Urkel Saves Santa: The Movie is an animated Spin-Off of Family Matters focusing on Steve Urkel.
In an effort to make Christmas perfect, the accident-prone Urkel ends up making things worse and needs the help of Santa to make things right.
This movie provides examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Dudley meets Steve during a livestream, and mistakenly says his username (which is just his name) as "Steve Ur Kel". He continues to call him this even after they meet in person.
- Actor Allusion: The Fictional Holiday Festivus from Seinfeld is referenced by the mailman voiced by Wayne Knight, who played mailman Newman on that show.
- Adapted Out: The Winslows are completely absent from the film, despite being main characters in the original sitcom. The only characters who return are Steve, Urkelbot, and Stefan (in a small cameo).
- Affably Evil: Despite Dudley being a greedy corporate tycoon and attempting to take over Christmas he remains on relatively friendly terms with fellow genius Steve, not even holding a grudge when Steve crashes his blimp, as he already made enough money from Steve's app to pay for repairs.
- Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: Steve says "Did I do that?" in a triumphant manner after beating Dudley at chess.
- The Anti-Grinch: Steve ends up ruining the holiday season in his overzealous efforts to make it even better.
- Art Shift: The scene of Steve explaining the origin of Serbian donkey cheese is depicted in a slideshow of clay models and his dream sequence is full stop-motion animation.
- Bait-and-Switch: When it looks like Steve is going to fight Dudley, the scene instead cuts to them settling things the way geniuses do; by playing chess.
- Bilingual Bonus: The Spanish that Steve speaks with his ESL-met on isn't subtitled.
- The Cameo: Steve Urkel's "Stefan Urquelle" persona makes a brief appearance in a dream sequence when Urkelbot sheds his metal coating to reveal him underneath.
- Comic-Book Time: While Family Matters was set in the 1990s, this movie takes place in the early 2020s, with Steve Urkel still a teenager.
- Cool Shades: In a figurative and literal example, Santa wears shades made of ice.
- The Dreaded: Steve is regarded as a massive pest by the community, especially during the holidays, with Robin and Mrs. Paxson tolerating him the most.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After helping save the holidays, Steve goes downstairs on Christmas morning to find Santa and a Serbian dairy farmer with the donkey cheese he wanted.
- Even Evil Has Standards: After using Henry Ford as an example of a great inventor, Dudley acknowledges that outside of inventing the automobile Ford was a terrible person when Robin brings it up, not dismissing or downplaying anything he did.
- Everyone Hates Fruit Cakes: The app is shown to grant 200 points for eating Grandma's fruitcake compared to the meager 3 points for calling Mom.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Dudley doesn't understand why Steve would invent things just to help people with no monetary gain for himself.
- Expy: The Mall Santa is pretty much the film's answer to Carl Winslow, being an irritable straight man to Urkel's antics. Steve even calls him "Big Guy" on occasion.
- Fingore: A clerk at the piercing booth accidentally pierces her finger with a nose ring when Steve distracts her.
- Foil: Dudley von Durffel to Steve Urkel. While they're both brilliant tech geniuses, Steve is a humble, selfless outcast who uses his inventions to spread holiday cheer, while Dudley is a rich, greedy influencer who uses his tech to gain wealth and power.
- Humble Goal:
- Steve wants to make everyone's holiday perfect, as well as get some rare Serbian donkey cheese.
- Robin just wants to buy her Hispanic immigrant father ESL classes.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: There is no logical way Urkel's app can keep track of good deeds.
- Laugh Track: Urkelbot plays one after Steve accidentally destroys the Santa's Village display at the mall and says his catchphrase.
- Mall Santa:
- The department store Santa, who unwillingly gets roped into Steve's zany antics.
- Steve breaks into an whole educational segment analyzing Mall Santas, breaking down every aspect from their large, bushy beards to the strong cartilage in their knees (for holding children all day).
- Musicalis Interruptus: Dudley gets interrupted twice when he tries to sing his song "No Backsies".
- Musical World Hypotheses: The characters sing in-universe and acknowledge that they're singing.
- Mythology Gag:
- The film opens with the classic shot of Chicago from the TV show's intro.
- While singing about Boxing Day, Steve dons the same boxing gear that he wore when he fought Willie Fuffner.
- During Steve's dream sequence, Urkelbot cracks open and briefly becomes Stefan Urquelle.
- A parody of the show's opening title card appears on a TV, but instead of "Family Matters", it says "Familiar Mattresses".
- Never Trust a Title: Urkel doesn't save Santa at any point. Urkel Saves Christmas or Urkel Saves the Holidays would be more accurate.
- New Technology Is Evil: Dudley turns Steve's holiday cheer app into a mobile game that drives people to compete with each other for cash prizes.
- No Full Name Given: Out of the human characters only Steve Urkel, Robin Robles and Dudley von Durffel have full names.
- No Name Given: The mailman, the department store Santa, the newscaster and Robin's dad aren't given names. Even the department store Santa only calls himself such.
- Not So Above It All: Even Robin succumbs to the app's influence after seeing it offers cash prizes.
- Our Elves Are Different: Santa's elves are depicted as tall Dungeons & Dragons-style elves.
- The Quiet Ones: Santa's elves don't speak, but they do provide back-up vocals during "I'm Not Keeping Score".
- Read the Fine Print: In the end, Dudley is voted out of his company by the shareholders. He never read the user agreement in his contract saying they could do that.
- Retcon: The real Santa Claus actually appeared in one of the show's Christmas episodes, played by Art Evans. This film, however, introduces a completely new version of Santa.
- Rule of Three:
- Urkel says "Did I do that?" three times throughout the movie.
- Dudley makes three attempts to sing "No Backsies"; the first time he's interrupted by Steve, the second time he forgets the words, and the third time he's interrupted by his assistant.
- Running Gag: Robin taking the department store Santa's picture every time he says "cheese", except for the last time he says it, when he wants her to take his picture.
- Sadly Mythtaken: To Steve's surprise, Santa turns out to be a yeti.
- Sickly Green Glow: Dudley's app gives off a bright green glow, further highlighting the creepiness when the brainwashed masses in the mall have the light from their phones shining on their faces.
- Signs of Disrepair: During "The Point Song", Urkel puts up a string of Christmas lights on his house that say "FELIZ NAVIDAD MERRY CHRISTMAS". Most of the lights short out, resulting in the remaining ones saying "FARTS".
- Silent Partner: Urkelbot never says anything.
- Speaking Like Totally Teen: Dudley spouts a lot of modern teen lingo despite being somewhere in his twenties or thirties.
- Strawman News Media: Steve's destruction of the mall quickly makes the headlines of a sensationalist news program, with the anchor accusing Steve of "attacking" Christmas.
- Subverted Catchphrase: When Urkel discovers that his app has turned people into mindless zombies."Did I do this?"
- Those Two Guys: Clerks Gary and Leslie spend most of their screentime interacting with each other.
- Undisclosed Funds: The price of Serbian donkey cheese is never stated, but Robin is shocked when she looks it up. She shows it to the department store Santa and he says it's more than he pays in rent.note
- The Un-Smile: Everyone using Dudley's version of the app puts on a forced smile as they pretend to be nice.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Steve hands his holiday cheer app over to Dudley, allowing him to repurpose it into a game app and take control of everyone who installs it.
- Villain Song: "Move Fast, Break Things", in which Dudley sings about disrupting the status quo and "upgrading" people's lives with technology. This is what convinces Steve to invent his holiday cheer app.
- Vocal Evolution: Jaleel White's "Urkel" voice, while still quite nasally, is performed in a much lower register than before. Justified, of course, since White was already in his 40s at the time of production.
