Part One – It Changed My Life!
I firmly believe, as many of you who frequent sites such as this probably do as well, that movies are among the key elements in modern human existence that shape that which we are to become. Environment plays a key role, of course, upbringing and such, but movies … well they are something special.

At the early stages of life, parents try to feed us the essentials. Stories that teach as well as entertain, preferably accompanied by a series of songs. Disney films usually fit the bill quite nicely. You ask anyone what their earliest movie memory is and chances are it involves Disney. I’m not begrudging the Cryogenically Frozen One, for as much as I roll my eyes in disgust at the concept of Disney today, they certainly have their share of quality films under their greedy little belts. Even if my earliest movie memory did involve a Disney film, there would be no shame in that. None at all. Among my earliest movie memories we would find Mary Poppins, The Aristrocats and Pete’s Dragon, to name just a few.

But no, the earliest movie memory I have, the very first movie I recall seeing in the movie theater, was not a Walt Disney production. I think a guy named Walt may have done some of the dry cleaning, but that’s as close as this sucker gets. As you can guess by the title of this rambling mess of vowels and consonants, the first movie I recall seeing in the theaters was indeed (cue drum roll) Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.

Yup. So that explains it.

This is what I assume was behind the thought process at The Ritz Theater; a privately owned mom and pop type, single-screen movie house on its last legs: As a special treat for the kiddies, someone had one doozie of an idea to throw a “Special Afternoon With Santa” event to get all the parents to jam into their theater and buy candy, popcorn and the like. Brilliant. Parents love that sort of crap. Especially those parents that work a lot and don’t get to spend much time with their kids. Okay. Now. The theater couldn’t spend a lot of money to book a film as there was, I imagine, very little extra cash to spread around. This thrifty directive led them down a path. It was the path that led nowhere near It’s A Wonderful Life, a path that didn’t intersect with A Miracle On 34th Street and a path that wasn’t even in the same vicinity as any of the millions of variations on A Christmas Carol. The $1.98 bargain special HAD to be Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. There is no other possible explanation. This was sometime in the late ‘70s so the true impact of this film had yet to be felt. I doubt the owner even knew how dubious this film was when he booked it. He had no idea what he was about to unleash upon the world that day. For what was supposed to be a way to make a quick buck off the meeting between the Christmas spirit and parental guilt turned into a birthing of something so twisted, so malformed that it should have been aborted on sight.

Yup. So that explains it.
This is what I assume was behind the thought process at The Ritz Theater; a privately owned mom and pop type, single-screen movie house on its last legs: As a special treat for the kiddies, someone had one doozie of an idea to throw a “Special Afternoon With Santa” event to get all the parents to jam into their theater and buy candy, popcorn and the like. Brilliant. Parents love that sort of crap. Especially those parents that work a lot and don’t get to spend much time with their kids. Okay. Now. The theater couldn’t spend a lot of money to book a film as there was, I imagine, very little extra cash to spread around. This thrifty directive led them down a path. It was the path that led nowhere near It’s A Wonderful Life, a path that didn’t intersect with A Miracle On 34th Street and a path that wasn’t even in the same vicinity as any of the millions of variations on A Christmas Carol. The $1.98 bargain special HAD to be Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. There is no other possible explanation. This was sometime in the late ‘70s so the true impact of this film had yet to be felt. I doubt the owner even knew how dubious this film was when he booked it. He had no idea what he was about to unleash upon the world that day. For what was supposed to be a way to make a quick buck off the meeting between the Christmas spirit and parental guilt turned into a birthing of something so twisted, so malformed that it should have been aborted on sight.

The birthing of my movie tastes.
Imagine. A young, impressionable mind, open for the entire world to nurture. Anxious. Excited at the mere prospect of going to see a movie where movies actually lived. It could have been two hours of filmed goat milking for all I cared. I was going to the movies!!! You know what makes this all the more unusual, folks? I loved every minute of it. Sure, I was just a little nerdling at the time, but it was GLORIOUS to me. A grand introduction to the world known as ‘The Cinema.” I didn’t care about production values or poor direction. All I wanted to know was how Santa was going to save the day and remain his jolly ol’ self during the adventure. I was a kid, for crying out loud. I don’t care that the title pretty much gave away the ending; my powers of observation were nowhere near as astute as they are now. Screw that noise. From that day forward, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians became a holiday classic.

I know, I know. “But, Palmer. This is considered to be one of the worst movies of all time.” Again I proclaim, “Screw that noise.” There is a criteria that is always forgotten when discussing “the worst movies of all time.” That criteria is “watchability.” If something is truly awful there is no human way possible to sit through it. Plain and simple. Say what you will about this community theater stage play of a movie, you can’t stop watching it. Even if it’s from disbelief, it is simply not possible to turn away. This movie is gold, I tell you. GOLD!!!

It is with this odd love in mind that I decided to sit down recently and watch it again. Now that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 take on the film has faded from my memory it was time to spend some quality moments with young Pia Zadora and that lovable scamp Dropo. I cleared some time in my busy social calendar to make it a private event. It was just going to be the couch, the DVD and me. I curled up with my littlest kitty and let the production begin. What follows is some stream of conscious thoughts I scrawled while revisiting this life-changing flick. I have attempted to cobble them together with some semblance of coherency, but keep in mind the amount of sense can never exceed the amount I dispense normally. So, apologies in advance, folks. Enjoy.

Part Two – Watching The Classic Again
To start off, I must say that I am a little alarmed at the disappearance of the opening credits. I bought three different releases of the movie and each and every one cuts off a good portion of the opening sequence. That catchy lil’ ditty, “Hooray For Santy Claus,” begins in mid verse. How am I expected to sing along now? Oh well, there’s a reprise of the song at the end so it’s just all the more to look forward to.

After the first glimpse of green-faced twerps in leotards, we get to see a special report from one Andy Henderson directly from the North Pole, which oddly seems to end at a wall only a few feet behind him. Hmmm. I guess Columbus was wrong. Anyway, coming off more like a failed stand up comic than a reporter, Andy barrels his way into Santa’s Workshop so we can get a peep at the big fat guy and his underpaid slaves. Santa comes across warm enough I guess, but there’s something oddly insincere about him. Not department store Santa insincere, just “I’m afraid my career is done for” insincere. This goes unnoticed by the Martian children watching the news report, who just want to watch more of this sad man at the crossroads of life. Apparently the kids of Mars are acting even more emotionless than usual, because they won’t even eat their pills anymore. Sure, a killer meal like “hamburgers, buttered asparagus, mashed potatoes and chocolate layer cake” looks more like an assortment of uppers and downers, but that can’t have anything to do with it at all. (Don’t mix your drugs, kids.) Their square-jawed father, the Grand Pubah of Martians, decides to kidnap St. Nick in order to give some joy to his ugly, ugly children.

Man. You’d think Martians would have at least figured out a way to straighten that kid’s teeth. Advanced culture my ass.

Now the Martians invade Earth after fending off a bombardment of stock footage and kidnap some Earth kids who were damned lucky their parents pushed them into acting the way they did. What a break.

Oh boy! The robot is coming! The robot is coming! Torg is perhaps one of the crappiest robots in movie history and I dig him something fierce. You see, once they get to the North Pole, the Martians send a robot into Santa’s Workshop to give death hugs to elves and snatch the big guy. That’s Torg. He has stickers for gauges and a bucket for a head. He’s AWESOME!!! This is also when we get to see that not all Martians were made for leotards. That Voldar. Quite the man. Eyyyuch.

So Santa agrees to go with the Martians and he keeps in fairly good spirits even though the mustachioed Voldar keeps trying to, you know, kill him and all. Thankfully he crosses paths with the giant retard known as Dropo. Santa seems to find him pretty funny, but I know full well it’s just the way he hides his superiority issues over the mentally challenged. I mean, really, have you ever heard of a retarded kid really making out well at Christmas? He has such disdain for Dropo and everyone just turns a blind eye. Pity.

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