The fact that Tim Allen only bothers to defend the wonders of childhood when it’s a convenient vehicle for dissing Judge Reinhold is not lost on Charlie, who clearly can’t stand being around this asshole (#NOTTIMALLMEN). Tim Allen attempts to win Charlie’s love back by cooking him a phat Xmas turk, but he sets it on fire (BASICALLY IMPOSSIBLE) and has to spray it with a fire extinguisher for one hour. Instead, they go to Denny’s, which apparently has two sections: the Asian people section and the sad garbage dads who don’t know how to cook turkeys section. It is not hot.
After dinner, they go home and Charlie badgers Tim Allen about the physics of reindeer flight for a while, and then Tim Allen reads “The Night Before Christmas” out loud, dad-style. This seems like a good time to mention the biggest Santa Claus loophole of all, by the way: setting aside the implausibility of flying deer and the impossibility of visiting every Christian household in a single night—if there were actually a Santa Claus, every Christmas morning parents would be like HOLY FUCK HOW DID ALL THESE PRESENTS GET INSIDE MY MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE OH MY GOD CALL 911 SHARON OH GOD KIDS RUN ACROSS THE STREET TO THE FERGUSONS’ RIGHT NOW THEY COULD STILL BE IN THE HOUSE. In other words, if there were a Santa Claus, we would know about it because there would be a Santa Claus.
Anyhooz, suddenly, there’s a commotion on the roof! A clatter!
“DAD, a clatter!!!”
“Charlie, do you know how to call 911?”
“Sure, 911!”
(This movie calls that dialogue a “joke.”)
Tim Allen runs outside in his underpants and discovers a fat old man clomping around on the roof. Distracted by Tim Allen’s shouts, the man slips and falls off the roof AND DIES. Right there on Tim Allen’s lawn. Tim Allen stands and stares at the man for several minutes, doing nothing. DUDE, YOU NEED TO CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE. EVEN BURGLARS DESERVE MEDICAL CARE. Instead, unperturbed by the fact that there is a rapidly rigor-mortifying grandfather in his yard, Tim Allen checks the man’s ID and it’s just a business card that says Santa on it. On the back: “If something should happen to me, put on my suit. The reindeer will know what to do.” So specific. Is it that dangerous being Santa? He sounds like a sexy DA who went undercover and got in too deep on SVU.
A magic ladder appears (“the Rose Suchak Ladder Company”—LINEMOUTH) and Tim Allen and son discover that there’s a herd of fucking caribou hitched to a fancy sled on top of their house. The two regard the caribou herd as one might look at an unusual mushroom, or some poorly written microwave instructions. Like, “Huh.” They are just not that weirded out by it.
Charlie, being an idiot child, wants to hop in the sleigh and let the reindeer drag them off the roof to their deaths—“Are you gonna put on the suit like the card said? I wanna go too!”—but Tim Allen says no. “YOU NEVER DO WHAT I WANT TO DO!” Charlie laments. YEAH. JUDGE REINHOLD ALWAYS LETS ME PUT ON A DEAD MAN’S CLOTHES AND RIDE A DEER.
Then this inexplicable exchange happens:
Tim Allen: Stay away from those reindeer! You don’t know where they’ve been! They all look like they’ve got key lime disease!
Reindeer: FAAAAAARRRTT.
And then this:
Tim Allen (standing next to Santa’s sleigh): There’s no such thing as Santa’s sleigh!
Charlie: What about the reindeer? These are Santa’s reindeer, aren’t they?
Tim Allen: I hope not!
How high are you guys right now.
Tim Allen, who still is not wearing pants, agrees that they can sit in the sleigh for a sec, but then accidentally says the magic words, “Let’s go!” and the reindeer gallop off the roof and start flying around. (Not the most practical magic words, IMO. It’s like having ooh as your safe word.) The frigid December air begins to pimple his naked thighs, so he finally, begrudgingly, puts on Santa’s enormous pants. NOW IT’S ON. The reindeer drag him, screaming, from house to house, and at each stop Santa’s magic sack sucks Tim Allen down the chimney and squeezes him out like a big red turd. Occasionally, he encounters a precocious child sleeping near the Christmas tree, and they exchange “hilarious” banter:
Child: You’re supposed to drink the milk.
Tim Allen: I am lactose intolerant.
Again, if this ever happened even once in history, WE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT because there would be a police report and many screams.
Oh, ugh, and then Tim Allen does his horrible caveman catchphrase thing in the form of a “ho ho ho,” which sucked my soul out of my mouth like a haunted cat. Then the reindeer ditch them in a frozen wasteland, which turns out to be the North Pole. Tim Allen is mad perplexed by being at the North Pole (like, waaaaaaaay more freaked out than he was about visiting every house in the world in a magic sled) until David Krumholz shows up and is like, “Yo. I am a sarcastic elf. Here’s a snow globe.”
Krumholz explains that Tim Allen is now required to be Santa Claus because of the “Santa Clause,” a line of fine print on Santa’s business card requiring anyone who puts on Santa’s pants to abandon his life, career, and home, and just permanently be Santa until death because “children hold the spirit of Christmas inside their hearts” or something. I’m sorry, but UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD TIM ALLEN BE REQUIRED TO BE SANTA CLAUS. You don’t fucking own Tim Allen, David Krumholz! Also, aren’t you guys sad about the fact that the last Santa Claus—a living, breathing man with whom you presumably
