Bad Santas!

Ah, Santa Claus.

You might think of a fat, jolly old man with a white beard, twinkling eyes and an infectious laugh, whose sole purpose in life is to make families and children across the world happy—-by bringing toys and sweets for us to open on Christmas Day.

Well, kids, not these Santas.

You might be tempted to take the n in the middle and add it at the end of their name, too, since they certainly don’t act any where near the children’s book defined persona of Santa Claus, or even a possible counterfeit one taking family photos at the mall.

"You DARE bribe Santa?! I'm gonna shove coal so far up your stocking, you'll be coughing up diamonds!"

―Robot Santa Claus

The Robot Santa Claus is one of the main antagonists in Futurama, and is set up in a way that surprises and delights us—-with Fry, the main protagonist who was frozen from the year 2000, waking up in the year 3000—seeing the major changes in how the holiday is celebrated and viewed much the way we would feel in the future. Shocked and a bit horrified.

Robot Santa is a four-ton robot designed by The Friendly Robot Company in 2801 to sort out the nice from naughty—-due to a programming error, his standards were set exceedingly high. In this high set of standards, no one can meet up to snuff for Santa, and all are deemed naughty. Except Zoidberg.

So what happens if you are on the naughty list—(which you will be because we all are)? Well, Santa will find you, for one.

Then, he’ll chop your head off and stuff your neck hole with toys from his sack of horrors! Lovely.

If you enjoy the lore and back story of this bad Santa, then you’ll love the insane, disgusting and disturbing antics of the Actual Bad Santa. Billy Bob Thornton Plays the titular role, and carries the role with as much elegance and grace as he can being a sex-addicted alcoholic who, with his elf, are actually professional thieves. He somehow wins over the heart of a child who is bullied by teenagers and lives with his senile grandmother—and whose mother has died and father is in jail for embezzlement. The child believes that this bad character is the real Santa, and even ends up living with them.

In a scene (below article) that ultimately helps that same bullied child stand up for himself, we are shown a slightly nicer side to the Bad Santa, plus profanity, and a side of sheer cringe for the banter between these two main characters, but still the delivery on some of these lines leave us puzzled yet chuckling— maybe it is in a bit of empathy for the child, but mostly it is out of bafflement and a bit of social horror. It’s like something so strange and odd you can’t stop watching, no matter how much you want to look away.

But between the fights, random and causal liaisons with women, drunkenness and crude jokes at the expense of others, this Bad Santa ain’t taking house calls——except of the dirty and raunchy variety.

Setting at a close 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, the closing arguments of such a film state it as: "A gloriously rude and gleefully offensive comedy, Bad Santa isn't for everyone, but grinches will find it uproariously funny.”

These two Bad Santas definitely will not be making anyone’s nice list, and certainly don’t hold a candle to Jack Skeleton’s efforts to emulate the holiday(of course it doesn’t help being blown out of sky by the army for impersonating Santa!) as these guys don’t even try but... we can agree that it’s fun sometimes to see things in a way that skews our vision of something in a dark, crazy way. It’s okay to enjoy a little bit of crazy!

Check out both to see the similarities and the differences of their bad behavior but also to see the craziness for yourself! And please, if you like my weirdness, ❤️ my article!! Thanks!