Characters / Bad Santa

This is a list of characters in the Christmas-themed satirical comedy Bad Santa and its sequel, Bad Santa 2.

The Main Trio

Willie Soke

The main character and the titular protagonist. He's the Bad Santa who works at malls and takes in children's requests before robbing the mall at night.

• Abusive Parents: His father beat him routinely, his mother was even worse by forcing him to take the fall for her many run-ins with the law, and eventually his mother tries killing him with a firearm.
• The Alcoholic: Willie is drunk for almost the entirety of the film. He has no concern over just how damaged his liver can get over the sheer amount of booze he drinks. This later proves handy at the end because the police shoot him at least once in the liver and his alcoholism rendered the bullet(s?) non-lethal.
• Alliterative List: Marcus sums up his behavior getting worse over the years as "More booze! More bullshit! More buttfucking!"
• Anti-Hero: Willie may be a thief, a safecracker, a drunk, and a sex offender, but he still means well for the Kid.
• Bad Santa: He dresses up as Santa just so he can rob the malls he worked shifts at when it's after closing time.
• Becoming the Mask: Willie at first disavows he'll ever be a real Santa Claus, but at the end, he tries to deliver the pink elephant Thurman always wanted and narrowly succeeds even though the police shoot a bullet (or even several) through the elephant, but Thurman doesn't seem to mind.
• Big Good: Willie becomes this to Thurman as the movie progresses, since he is able to help Thurman fend off the bullies who torment him everyday after school, gets him the pink stuffed elephant he always wanted, and finally help him attain a proper parental substitute (Sue) to look after him.
• Does Not Like Junk Food: Willie avoids sugar, dairy, and non-alcoholic carbs (his real-life actor Thornton is a strict vegan). He prefers salads and meat over milk and cookies. By the sequel, Willie gives in to eating pizza in spite of how in the first movie he hated such high-calorie foods.
• Everyone Has Standards: Helps Thurman fend off the bullies by beating them up senselessly.
• Fat and Skinny: The skinny to both Thurman and Marcus's fat.
• Good Feels Good: For a given value of good anyway, but Willie comes to this conclusion when he beats up some bullies who had been harassing Thurman.
• Hangover Sensitivity: He has a lot of hangovers from drinking too much, and so he gets violent and irritable very easily even when it's simply alarm clocks.
• Hollywood Atheist: Willie is an atheist and is openly contemptuous of Christianity in general, including Christmas, Santa Claus, and the consumerist materialism affiliated with it. In the sequel, he sarcastically states that a god can only exist if something really bad happens to Marcus as karma.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It takes a while for the heart of gold to come out but when it does? Its like a complete 180 from his cynical and depressing attitude from the beginning of the movie.
• Lazy Bum: Willie is incredibly lazy, and also his alcoholism makes him too sleepy or unstable to hold down a paying job. Because of this, he has to steal or leech off others for money and housing.
• Like Father, Like Son: Somewhat subverted. Willie claims his father often yelled at him and treated him poorly such as punching him in the head. Willie also reflects this same attitude towards Thurman by lazily relying on Thurman to provide him shelter, a car, and money (those were all Thurman's father's), but then angrily yells at Thurman for being such an annoying clingy idiot with no idea of personal space. Though unlike his own father, Willie actually did care enough to return the favor to Thurman.
• Mall Santa: Though Willie would much prefer a different job. Not that he'd be any good at one that involves more than sitting and listening.
• Mommy Issues: He has a serious grudge against his mother for justified reasons. He also says that his childhood is the reason for his "thing for tits".
• No Indoor Voice: He's fond of screaming or lashing out to feel like he's in charge, even at a little boy and his mom who wanted him to play character as Santa during his lunch break.
• Papa Wolf: Willie evolves into somewhat of one, to the point where he gives the bullies who harass The Kid a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Willie makes a lot of height-discriminatory jokes or insults at Marcus and refers to East Asians as "gooks", though Willie being sincere about his bias against them is dubious.
• Rage Breaking Point: After Thurman asks him enough questions, Willie eventually snaps and starts screaming at him.
• Soul-Sucking Retail Job: He hates every second of his job as a mall Santa. Especially when a Karen interrupts his lunch with her kid.
  Willie: I'M ON MY FUCKING LUNCH BREAK, OKAY?!!
• Sticky Fingers: He cracks open safes at shopping malls every Christmas when his mall Santa shift concludes. Willie's an even more serious example of this trope in the extended version, stealing food and drinks from other people, even breaking into a mansion to eat up their food and stealing martinis behind a beach bartender's back.
• Would Hit a Girl: He greets his estranged, toxic mother with a punch to the face in the second film. She just shrugs it off and quips that he still punches like his father.

Marcus Skidmore

• Berserk Button: Being called a midget is a guaranteed way to set him off, with his response ranging from sardonic quips (if he's in a good mood) to plotting murder (if he isn't).
• Big Bad: He's the true main antagonist of the first movie when he decides to shoot Willie for his worsening behavior due to alcoholism.
• Depraved Dwarf: Gradually progresses into one over the years to the point he plotted to kill Willie at the end of the first movie.
• Dramatic Irony: At the climax, just as he's about to shoot Willie, he makes a speech over Willie's behavior getting worse over the years, such as his overactive sex drive, his alcoholism, and his rage-induced tantrums, but he never saw for himself just how much Willie changed Thurman's life for the greater good.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Is jealous of Willie for being tall.
• Hypocrite:
  • He manipulated Willie into helping him do another job on a mall (when Willie wanted to pull out), but then at the end, he decides to shoot Willie and call him out for his alcoholic behavior.
  • While Willie angrily rants at Gin for blackmailing them for half their mall job loot, Marcus holds him back pleading "I got this!" But after Marcus miserably fails to get Gin to accept even a slightly lower percentage than half ("35. 40. 42? 45? 48? 49!"), he goes berserk over Gin also demanding he get to pick what merchandise they steal in addition to the cash.
  • Despite being a dwarf who needs physical assistance at even the simplest of tasks like opening doors, he tries to give a "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards Willie that starts with, "You'd fall apart without me!"
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: When Willie loses the motel room he's been squatting at without paying rent, Marcus simply asks if he's got a place to stay instead of inviting him over.
• Loners Will Stay Alone: He can't find a girl who would want to date him due to his dwarfism.
• Manipulative Bastard: Willie was about to call it quits on another mall job at the beginning of the movie, but then Marcus convinced him to stay, telling him that he'll need the money for a living, when Marcus never intended on sharing the stolen loot with him.
• Never My Fault: He makes all kind of excuses in the sequel about being "forced" to betray Willie back in 2003 at the shopping mall, even blaming Lois at one point.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Decides to shoot Willie at the end of the first movie to cut ties with him.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's much stronger than he would appear, as he can push Willie out of the picture whenever he feels like it, which often proves handy because Willie often becomes too hung over from drinking to stay responsive.
• Villainous Rescue: In the sequel, Marcus has to convince Willie not to commit suicide by paying him upfront $2000 to help him do another job — on a charity this time.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Tries pulling this on Willie at the end of the first movie for being too unreliable and getting worse over the years for his alcoholism and sex drive.
  • Almost falls victim to this trope himself in the sequel when Sunny Sokes shoots him down and takes the charity's loot all for herself. Sunny then runs him over with her car. He survives both of these, but seems to have now been paralyzed.

Thurman Merman

The fat kid who takes in Willie into his house right when Willie has some housing and financial issues.

• Big Eater: He just loves to eat.
• Book Dumb: He's very dumb and gullible. Also shows on his elementary school report card; he gets predominantly C's in addition to many jumps in attendance.
• Fat Idiot: He's very obese and is very naive even for his age.
• Free-Range Children: His mother died, his father's doing time, and his grandmother isn't well enough to leave the house. So he goes to a shopping mall all on his own to see Santa (Willie).
• Manchild: In the second movie, he is still mentally ten years old.
• Morality Pet: To Willie.
• Nice Guy: He's probably not the most honest checkers player, but the fact that he let Willie stay at his house when "Mrs. Claus kicked him out through divorce" is very generous.
• Parental Abandonment: His mom is dead, his dad is doing time for embezzlement, his grandma is too senile and sick to take care of him. No wonder he was so attached to Willie.
• Supreme Chef: In sandwiches. In the sequel, having grown up, he became a sandwich artist for Hungry Hoagie's.

First Movie only (Phoenix, Arizona)

Lois

The Laotian getaway driver to Marcus and his true main accomplice rather than Willie.

• Asian Rudeness: She's a Laotian crook who's very unpleasant to be around.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Doesn't appear in the sequel, but is mentioned by Marcus, who blamed her for his decision to betray Willie at the end.
• The Dragon: To Marcus. She could also be Marcus's wife since in the sequel Marcus claimed he was mesmerized by her "Laotian pussy", but this isn't confirmed. Marcus does wear a wedding ring.
• Honor Among Thieves: Zigzagged. She's loyal to Marcus, but not Willie.
• Ice Queen: Doesn't get much characterization from the writers besides this due to her limited screen time.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Asks this to Marcus regarding their decision to betray Willie at the end.

Sue

Willie's love interest in the first movie.

• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Sue didn't return for the sequel because her actress Lauren Graham had scheduling conflicts.
• Has a Type: Is filled with lust for people in Santa costumes.
• Ms. Fanservice: When Willie tried taking her bra off with his teeth.
• Nice Girl: Treats Willie and Thurman like her own husband and son just as a means of getting on "Santa"'s nice list.

Gin Slagel

• Asshole Victim: As payback for blackmailing them for half the cash of the mall job, Lois and Marcus kill him by ramming him with a black 1979 Dodge (leading to internal bleeding, broken ribs, and paralysis) and then Marcus proceeds to shock him with wires before burying his body for good in a desert.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He seems slated to be the movie's main antagonist, but ultimately proves too incompetent and outnumbered to tackle Marcus and Lois.
• Big Brother Is Watching You: He abuses his power to spy on Willie and look for any dirt on him he can use as blackmail.
• Bullying a Dragon: He blackmails a duo of professional, dangerous thugs (Lois and Marcus) for their bounty and ends up getting a car rammed up his ribs and electric wires frying his head for this.
• Dirty Cop: He's the security guard for the mall that Willie and Marcus works at, but has no qualms over stealing from the mall himself.
• Greed: As Willie pointed out, he's greedier than a fuck.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: While blackmailing Willie and Marcus (by extension also Lois) for a cut of their treasure when they steal the mall's cash reserves on Christmas, he claims "I just want a taste". But then demands "Half!"
• Jerkass: He's a jerk to everybody, including nail salon girls.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Of the criminal variety. If he'd actually just asked for a taste, Marcus might not have been so motivated to murder him.
• Too Dumb to Live: He's driving in the middle of nowhere and coincidentally runs into the criminal he blackmailed, whose car has broken down...
• Stealing from the Till: He works out a piece of Willie and Marcus' mall heist. A mall he's security chief of.

Bob Chipeska

Willie and Marcus's employer at the Phoenix mall where they play Santa and an elf.

• Extreme Doormat: Willie and Marcus use the race card on him (pointing out Marcus is a black dwarfish man) so that they can't get fired from their jobs for Willie's drunk, inappropriate behavior, which includes sexually preying on young women.
• Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Anything involving sex and vulgarity makes him extremely uncomfortable.
• The Stool Pigeon: Averted. Gin tries to get Bob to confess to whether Willie did anything illegal, but the fact that Willie does not have a criminal record of any sort makes Bob no help to Gin.

Roger Merman

Thurman's father, and a treasurer who is serving 3 to 6 years in prison for embezzlement.

• Nouveau Riche: He works as a treasurer and owns a BMW, a three-story mansion with an outdoor jacuzzi, and a statue fountain. Of course, he pushes his luck trying to wring more money out of a job that already pays well, which lands him in a county prison that's at least minimum security.
• Parental Abandonment: When he's released from prison a few years after the first movie, he kicks Thurman (his own son!) out of the mansion he was living in.

Thurman's grandmother

• Doting Grandparent: Treats Thurman with a lot of adoration and fixes him sandwiches because he loves them.
• Grandparental Obliviousness: She has no idea that two strangers are having sex in her mansion's hot tub, despite having been awake at that time (apparently her hearing has diminished from her old age).
• Nice Girl: Her first instinct upon seeing Willie is to fix him some sandwiches and make him feel at home, instead of rather kicking him out for being an intruder.
• No Name Given: We never find out her name; the credits just call her Granny.
• Scatterbrained Senior: She's clearly suffering senile dementia. She doesn't notice that Willie is wearing a ski mask and intends to rob their home when he first walks in, she's oblivious to the fact that Thurman is running around screaming with bloody hands, and she repeatedly mistakes Willie for her son, Roger.
• Senior Sleep-Cycle: She sleeps for most of the little time she has left, and Willie even mistook her for dead at one point.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: She dies off-screen between the two movies.

Others

Earl Soke

Willie's unseen father. He's probably not alive anymore.

• Abusive Parents: Willie claims that his father hit him on the back of the head many times, though his father is the one who taught him how to crack safes.
• Disappeared Dad: Does not appear onscreen, but is mentioned in both movies.

Opal

A black female prostitute who had connections to Willie.

• Big Beautiful Woman: Definitely on the heavy side, but not unattractive at all.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even as a sex worker, Willie's kink is too much for her.
• Sex as a Rite-of-Passage: Willie pays her to take Thurman's virginity when he turns 21, but he runs out of the hotel room in a panic.

Thurman's mother

• Missing Mom: She's dead, but left behind a lot of money and an extravagant mansion to her son.