MST3K 321: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Once again, it's time for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 part of the holiday season. Last year, I convinced myself I was being "unconventional" by watching Mike's Christmas episode, "Santa Claus," instead of Joel's. This year as well, I contemplated figuring out how to buy the new "Cinematic Titanic" take on "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" to again be different... but then, I happened to see a review that noted the "riffing" used that movie's "comedy relief" as a springboard for some anti-Phantom Menace sentiment. Seeing that kind of stuff in post-1999 MSTings seemed to invariably then-and-there kill my enjoyment of the entire work, so I wound up deciding to just watch the Mystery Science Theater version (while thinking back to my odd appreciation of one commentator who seemed to disagree without much elaboration with the "official interpretation")... not that I would dismiss that as just a "second-best fallback."
( 'And now a Deep 13 holiday presentation.' )