A Dualist Approach to The Year Without A Santa Claus (1974)
The Year Without A Santa Claus (1974) – Dualist
Welcome back to another December post for which I am way too tired to write coherently or formally. This week I showed Ben one of my favorites that he had never seen: The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) from Rankin/Bass Productions. Ben was understandably a bit like that Julia Louis-Dreyfus meme from Veep when she’s like “haha what the fuck?” but I think in his soul he liked it because it’s hard not to.
If you’re like my husband and missed an integral part of American cultural history, let me set the scene. Mickey Rooney is Santa and Shirley Booth is Mrs. Claus, and Mickey Rooney Santa has a cold so decides to cancel Christmas. Shirley Booth Mrs. Claus is like “absolutely not” and after a powerful song about how anyone can be Santa and how she has fantasized about having the opportunity all her life, she immediately gives up on those ideals when two elves are like “girl, you just playing, there’s only one Santa.” So her backup plan (probably in vengeance) is to send those two elves to find some people who still believe in Santa to prove he’s loved and needed because she puts together that it’s not just a Christmassy cold; it’s a festive existential depression.
So she sends Jingle and Jangle into the world, but she sends them into a war zone between the two most flamboyant Titans ever conceived. The Snow Miser and the Heat Miser shoot down the elves and they land in Southtown, USA where they strike a deal with the mayor that if they can get it to snow in Dixie, then Santa can have a holiday. So, Mrs. Claus enters into hostile negotiations between the Miser brothers, and ultimately goes over their heads to their mom, Mother Nature who forces them to do as she says, allowing snow in the south and a day of spring weather in the North Pole to be named later.
MEANWHILE, Mickey Rooney was like “Shirley Booth did WHAT?” because she sent the elves on the littlest reindeer, so he goes to rescue her, but gets sidelined by a kid who says he doesn’t believe in Santa. So that kid’s dad sings a fucking insane song that he definitely practised in therapy about how when he was a kid, he also thought he didn’t believe in Santa, so Mickey Rooney Santa, the man sitting directly across from this guy at a table, came into his room while he slept and said “so you’re too old to believe in me? I guess you’re also too old to believe in happiness, you dumb bitch” and THREATENS HIM. He sings this song like “oh what fond memories” while his wife just nods like “don’t ask any questions, son, just nod.” Anyway, Santa flies away on his reindeer and the kid believes in him.
So, it does snow in the south, Santa gets a nationally recognized vacation, and kids from all over the world send HIM gifts so he can relax on his only work day of the year. But then he gets a hand-drawn card from a little girl that’s like “Christmas don’t mean shit if Santa isn’t bringing me toys tho” by way of Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” and Santa is like “fair.” So hops out of bed and does Christmas. And then we get a little epilogue that’s like “Mickey Rooney had a bad dream and then delivered all the presents” so I think we’re supposed to think the whole thing was a dream? Like this is where Dallas got it all?
It’s only an hour long tops, but all of that was necessary summary. Also, ALSO, the one elf looks like Tom Petty.
The Review Roulette wheel landed on Dualist for our approach this week, so we’re going to think about the dual reality presented in this film and all Santa stories.
At the start of The Year Without a Santa Claus, the first thing we see, is that Mickey Rooney Santa has alerted the news media that he is cancelling Christmas and papers worldwide print the news with pictures of him in his sick bed. And we understand through Shirley Booth that Santa is dying from people not believing in him, very Tinkerbell energy. And little Ignatius Thistlewhistle (YEAH, that’s the kid’s name) is like “I saw the papers, I know Santa cancelled Christmas” one breath before saying “but that’s kid stuff, I don’t believe in otters” in the most Depression-era New York newsie ass street urchin accent to ever grace Southtown, USA.
Now, that doesn’t gel, right? Like do the people in this universe have such little faith in the news media? I’d get it if it were made today, just wack ass headlines that have like a 74% chance of being somewhat true and a 12% chance of being legal, but in 74? Post-Watergate? Girl, I don’t know about that.
But people are really reading the paper with a press release from Santa himself with his picture, saying, “okay, but nahhh.” And that’s really the core of Santa stories, right? We have to be half in, half out, loosey goosey on our commitment to consistency, but that’s faith, right? And I think this film doesn’t really walk that line so much as completely decimate it, but that’s okay because it’s a fun story and a dream sequence anyway. The kids from around the world bringing Mickey Rooney gifts after chartering planes to the North Pole don’t care about logical fallacies and inconsistent narratives, they just want to give something back to Santa while gently shaming him into doing his one and only job, and that’s just nice.
That’s all for now because I need a nap, but I’ll see you all next week for another holiday review!
Also, I have a new book! Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy is Open Access from the publisher and the ebook download is free from Barnes & Noble, but I would ask that if you like what you read, please consider buying a copy for yourself and/or a friend because I am unemployed and by the time royalties pay in July 2026, I will have been unemployed for over 2 years. I’m sorry to ask, but if you can swing it, please do or if you enjoy the book and you’d like to leave me a little holiday present that’s not the full price, please consider a little Venmo gift this Christmas (@Vaughn-Joy). Thank you, darlings!
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