudley Moore epic Santa Claus: The Movie tells us that one guy has been Santa for as long as there’s been a Santa.
I’m confused. I’m disoriented. All I really want for Christmas this year is to know the true nature of Santa Claus!
As with everything else in life, I’m turning to Muppets for answers. I’ve learned lots of important things from them, like the fact that Cookie Monster is a letter of the alphabet, and that Charles Dickens had a big blue nose. So I’m sure to get a clear picture of St. Nick from watching Muppet stuff, and fortunately, there’s a lot of Muppet stuff about Christmas.
Descending into the climate-controlled, concrete-walled, underground chamber where I store my Muppet DVDs, I randomly choose Elmo Saves Christmas as a starting point. A few minutes into this special, Santa makes a rather undignified first appearance, getting stuck in Elmo’s chimney and requiring the little monster’s help to get down. So I guess that’s fact #1: Santa is not graceful.
I soon learn a few other things about the guy: For one thing, he sounds kind of like Doc Hopper. To thank Elmo for his help, Santa gives him a magical snowglobe that will grant three wishes, which apparently just carries around with him. So I’m also going to say here that Santa is maybe not the most responsible, foresighted guy in the world… He’s giving a powerful magic talisman to a three-year-old, who immediately proves himself unworthy of it by wishing for a glass of water because he’s thirsty.
Later, Elmo wishes for it to be Christmas every day, which leads to nothing but heartache and misery and a solo by Harvey Fierstein. Santa shows up with a time-traveling mini-sleigh so Elmo can fly to the future and see just how crappy 24/7 Christmas would be, but he doesn’t actively do anything to fix Elmo’s blunder — which never would have happened if Santa hadn’t given him that stupid snowglobe in the first place! Eventually, Santa kind of shrugs and declares his intention to retire from the present-delivering business and move to Florida. Wow, Santa is just kind of a tired old man.
There’s a happy ending, of course, but let’s move on. I switch to Elmo’s World: Happy Holidays, in which Elmo is stumped about what to get his goldfish Dorothy for Christmas, probably because it’s pretty dumb to get a fish anything for Christmas. Elmo travels to the North Pole to seek advice from the world’s most prolific gift-giver, Mr. Claus. And hey, it’s like he’s a completely different man! This special must have caught Santa on a good day, because he’s ho-ho-ho-ing all over the place, and is generally just a happier — dare I say jollier? — guy.
I check the copyright dates on the DVDs and discover that this special was a few years after Elmo Saves Christmas, so maybe Santa was just going through some stuff before, and now he’s back to his upbeat self. Or maybe the Ernest movie was right, and this is a completely different person who’s taken on the mantel (and the beard). Or maybe Santa suffers from mood swings. Hmm. So far, I’m no closer to unlocking the mystery.
Santa lets Elmo sit on his lap while the little monster explains his predicament, and he praises Elmo’s “true Christmas spirit” and sings a song. Now I’m expecting him to give Elmo a great gift for Dorothy, like some fish food, or… well, there’s actually nothing else a fish would ever care about besides food. But he doesn’t! Elmo traveled all the way to the North Pole to get help from Santa Claus — a guy who owns a factory that does nothing but produce gifts — and Santa turns him away empty-handed! What’s up with that, Santa? I thought you were nice now!
I could tell you what Elmo ends up getting Dorothy, but I won’t, because that would be a SPOILER, and also because I’m a jerk like Santa. Now I move on to A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, a special the fans have had a love-hate relationship with since its 2008 premiere. Like Elmo, the Muppet gang travels to the North Pole to see Santa on a very important matter, but they have to go to the airport and book a flight, whereas Elmo just kind of said, “I’m going to the North Pole!” and then he was there. Perhaps that’s because Happy Holidays is an Elmo’s World special, and Elmo’s World all takes place in Elmo’s imagination. But then that would mean that none of it really happened, and I wrote those last three paragraphs for nothing, and I don’t think I can handle that, so let’s keep going.
Much of Letters to Santa concerns Rizzo and Pepe’s insistence that Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist… I guess they’ve never seen those Sesame Street specials. When the Muppets fail in their mission to deliver some letters to the big man, Gonzo and Fozzie sing the depressing song “I Wish I Could Be Santa Claus,” and then poof! Santa appears. He says something about how he’s there because they made a wish, which makes me think that if Gonzo had just wished for Santa to show up in the first place, the Muppets could have avoided a lot of trouble, and we could have avoided that whole stupid scene with the pigeons.
Once he’s there, Santa gives everyone what they want for Christmas. He’s friendlyagain here, which makes me think that this must be his default state, and Saves Christmas just happen to check in with him on a day when he needed a nap. Although it’s also worth mentioning that in this special, he proves that he strictly enforces the whole “nice and naughty” lists thing. Pepe is apparently nice enough to become an opera singer, but the airport security guard played by Nathan Lane has been on the naughty list since childhood, and only gets his long-desired tricycle after doing one good deed for the Muppets. So my next fact is: Santa is a stickler. And Letters to Santa teaches us that we really should be good for goodness sake.
I switch to Elmo’s Christmas Countdown, and whoa. Suddenly Santa looks younger than ever, and he sings and dances to the rockin’ closing number with surprising energy for a guy who might be hundreds to thousands of years old. It’s often questioned how Santa Claus can deliver presents to every kid in the world in one night, but Elmo’s Christmas Countdown presents a vibrant Santa who I can believe could deliver presents all over the globe with the efficiency of the International Parcel Service. Go, Santa!
What about Christmas Eve on Sesame Street? “A large portion of this special is devoted to theorizing about Santa Claus,” I say out loud, to no one in particular, “so I’m guaranteed to get some useful new information!” But then most of my viewing only leads to more questions. Oscar’s query haunts me as it haunts Big Bird: How does Santa fit down the chimney? Big Bird fears that if he doesn’t find out, it will mean that Santa actually can’t fit in the chimney, despite the fact that Santa has always delivered presents every year up to now. So I guess that teaches me something else about Santa: The nature of the man is dependent upon how we perceive him. If we don’t question his abilities, he has no problems. If we start questioning him, his powers waver. But I wonder: What if some children became convinced that Santa wore a Viking helmet? Would Santa start wearing such a headpiece to comply with the image? At least he proves himself generous again, filling Gordon and Susan’s apartment with presents for everybody and everymonster.
I’ve done so much research… but I can’t help but feel like I still don’t have a clear notion of St. Nicholas. Sometimes he’s energetic, sometimes he’s laid-back, sometimes he’s laissez-faire, sometimes he’s hands-on, sometimes he has a British accent and sometimes he doesn’t. I’ve watched all these Muppet and Sesame Street specials, and all I got from it is hours of Christmas fun and enjoyment with my favorite characters of all time. WHAT A RIP-OFF.
Finally, I pop in A Muppet Family Christmas. Santa only has a cameo in this one, but he comes across as very friendly in his brief appearance, which occurs right after Doc from Fraggle Rock disappears. WAIT A MINUTE… Do you think Doc was Santa all the time?
It all makes sense if you think about it. After all, they both have workshops. Santa Doc must have realized that the people most likely to figure out his secret identity were Muppet fans, who tend to watch things a million times… and who watch a heck of a lot of Christmas specials. So he acted differently in each one to throw us off the trail!
I’ve figured it out! Santa Claus is a kindly, eccentric man named Doc. But it seems like he doesn’t want anyone to know, so I guess I can’t tell anyone except for everyone reading this article. Can you guys keep a secret?
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by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
