MST3K 521: Santa Claus

It seems just about time to get myself into the Christmas spirit in a Mystery Science Theater way, but to do that I decided not to watch Joel's probably pretty well-known Christmas episode, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," but instead Mike's, simply titled "Santa Claus" and produced quite early in his tenure as main character. At times, it's easy enough for me to look at particular episodes featuring Mike and see them as attempts to follow up on certain genres Joel had already covered: low-budget Cold War paranoia, muscles-and-mythology southern European imports, folkore-and-fantasy northern European imports, James Bond ripoffs, and eventually dubbed and daffy Japanese movies. A "Christmas episode," to be rerun once every year, would seem to be an obvious thing to cover, and so after the undefinably off-kilter yet definably cheap "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," it was on to a film Dr. Forrester describes as "A thoughtful, well-shot documentary about the Crimean War." Or, as TV's Frank (in a bad mood after shaving his head, giving Dr. Forrester a watch fob he didn't buy by selling his hair, and getting a twenty-five dollar savings bond that will mature "in 2023") describes, "It's a stupid Mexican kid's movie!"
( 'Do you think it's really a good idea to jingle all the way?' )