Kevin Smith Is Moonlighting as the World’s Priciest Mall Santa

Kevin Smith is clearly having a good year. His latest directorial effort, The 4:30 Movie was well-received by both audiences and critics, he randomly showed up in The Simpsons’ season premiere and he regained the rights to Dogma from real-life shit demon Harvey Weinstein. Now he’s ending the year by playing Santa Claus — literally.

This past weekend, Smith took on the mantle of “Santa Bob,” posing for pictures with fans at his New Jersey comic book shop Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. He even had his costume designer whip up a custom Santa Bob suit.

Smith invited locals to indulge their Yuletide nostalgia by sitting on his lap and poising for a picture “just like we were at JCPenney’s or Sears back in the day — or the mall!”

It may be a tad unusual to see a celebrity taking on a mall Santa-type gig, especially considering that Hollywood hasn’t exactly been kind to the seasonal profession in the past. Take Bad Santa in which Billy Bob Thorton’s Santa Claus is a severe alcoholic thief who hates kids. Even the classic Miracle on 34th Street opens with a department store Santa getting hammered in the middle of the day while on the clock. It’s no wonder nobody sent that guy any heartwarmingly climactic bags of letters.

And Smith himself hasn’t exactly been kind to holiday characters in malls in the past, lest we forget the time that the Easter Bunny had his ass handed to him by Jay and Silent Bob in Mallrats.

But “Santa Bob” charges a lot more than most shopping mall Kris Kringles. Reportedly, Smith-as-Santa photos cost $99 a pop. For that much money you’d think that you could get a photo with the real Santa. At least people got to take a toy from his “big bag.”

This isn’t the first time that Smith has donned a red suit and posed for Christmas photos either. Santa Bob has made other appearances in recent years, along with “Jingle Jay” the elf (aka Jason Mewes). 

Smith has often claimed that he isn’t in the filmmaking business for the money (which would explain Yoga Hosers), but is he in the Santa game for the money? Nearly $100 is a lot more than your typical Santa Claus charges — although their fees are also getting pretty high this year. Macy's in New York City charges around $40 per photo with Santa Claus. And he didn’t even make Clerks.

And I guess, the $99, while a lot for a Santa photo, isn’t that much on the scale of celebrity photo-ops. You can’t even get a photo with Randy Quaid for less than $120. 

Thankfully, Smith’s event seemingly went smoothly — in that nobody tried to push him off the roof, Tim Allen-style, to become the next Santa Bob.