The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

I was actually fortunate enough to watch part of the filming of this movie in Natchitoches, LA and never would have believed how bad it was when it hit the screen. I was sorely disappointed for many reasons including the fact that they filmed this during the hottest time of the year expecting the extra's to wear winter coats, sweaters & other items so hot that many were suffering from heat exhaustion...even Santa. The extra's were not even paid extra's. They wanted 1,000 and I think were lucky to get 100 if that but I know not near as many showed up in the 90-100 degree weather sporting their winter attire. I had TIVO'd the movie for my grand children to watch around the holidays and ended up deleting it before I even watched it all the way through.The grand kids weren't disappointed at Christmas because I had recorded many of the "good" Christmas specials for them and didn't make them suffer through this one.

I have always loved the Rankins/Bass *Year without a Santa Claus*. The scenes with Heat Miser and Cold Miser were hilarious, and Shirley Booth did a wonderful job as the voice of Mrs. Claus. So I was excited when I saw the Heat Miser/Cold Miser clip that NBC placed on youtube.It turns out that NBC placed the only decent moments of this demeaning remake on youtube. Almost everything else disappointed when it didn't outright offend. I was tricked.Many of the jokes seemed to be focused on telling the current generation how much better the previous generation was -- and even then, the jokes were outdated. With the complaints about life of the past twenty years and the rosy-glasses nostalgia, the focus of this version seems to be one long Baby Boomer whine.The people behind this version are so clueless they seem to consider "goth" jokes to be cutting edge fifteen or so years too late! The jokes about "Extreme Santa" might have been clever a decade ago, but now they only show the viewer how out-of-touch these people are if they still think such jokes are clever now. The "hep African-American elf" jokes may have been funny fifteen years ago but are an embarrassment to modern racial relations. The demeaned role of women in this version is nauseating.In the Rankins/Bass tale, Mrs. Claus is an active, intelligent woman determined both to help out the world in general and to bring her stubborn husband to his senses. In this remake, she is nothing more than a passive and obedient wife with an attractive figure. Who could have imagined wasting Delta Burke's talent playing a woman who does nothing except coo in worry? They completely disempower the character of Mrs. Claus: it isn't even her idea for the elves to go down to earth in this version! The disempowering extends to Mother Nature. In the Rankin/Bass special, Mother Nature is an awe-inspiring figure of dread, and Mrs. Claus is courteously cautious about speaking with her. In this tepid remake, Santa Claus is able to summon an obedient Mother Nature with three claps as though she were one of his harem dancing girls! The tale ends with a father guilt-tripped into destroying the hopes of hundreds if not thousands of jobs in a small town for the sake of sticking to old town values. Merry Christmas to his son who now gets a dad who will build snowmen with him, and Merry Christmas to all those workers who discover the day before Christmas they will be unemployed!

An abomination so heinous, so repulsive, so reprehensible that the excess amount of bile that my body doesn't process because of my missing gall bladder creeps up my esophagus thinking about it.I speak of the atrocity that was recently aired on CBS - The Year Without A Santa Clause. Not the beloved Rankin/Bass production, but a live action piece of televised diarrhea. John Goodman as santa, Delta Burke as Mrs Claus? Harvey Fierstien as Heat Miser?!!!! Dear god in heaven what have they done?...... What have they done? ( I was saving that for when the US was nuked ah la Jericho, but this is worse... far worse).I'll admit that curiosity made me tune in. I'm human. But Randy from My Name is Earl as Jangle? A black Jingle? Dancing girls in the Heat Miser/Cold Miser numbers? When did a bump and grind ( over and above the Victorias Secet Fashion Show) become a part of Christmas tradition? The claymation Misers didn't need it. No they didn't. They were pure entertainment. I'd rather the controversy of devil/angel that kept it off TV for so many years to a musical number from Solid Gold.Someone needs to bury this, and bury it deep. Its a national disgrace. You want insurgents to surrender- tape their eyes open and force then to watch this over & over. It will make them beg to be degregaded at abul grad.The tragedy of this is that it was 2 hours. I only watched 20 minutes before I was diving for the puke bucket.

When you watch the original claymation films it's always amazing how much visual impact and story they pack into a relatively short amount of time. This remake had nearly the opposite effect and had the viewer begging to reach the conclusion and put this nightmare behind them. Something tells me this will not be a 'classic' for the entire family to gather around and watch together - year after year.Delta Burke is a beautiful woman with a gentle spirit and wonderful acting style so it's disappointing to see her grouped with the Zany antics of Carole King and the wanna be sympathetic John Goodman. It may just be me but Mrs. Claus' shy nature and quiet voice almost represented Delta being apologetic for her role in this movie.The film retells the story of Santa's growing frustration with the commercialization of Christmas and the apparent apathy from children all over the world. Santa decides he's had enough and plans to skip Christmas altogether. Two elves and one reindeer leave the North Pole in search of one child who can sway Santa's heart and reverse his decision. Yada yada yada - eventually all the characters and pieces come together and bring the spirit of Christmas back to life.This version lacks the charm and timeless wit from the original. The live actors appear to intentionally overact as their feeble attempt to capture the claymation's over-animation. The story has been 'updated' to incorporate a techno-saavy Claus and ELF incorporation - hahaha - wow, that's really clever (pause) NOT. The producers of this film would be smart to bundle the ensuing DVD with the original and offer some kind of bonus features in order to push the 2-pack. I can't imagine too many children or adults wanting to add this to their DVD collection. Next time, remake the little drummer boy - nobody liked that one too much anyway.In ranking this film we should always start off with a 5 - neutral - then give it 2 pts for costume and effects for a 7, remove 1 point for being a remake for 6 pts and 2 more for remaking a classic, 4 pts, finally lose a point for being absolutely horrible for a 3 out of 10. Why the 3 pts you ask? Because this is so bad that any casual fan of the original claymation/puppet version must watch this for themselves in order to fully appreciate how truly bad this really is. I suppose a live action 'Great Pumpkin' is just around the corner, sad :(