Welcome to The Twelve Ways of Christmas, where we unpack weird and overlooked holiday films. And let’s face it, the blog roll could use the attention.
With little rhyme or reason, check in from now until The Day That Must Not Be Named for a new entry.
“Fuck it, it’s Christmas,” seems to be the extent to which those involved with Ernest Saves Christmas thought about the project. The late, great Jim Varney was a tremendous talent, with a rubbery flexibility and elastic expressions that rivaled those of Jim Carrey and up to his untimely death in 2000, he was an eternally underrated comedic presence. Not his best role, Ernest P. Worrell was undoubtedly the one for which Varney will be remembered. Beginning as a commercial character to hock soda products and tacos, Ernest is the oblivious but good-natured nuisance spouting nonsense to unseen neighbor “Vern.” Ernest has gone to camp, been scared stupid, gone to Africa. And now, he’s saved Christmas.
Just days before Christmas, Santa Claus (Douglas Seale) touches down in Orlando on a mission: to find his replacement. You see, Santa isn’t so much person as he is an idea, a mantle that’s magically passed down from one deserving benefactor to another every century or so. Working as a airport cab driver, Ernest (Varney) picks up Santa (and a stray Christmas tree) and with the help of a teenage runaway (Noelle Parker), embarks on a haphazard journey of impressions and Christmas trout to find Santa’s replacement, kind-hearted struggling actor Joe Carruthers (Oliver Clark) — and all before that magic wears out.
So much of Ernest Save Christmas is purely incidental, as if the story is creating itself in the wake of Varney’s mugging for the camera as a snake rancher or ornery old woman. Ernest and Noelle Parker’s Pamela Trenton mess around with Santa’s gadgets, joy-riding in Santa’s sleigh and grabbing random odds and ends out of his magic sack. But who cares? Ernest has a delightfully whimsical spirit about it, even if the palm trees don’t scream “Merry Christmas!” Joe’s decision to become Santa is predicated on something as trivial as seeing Ernest’s joyride in the sky. Ernest gives Santa free cab fare in the spirit of the season of giving. It starts snowing in Florida, for Christ’s sake. When a newly-minted Santa sets off to deliver the evening’s round of gifts, Ernest and Pamela even tag along much to the chagrin of his helper elves. Fuck it, it’s Christmas.
Way #1: Batman Returns
Way #2: Black Nativity
Way #3: The Gingerdead Man
Way #4: The Ice Harvest
Way #5: Christmas in July
Way #6: Fred Claus
Way #7: Mon oncle Antoine
Way #8: Christmas in Connecticut
Way #9: Reindeer Games
Way #10: Silent Night, Deadly Night