Santa Claus Has Been A Violent Badass in Comedies for Years

Santa Claus is a lot of things — jolly, rotund and full of near-lethal levels of baked goods and Coca-Cola, presumably. But he’s not typically known for firing machine guns or hurling grenades at armed mercenaries. This is why the upcoming movie Violent Night — basically Die Hard but with everyone’s favorite jolly old elf instead of John McClane — seems somewhat radical… 

That said, we’ve seen more than a few deadly fake Santas in horror movies like Silent Night, Deadly Night and thrillers like the French proto-Home Alone classic Dial Code Santa Claus. But in terms of depicting the legit North Pole-dwelling Kris Kringle as a gun-toting badass? Others in comedy were ahead of the curve on this one. For starters, the idea of Santa starring in an action flick was anticipated to some degree by the Detective Crashmore sketch from I Think You Should Leave.

Before that, there was the South Park episode “Red Sleigh Down,” in which Santa is shot down, tortured and eventually forced to shoot his way out of an Iraqi prison (with a little help from Jesus). 

Not to mention, the plot of Violent Night seems not wholly dissimilar from that of The Night the Reindeer Died, the fake IBC TV movie starring Lee Majors, briefly seen at the beginning of Scrooged. Although in the case of that movie-within-a-movie, the villains “seize Santa’s workshop,” which apparently is stocked to the brim with weaponry.

In the realm of musical comedy, back in 1996, “Weird Al” Yankovic released “The Night Santa Went Crazy,” an original song boasting lyrics about the time Santa went on a violent rampage like “disgruntled Yuletide Rambo.”

And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the Mad TV sketch in which a little girl catches Santa in the act — so he whips out a handgun and attempts to silence her in order to keep his secret.

In fairness, with the possibility that any random Tim Allen-esque schmuck could murder him, absorb his powers, inherit all his property and gain immortality, it does kind of make sense that Santa would be packing heat.

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