Several months ago, I received a DVD of this from RiffTrax. I popped it into my player and wondered those five deadly words "How bad could it be?" To sum up in one word... AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every single second of this movie is guaranteed to hurt. The story: Santa inexplicably winds up in Florida and his sleigh is stuck in the sand. The reindeer have all flown back to the North Pole where a bunch of children dressed as elves sing and make more toys, despite the fact that Santa's nowhere to be found. Meanwhile back in Florida, how is Santa going to get himself out of this dilemma? By using his magic to call out to all children in the immediate area, some have names and others are simply called "girls" or even "kid" in one case. And from literary history, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer show up on a raft. How they suddenly got transported from the Mississippi River to off the coast of Florida, I'll leave up to your imagination. But what can the kids do? They bring various animals to try and help pull out Santa's sleigh, but none of them can do it. Usually while this is happening, Santa remains seated in his sleigh, the actor sweating under his fake beard and red suit. So what does Santa do next? Tells all the children the story of Thumbellina. And that's where the movie takes its most excruciating turn. For close to an hour, we're treated to that horrible story. We have a normal-looking girl surrounded by actors dressed in unconvincing frog, mole and some-kind-of insect suits. Oh, did I mention that the director mistook this for a musical?! Excuse me another moment... AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The songs are, quite frankly, awful! So once the Thumbellina padding, I mean sub-story, has ended we're left with the last ten minutes. At this point, I'm guessing the director realized he had to wrap this fiasco up. How will Santa possibly get out of his situation? Who could possibly help him? SIREN WAILS! What's that? Why, it's an old-time firetruck. And who's that onboard? Why, it's the Ice Cream Bunny with all the children! Yay, the other character who shares the title has finally arrived! As one of my friends put it, he's the Ice Cream Bunny Machina. How he helps Santa, I couldn't figure out. He just arrives, nods disturbingly for what seems like forever, and then Santa gets into the firetruck and they take off leaving the kids behind. Then the sleigh disappears. THE END. Please, please, please gentle viewer hear my plea. Avoid this movie if RiffTrax isn't doing it. However if RiffTrax has graced your presence, then Merry Christmas to you all and down some spiked eggnog for good measure!!!
Review of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny
