I know Christmas is long over, but some things are just too good to keep for only once a year. Okay, plus I received
K. Gordon Murray's,
The Santaland Trilogy this year for Christmas, so when I got around to watching it, the holiday was over.
But it doesn't matter. These three short films are so incredibly strange, they wouldn't put anyone in the Christmas spirit anyway.
For the past few years, I've been watching
Rene Cardona's Santa Claus, brought from Mexico and redubbed by K. Gordon Murray, always thinking "This is such a strange film."
Well, hard to believe, but
The Santa Trilogy is even stranger!
These films are so incredibly bizarre, I couldn't wrap my head around how they were ever made. I knew there must be a story behind them, so I went to the ultimate source for Kiddie Matinee, Rob Craig (of
kiddiematinee.com).
He explained,
K. Gordon Murray was so successful with his Kiddie Matinee imports (Santa Claus, Puss N Boots, Little Red Riding Hood), by 1964 he needed more product, and fast, and cheap! So he sent a small crew (Manny San Fernando and Ruben Guberman, as far as I can tell) to some Santaland tourist parks (in Illinois and California) to film these short subjects in silent 16 mm. He then dubbed them like cartoons, and released them both as separate FEATURES (!) and in some of his fairy tale anthology movies.He had a local costume shop "recreate" the Wolf and Skunk costumes, and very badly, as you can see.These horrible/lovable featurettes played the Matinee circuit from 1964 well into the late 1970's. I saw Santa's Enchanted Village in the theatre, along with The Magic Christmas Tree, in 1980!Rob also told me the entire story of the creation of the Santa Trilogy will be told in the K. Gordon Murray documentary,
The Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray. Come on Daniel Griffith, release it! I can't wait any longer!
I feel like
The Santaland Trilogy really shows how warped K. Gordon Murray's mind was because not only did he produce these films, but for the first time we're experiencing his writing. When I watch them, I can't stop saying, "How does this exist?!", which is actually pretty amusing and remarkable to think there was a time when someone was allowed to pull something as strange as this off and a time when people could see it in the theatre no less!
The first film of the trilogy,
Santa and His Helpers, begins with footage taken right from Rene Cardona's,
Santa Claus (wonder if Cardona ever knew about this)? We have the same opening sequence redubbed. Although the children in Toyland are singing, no words come from their mouths. Santa still lives just above the North Pole, in outerspace. He also uses the magic teletalker, hear-all ear, the behaviour computer and the see-it-all telescope connected to the magic eye. Instead of looking down on Mexico, Santa looks down on his villages, which help him prepare for Christmas.
Now, before I've shown my friends the Santaland Trilogy, I always make them watch a few small scenes from
Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters (one of my favourite K. Gordon Murray imports). This way they can see the original Mexican Stinky the Skunk and the Ferocious Wolf costumes. I always thought their costumes were pretty terrible, but they're nothing in comparison to their recreations in
The Santaland Trilogy!
The costumes are different, but the voices are the same. However, the characters act quite different than they did in the Mexican fairytales.
Santa witnesses the Ferocious Wolf hitting Stinky the Skunk on the head (repeatedly), as the Wolf says, "Oh that awful smell! I should give you 17 slaps before I kick you out of Santa's Village! 10'000 curses! Oh my ulcer! 10'000 curses, I can't stand you as my helper anymore!" These phrases are repeated not just through
Santa and his Helpers, but also repeated in
Santa's Enchanted Village.
Stinky just repeats, "Oh but boss!" in his annoying nasally voice, which was actually voiced by K. Gordon Murray himself (!??).
Puss n' Boots joins the picture to defend Stinky, which just leads to all the characters yelling overtop of one another for at least two minutes straight.
It's a huge relief when Santa, with use of Merlin's special flower and the 5th dimension, finally arrives to stop the fight (what took him so long)? He sends the three characters marching back to the village to make toys.
Cue the repetitious WWII marching music. The same toy making scenes repeat. My favourite is the one where the elf tries to assemble this doll, but the head keeps falling off....and that would be the end of
Santa and His Helpers.
Now,
Santa's Enchanted Village. Each of Santa's Villages have their very own North Pole made of real ice. Puss catches Stinky trying to "eat up the North Pole", so he gives him a lecture. Stinky claims he's just on his ice cream break, which ended two hours ago.
Stinky is sent back to the workshop to make toys, but decides to sneak out and watch a puppet show instead. Meanwhile, the Wolf complains to Santa about Stinky's lack of work and his ulcer. Santa just laughs at him, so with no support from Santa, the Wolf searches around the village for Stinky. With each step he takes, an out-of-tune accordian plays (so annoying)!
Finally he finds Stinky watching the puppet show, and we have the same fight as in
Santa and His Helpers. "I should give you 17 slaps before I kick you out of Santa's Village! 10'000 curses! Oh my ulcer!"
Stinky goes back the workshop, where we see the same scenes of elves making toys to WWII marching music. Stinky sharpens the blade of a skate and I can't help but be worried for the child in the costume. At one point he turns around and it looks like his tail is going to be sawed off.
Lastly, we have
Santa's Magic Kingdom. I'll keep my synopsis of this one short. Cinderella comes to the village to warn everyone that an ogre is coming to destroy the land and everyone in it. When we finally see the ogre (shown for a split second), he's just a crappily made statue. His reason for wanting to destory the village sound just like Pitch from
Santa Claus. He doesn't like that Santa makes the children of the world be good, he wants them to "be bad, like me!"
Anyway, Merlin with his magic powers stops the ogre (why couldn't he do that with Pitch)? This makes Cinderella burst into song, singing, "Give a Little Whistle", with everyone joining along. None of the voices seems to match the characters.
Cinerella's voice is definitely the same singer as the opera singer, who voiced the singing parts of Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters.
Honestly, my synopsises of these films and screen captures do no justice to how incredibly bad, strange and entertaining they are. There's something very special about these films. They just need to be experienced. And if you'd like the experience, just let me know!
