Fresh Loaf

A holiday tradition in my household is to watch the “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” episode Santa Claus. This astonishing Mexican Christmas movie from 1959 features a horned devil in red tights who sabotages Santa’s attempts to deliver toys, until Kris Kringle gets help from Merlin the magician and some terrifying mechanical reindeer.  Here’s a helpful highlights montage.

“MST3K” went off the air in 1999 but a new spin-off project, “Cinematic Titanic,” roasts another holiday chestnut with its fifth and latest video for DVD, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians from 1964. “MST3K” creator Joel Hodgson and his four cohorts, all alumni from the show, appear in silhouettes to heckle the movie from bleacher-style platforms, as opposed to the original show’s puppets-in-movie-seats gimmick. Rather confusingly, “MST3K” riffed on the same movie in 1991, but near as I can tell, the “Cinematic Titanic” version features all-new jokes that improve on the earlier version. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians’s plot offers all-you-can-eat fodder for ridicule, in which Martians in capes, tights and green make-up kidnap Santa Claus so he can make merry for the emotionless children of Mars:

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This year marks the 30th anniversary of “The Star Wars Holiday Special,” which CBS broadcast on Nov. 17, 1978. I saw it for its original broadcast and have seen it since, but it’s the kind of bizarre pop aberration that’s so strange, it’s easier to think of it as some kind of elaborate hoax (you know, like the fake moon landing) than an entertainment that people created on purpose, with sincerity. Recently I described it to my friend Tim, and explained that while it features cameos from most of the major characters and actors from the original Star Wars, it primarily focuses on Chewbacca’s family — his wife Malla, his father Itchy and his son Lumpy — as they prepare to celebrate the Wookie holiday of “Life Day.” Simply naming the special’s “human” guest stars – including Bea Arthur, Art Carney, Jefferson Airplane and Harvey Korman in three roles – had Tim doubled over in laughter.

“The Star Wars Holiday Special” was broadcast only once in the United States and a few other times in Europe, and has never been released on VHS or DVD. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, particularly Ebay and Youtube, it has resurfaced, to the chagrin of everyone involved. I personally can’t watch it without the protective filter from RiffTrax, as demonstrated in this sample:

But what is RiffTrax, you may ask?

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