The original dark beginning of Tim Allen’s ‘The Santa Clause’
When readying ourselves for a joyful Christmas movie, few of us expect it to begin with death, let alone the end of Santa Claus himself. But that’s exactly what happens in The Santa Clause, the Tim Allen feature film that the former Home Improvement star made with Disney. The movie is slowly becoming a cult classic for the holidays, but it was initially meant to be a lot darker.
Scott Calvin, played by Allen, is a toy salesman who is intent on keeping his son’s faith in Santa Claus alive. His ex-wife and new husband lost their belief in jolly old Saint Nick years prior, and after a bully makes fun of him, Calvin’s son Charlie is beginning to lose his faith in Christmas. The successful toy salesman sees the time he has earmarked for his son at Christmas as the perfect opportunity to make him believe once more.
However, things don’t really go to plan. After Calvin burns the roast turkey on Christmas Eve, he and Charlie decide to go to Denny’s for an unremarkable dinner. They return, deflated and head up to bed only to be awoken a few hours later by the sound of someone breaking into the house. After discovering a man on the roof, Calvin yells only for the man to slip, fall off the roof and hit the ground. His body quickly vanishes, leaving behind a red suit and a card which reads: “If something should happen to me, put on my suit. The reindeer will know what to do.”
Thus begins one of the better Christmas movies of the 1990s. The rest of the movie continues in the usual veins of nostalgia, heartwarming charm and some holiday wit, with Allen becoming Santa Claus, and hilarity ensues. However, the original beginning of the film was actually meant to be a lot darker, as Allen confirmed when speaking with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show.
Having discussed how he had t confirm with his young daughter that he was not, in fact, the real Santa Claus, Allen opened up about the original script for the movie: “The original Santa Clause was a little darker and written by two comedians. [In the film] I actually shot and killed Santa — In the movie, he fell off the roof because I thought it was a burglar — and he gives me the card, and the whole movie starts. The kid goes to me, ‘you just killed Santa’, and I said, ‘He shouldn’t have been on the roof when he wasn’t invited.'”
“I’m laughing so hard,” continues the comedic Allen, ” but the head of Disney at the time, Katzenberger, said, ‘Well, we can’t start a movie like that,’ I said, ‘Well, why not?’ ‘Well, we can’t start a Disney movie with you murdering Santa.'” It’s a fair point considering the company. However, Allen responded with expected panache: “And I go ‘you kill all the parents in all your other movies anyway, you know?'”
Thankfully, things didn’t end up as brutal as Allen had hoped. In truth, the act of Santa Claus dying was enough of a curveball in the movie to not warrant Allen being the one to pull the trigger, quite literally. See Tim Allen explain his visions for The Santa Clause below.
