History Film / SantaClausTheMovie

* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: During the 18th century sequence of the "Santa through time" montage seen early on, a bratty young boy is shown hurting his sister's cat, despite her pleas for him to stop (which is subsequently shown as Santa's inspiration for declaring that only good children will receive presents from now on). However, a closer look at the feline abuse scene shows that the young actor in question is clearly trying his best ''not'' to harm the cat.

* {{Expy}}: B.Z. is essentially [[Film/{{Superman}} the Salkind films' version of Lex Luthor]] with the change of being a ChildHater.

* NeverTrustATrailer: Opening with an iconic view of Capitol Hill, the British trailer for this movie makes it seem like a story about corporate corruption and politics, with Santa having a minor part at best. By comparison, the full-length U.S. trailer presents it as the cinematic-''Film/{{Superman}}''-meets-Christmas adventure it actually is.

A 1985 fantasy film from the producers of the first three ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movies and the director of ''Film/Supergirl1984'', starring Creator/DudleyMoore as one of Santa's elves and Creator/JohnLithgow as a CorruptCorporateExecutive who seeks to commercialize Santa's Christmas magic. Creator/DavidHuddleston plays Santa, but doesn't get [[BilledAboveTheTitle above-the-title billing]] despite playing the title character.

* KnightInSourArmor: After Patch runs off and, with B.Z.'s backing, manages to upstage him, Santa starts to become [[TurnOfTheMillennium disillusioned by the progress of time]] and depressed that Christmas has lost a lot of its magic and sanctity [[TimeMarchesOn over the years]]. People lack any goodwill towards one another, and the [[CrappyHolidays holiday season seems to now bring out the worst]] in them. Children don't appreciate the hard work his elves [[DoingItForTheArt put into their gifts]]. Mrs Claus reminds them of their purpose [[GoodOldWays and reason for being]]. This development/story arc ends up forgotten in the rush to the climax. [[AllThereInTheManual An additional scene in the Marvel Comics adaptation]] and {{Novelization}} explains this far better: Santa actually returns to New York City before returning to the North Pole on Christmas morning, and sees first a garbage can full of North Pole presents that were never even opened (as kids are now obsessed with the puce pops) and then encounters two unbelieving kids who are raving about the pops. When Santa asks them what they ''gave'' others for Christmas, as opposed to ''got'', they are incredulous at the very idea.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* SnowcloneTitle: To ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'', thanks to Alexander Salkind.

* ChekhovsGun: The wooden figure of an elf that Santa carves for Joe to serve as the boy's first Christmas present. Santa doesn't realize until he's finished that, as Anya points out, the figure is the spitting image of the now-runaway Patch. Joe keeps the figure on his person upon receiving it, unaware of its special significance, and while he's angrily confronting Patch in the cellars of B.Z.'s factory it falls out of his coat. Upon seeing it and learning who made it, Patch realizes that Santa still cares about him despite everything, and resolves to leave for the North Pole immediately (with Joe in tow).

* ComicBookAdaptation: [[Film/{{Krull}} Yet]] [[Film/TheMuppetsTakeManhattan another]] [[Film/{{Labyrinth}} movie]] Creator/{{Marvel}} adapted into a 3-issue miniseries in TheEighties, later collected into one volume. Given that the film has the same plot structure as any number of movies ''adapted'' from comic books, this is more fitting than most.
* CoolToy: Or rather, a Cool Treat: Patch's lollipops allow people who consume them to temporarily fly a few feet into the air thanks to the secret ingredient of stardust. Beat ''that'', [[Film/JingleAllTheWay Turbo Man]]! B.Z. realizes that giving them away for free at Christmas will create such huge demand for more that he'll have no problem charging kids/their parents the next time around. From there, the candy canes are intended to be even cooler, with more stardust in them to allow people to fly higher, but that also makes them more dangerous.

* CrisisMakesPerfect: Santa mentions that he has never been able to pull off the "Super Duper Looper" move earlier in the film, and of course when he says at the climax that he will need to do it to try to catch Patch Cornelia offers an alarmed "you said you've never been able to pull it off!", and sure enough, ''this'' time it works.

** Ultimately, considering the end result of B.Z.'s attempt to evade arrest, he obviously didn't think that one through.
* DigitalDestruction: Inverted. The original Media Home Video VHS release had a disastrously soft image on top of its J-D-C Scope dimensions being subjected to pan-and-scan, and after initial airings of a sharper print on HBO in the late 1980s, it was apparently this print that was in circulation on television for decades. It wasn't until the TurnOfTheMillennium DVD release that a quality home media release was made available, and even then the old TV print was the one that remained in circulation until 2016, when it was replaced by a much sharper one.
* DisneyVillainDeath: Inverted. [[spoiler:B.Z. flies up to his doom after eating the candy canes to evade the police.]]

* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Most of the elves seem to be living in the ancient past, utterly aware of the outside world or how times have changed. Notably averted with Patch, who seems to be aware of (and even predicting) modern technology such as television, alarm clocks, and indoor heating.

* GadgeteerGenius / BunglingInventor: Patch, as noted above, is not a FishOutOfTemporalWater as the other elves are and is capable of creating wonderful things, but falls straight into the latter trope whenever his enthusiasm, pride, and desire to prove himself blinds him to the potential flaws of those things, resulting first in the mass-production system (which when operated at full speed malfunctions, resulting in defective toys) and later the candy canes (which will explode if exposed to heat too long) going horribly wrong. The {{Novelization}} notes that his mind "was as bright as a star, but as undisciplined as it was unique", going on to explain that since others usually don't understand his ideas, he seeks any opportunity to show off his skills and be appreciated/receive attention for them. This, along with the fact that for centuries his more forward-thinking ideas and designs ''had'' worked just as intended, is why he doesn't pay enough attention to how well the aforementioned two projects actually work and is "always the last to admit he might have been wrong".
* GenreShift: The first half is a mostly serious, epic fantasy taking place centuries ago concerning the origins of Santa. The second half is a wild, whimsical, zany modern-day adventure taking place in New York City.

* MadeOfExplodium: The candy canes contain a large quantity of volatile stardust (more so than the lollipops did at B.Z.'s demand) and will explode if they get too hot.

** Patch has so much confidence in his own abilities that he doesn't think to make sure everything he creates works exactly as intended, leading to the disaster of the mass-production system. (This is better justified in the {{Novelization}}, which reveals that this was the first time any of his inventions/designs, once realized, failed in ''hundreds'' of years.) His wounded pride and mistaken belief that he is no longer appreciated at all after he loses his job as Santa's assistant leads him to leave the North Pole to prove he can get Christmas right on his own, which ends up making matters much worse.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: B.Z's plan to escape to Rio after selling off the exploding lollipops. Not only was Brazil no longer lacking an extradition treaty with the United States by the time the movie was released, but even if there still wasn't, a crime as horribly vile as killing children ''en masse'' would probably have made the Brazilian government agree to hand him over to the Americans anyway. {{Justified}} though since B.Z. is a StupidEvil psychopath so he might either be lying (and has a different plan to escape) or more likely is just ''that'' arrogant and ignorant.

* BetaOutfit: The elves make his suit, but MrsClaus doesn't think green works. When red is suggested by Patch, everyone is enthusiastic (except for another elf who suggested 'brown'), as it goes with Santa's rosy cheeks.

* AllThereInTheManual: The {{Novelization}} fleshes out a '''lot''' of the {{backstory}} and world building. For example, the elves used to deliver gifts to children themselves from their base in the North, but as centuries passed it became harder work, leading to a major backlog of toys (as seen in the giant tunnel). Claus fulfills a prophecy of a human FriendToAllChildren who would be able to handle such a duty in just one night. It also fills in the ending's LeftHanging issues, as noted below.

* SavingChristmas: The film's first half features Santa's Origin, then ''averts'' this trope with the unfortunate mass-produced Christmas and its unhappy aftermath. From there, the second half weaves together Taking Over Christmas, How TheAntiGrinch Spoiled Christmas, and in the late going The Sleigh's Broke (two of the reindeer are sick and the rest are still tired from Christmas Eve) as Santa and his friends must stop the holiday from being ruined for good by "Christmas II" (the combination of B.Z.'s greed and Patch's MustMakeAmends).

* AllNaturalSnakeOil: At the press conference in the wake of the huge success of Patch's lollipops, when Patch is asked what exactly they're made of B.Z. quickly jumps in with the claim that they're made with all-natural ingredients. While this could well be true, the claim serves two purposes for B.Z. in the moment -- [[VillainWithGoodPublicity it makes him look good]] and keeps Patch from giving away that the secret, key ingredient is stardust.

[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_1160.JPG]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_1160.JPG]]

A 1985 film from the producers of the first three ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movies (and the director of ''Film/Supergirl1984''), starring Creator/DudleyMoore as one of Santa's elves and Creator/JohnLithgow as a CorruptCorporateExecutive who seeks to commercialize Santa's Christmas magic. Creator/DavidHuddleston plays Santa, but doesn't get [[BilledAboveTheTitle above-the-title billing]] despite playing the title character.

The film's first act presents an origin story for Santa and proceeds to follow the growth of his legend over the centuries. The remainder of the film takes place in the then-PresentDay. While Santa befriends both a StreetUrchin and a LonelyRichKid in New York City, the aforementioned elf Patch -- after screwing up one Christmas with an ill-fated attempt to bring an automated production system to the workshop -- heads to the Big Apple himself and falls in with the sinister toy mogul B.Z., who agrees to distribute Patch's amazing new invention, one that can rival anything Santa's produced. From there the villain intends to build on its success to conquer Christmas altogether...no matter who gets hurt in the process, because there's a dangerous flaw in Patch's creations that only B.Z. and an underling are aware of. Can Santa and his friends save Christmas and the spirit of giving?

A 1985 film from the producers of the first three ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movies (and the director of ''Film/Supergirl1984''), starring Creator/DudleyMoore as one of Santa's elves and Creator/JohnLithgow as a CorruptCorporateExecutive who seeks to commercialize Santa's Christmas magic. [[Film/TheBigLebowski David Huddleston]] plays Santa, but doesn't get [[BilledAboveTheTitle above-the-title billing]] despite playing the title character.

A 1985 film from the producers of the first three ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movies (and the director of ''{{Film/Supergirl}}''), starring Creator/DudleyMoore as one of Santa's elves and Creator/JohnLithgow as a CorruptCorporateExecutive who seeks to commercialize Santa's Christmas magic. [[Film/TheBigLebowski David Huddleston]] plays Santa, but doesn't get [[BilledAboveTheTitle above-the-title billing]] despite playing the title character.

* {{Novelization}}: Several were produced: A traditional novelization and a storybook abridgment of same that added extensive photos, and several paperback picture books for younger kids (some specifically distributed through [=McDonald's=] restaurants; see ProductPlacement below) that each focused on a specific stretch of the story. The full-length novelization has ''tons'' of additional scenes, details, and {{backstory}} for the characters.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: A subtle moment of this occurs when Cornelia first meets Joe and Santa Claus: there's a photograph of B.Z. on the mantlepiece. His first scene occurs several minutes later but we don't learn that he and Cornelia are related until much later in the movie.
** Earlier, the transition from the North Pole to the introductory scenes for Joe and Cornelia in New York City is made via a MatchCut from a snowglobe's streetscape to the exterior of her townhouse. It's mentioned in passing that the snowglobe is the handiwork of Patch -- the one elf who isn't a FishOutOfTemporalWater and who ends up driving the second half of the movie when he travels to New York and ends up entangled with Cornelia's evil stepuncle. (The {{Novelization}} notes that he came up with the globe ''decades'' ago but Dooley only remembered to show it to Santa now.)

* SnowcloneTitle: To ''Film/{{Superman}}: TheMovie'', thanks to Alexander Salkind.

* ProductPlacement: For Coca-Cola and [=McDonald's=]. The latter had several giveaway premiums -- storybooks and [[http://www.etsy.com/listing/113455271/vintage-mcdonalds-1985-plush-reindeer reindeer ornaments.]]

* SmokingIsNotCool: Not only is the villain B.Z. an obnoxious CigarChomper, but unlike most traditional depictions of Santa Claus up to that point, the one in this movie doesn't so much as have a pipe.

* StartMyOwn: An unusual version. After the disaster of the mass-production system leads to Patch losing his job as Santa's assistant, he sets off to the human world to create and distribute another invention, and with B.Z.'s assistance becomes Santa's potential rival. But Patch only wants to prove himself to Santa and get back into his good graces, not realizing that Santa still thinks very highly of him. He helps B.Z. create "Christmas II" only because he believes that the children of the world will be disappointed if he doesn't.