Episode 22 - Santa Satan

[00:00:00] Don Early: Happy Merry holiday season, our fine listener friend. Today's episode contains a bunch of spoilers for the movies, Krampus and Rare Exports. So go check those out, if that's important to you. We are taking a look at Santa's devilish partners and portrayals over time. And the Santa Satan conspiracies that people's energies are still being wasted on today. 

[00:00:31] This is The Devil You Don't Know. 

[00:00:35] Smart ass.

[00:00:54] Jeremy Spray: Oh, the Pentaverate,

[00:00:56] Don Early: Mm-hmm.

[00:00:57] Jeremy Spray: you said smart ass. I needed to mention it right now. Have you seen [00:01:00] it yet?

[00:01:00] I haven't 

[00:01:00] Emily Quann: that good? 

[00:01:01] Don Early: No, I've been avoiding it a little bit, uh, because it is a decades old joke from So I Married an Ax Murderer, which is a great movie. I like, I like that movie. I don't know if it holds up though.

[00:01:16] Jeremy Spray: I'll be honest. I don't think it

[00:01:17] Emily Quann: I haven't 

[00:01:18] seen it 

[00:01:18] Jeremy Spray: I haven't gone back to it, but I don't think it holds 

[00:01:20] Don Early: I'm, I'm gonna guess it probably doesn't, but it was awesome at the time. That one and Empire Records, I don't know why. Fucking love that movie.

[00:01:31] Emily Quann: Oh, I do too. I haven't seen it though again in a couple

[00:01:34] Don Early: mm-hmm.

[00:01:35] Jeremy Spray: For me, it felt like the first cult film I knew about, I was like, oh, this is only a select group of people that like this movie. I think I'm one of those people.

[00:01:45] Don Early: Yeah. Turns out our generation fucking loved that

[00:01:50] movie, 

[00:01:51] Jeremy Spray: Everyone loves it.

[00:01:51] Emily Quann: I mean, who doesn't love gluing quarters to a floor

[00:01:56] Jeremy Spray: Don't judge my arts. I literally used that [00:02:00] quote for 30 years. I've, I have said that so many times. No one got the reference. Very few people ever got the reference of like, don't judge my art. But I 

[00:02:09] Emily Quann: those who do 

[00:02:10] Jeremy Spray: so damn

[00:02:11] Emily Quann: Immediately,

[00:02:12] Jeremy Spray: Immediately, so damn funny.

[00:02:15] Don Early: That's right. So speaking of friendship crashing, um,

[00:02:22] Emily Quann: You made me watch Krampus. Talk about friendship crashing

[00:02:29] Don Early: What? We made Jeremy watch Rare Exports.

[00:02:32] Jeremy Spray: Also true,

Movie Discussion: Rare Exports & Krampus

[00:02:34] Emily Quann: That movie is brilliant and has one of the hap hap happiest standings of a film I've ever seen.

[00:02:41] Jeremy Spray: So I gotta tell you, uh, I was surprised both times. I was completely shocked and neither film was what I expected it to be. When I picked up Rare Exports, I was like, okay, cool. Horror film, dark, weird, creepy Santas going into it [00:03:00] was not expecting. Full on Finnish storytelling and not really being able to connect to cultural levels, but then turning it into what The Fins believe is an American action film. Like, like I had a whole level of just like, what the hell is happening?

[00:03:19] And like I was really expecting to like dive deep, real deep into this weird lo and get all this weird, bizarre history. Nope, none of that. Just like creepy kid knows shit and everyone goes, you're not doing anything. And he's still like calling the shots then helicopter and he's hanging out the side of the net and everyone's like, you got this kid?

[00:03:38] It was so weird. So weird. And

[00:03:41] So, so yesterday and today I was like, all right, Krampus, now I'm ready. I'm ready for this. So I know that it's German, it's gonna be fucking odd. It's gonna dive really deep and it's gonna be a lot of subtitles and like, we're gonna have this really weird lore and people are gonna do their thing.

[00:03:59] And [00:04:00] then it was like,

[00:04:00] Emily Quann: Oh, Adam Scott.

[00:04:02] Jeremy Spray: Adam Scott, Tony Collet. An American Horror film. Comedy horror film. And like what? I wasn't ready. It was, I was like, this, this, and it was like, it really was at that point, like this is an homage to eighties horror like it is. So it has every single beat, has all the right points, all the comic notes and the fucking gingerbread man.

[00:04:24] I had so many, and I, I was like, this is kinda incredible. And not at all what I thought it was going to be. So yeah, both, both times I was like not ready for either of

[00:04:34] Emily Quann: So Krampus was not at all what I expected it to be because I, I did not realize that this was a newer film. I thought Don was making me watch something from like late seventies, early eighties. Like just

[00:04:48] Jeremy Spray: Taking it like meaty Krampus

[00:04:50] Emily Quann: Yeah,

[00:04:51] like just Awful. Um, and so then turn it on. Oh, Adam Scott, Tony Collette. Well this can't be that bad.

[00:04:58] And then it just went [00:05:00] from mediocre to what the fuck? So,

[00:05:05] Jeremy Spray: When, when, when did you like mentally check out and you're like, I'm not even invested anymore.

[00:05:10] Emily Quann: Um, well, I mean, there are several moments when I like had to do a reality check. Like, am I even still here on the couch watching this? Uh, the gingerbread man? Like, oh, so the toys. The toys coming to life. I what was supposed to be the big gigantic climactic ending the fight with all the toys, the creepy jack in the box, like all of that.

[00:05:36] I was done at that point. I was like, no, I am over this. Like the sister, like something happening under the van when she's in the blizzard and stuff. Creepy. I like creepy. That's awesome. That was very exciting. Like, oh my God, what's happening? This is, this is interesting. And that then the, the, you know, the German grandmother and what happened to her [00:06:00] and I, I knew that, oh, we're gonna get her story and this is gonna be really cool and

[00:06:04] Jeremy Spray: Totally cool that they switched to the animation for that, by the way. I'm like, that was neat.

[00:06:10] Emily Quann: beautiful. And, but then like the last third of the movie, I was like, okay, well this, this is just not. At all this, I've, I've, I've lost interest in all of this. This is not a fun Christmas movie anymore. This is just, this is camp beyond

[00:06:29] Don Early: That's my favorite camp, by the way,

[00:06:31] Emily Quann: That is, is why Don owes me a whole lot for making me watch this movie.

[00:06:37] So yeah,

[00:06:39] Jeremy Spray: So on a scale of bad Christmas films, where does Krampus fall on your favorite Christmas movie to Rudolph?

[00:06:49] Emily Quann: Oh, you had to bring up Rudolph, didn't you?

[00:06:51] Jeremy Spray: It's the season

[00:06:53] Don Early: the season

[00:06:53] Emily Quann: Oh God.

[00:06:56] Don Early: we, we started this a year ago. You

[00:06:58] Emily Quann: You know what? [00:07:00] Krampus is above Rudolph. That is how much I hate, hate the stop motion, Rudolph. Claymation. It's not claymation.

[00:07:10] Jeremy Spray: It is. It's full on

[00:07:11] Emily Quann: Claymation? Are they clay? They've got weird fur on them. Is that clay still? I don't know. Creepy miniature. Like things hate that. Hate it. Weird.

[00:07:26] Gingerbread man. And Krampus hated those too. So yeah, I, I guess I just have a thing with like weird miniature evil demonic 

[00:07:33] Don Early: That's fair.

[00:07:34] Jeremy Spray: Yeah, no, you're

[00:07:35] allowed that. 

[00:07:36] Emily Quann: it's not, it's, it's unsettling.

[00:07:38] Don Early: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:39] Emily Quann: Rudolph just annoys the hell outta me. That wasn't unsettling. That was just, just it, it, it, it's infuriating. So infuriating.

[00:07:46] I just, I don't even have the words to describe how much the look of that film just enrages me, but, but Krampus, [00:08:00] yeah. The toy section. Yep.

[00:08:02] Jeremy Spray: That's where you checked out.

[00:08:03] Emily Quann: Oh. Beyond checked out. That's when I went to like, get some more alcohol. To make it through to the end

[00:08:09] Jeremy Spray: When the guy from Anchor Man walked in, I was pretty much like, okay, I'm just gonna sit back and get ready for this. Then I, I was no longer at the point where I was like, I gotta learn and pay attention for the podcast. Like, he walked in talking about guns and carrying kids, and I was like, oh, okay. All right.

[00:08:27] All right. Okay. I did this to myself.

[00:08:29] Emily Quann: Oh my God. That family was just, that family was unreal. I loved the, the opening of it though, the Christmas, the, the rush, the fights and stuff. The, uh, parents in Slowmo running down the aisle, to get the kids to separate them from punching them. And the sister like gleefully filming it all on her phone.

[00:08:52] Like, I mean, I like laughed out loud audibly, and then it was just downhill from there.

[00:08:59] Don Early: They did some [00:09:00] things right And so to catch you listener up of what is happening here.

[00:09:08] Emily Quann: Oh yeah, we just totally jumped right in. 

[00:09:10] Don Early: we just jumped right in. That's 

[00:09:13] Emily Quann: introduction whatsoever.

[00:09:15] Don Early: you don't even need it, you know? Uh, this is the Devil You Don't Know. And today we are talking about the devil as Santa Satan, Satan, Santa, question mark. Where did this come from?

[00:09:33] And, uh, I'm Don. And we have Jeremy

[00:09:39] Jeremy Spray: I am Jeremy.

[00:09:40] Don Early: and,

[00:09:41] and 

[00:09:41] Emily Quann: I Emily, I was taking a sip of wine right here at

[00:09:43] Don Early: Who fucking hates Rudolph, The Red Nose,

[00:09:46] Emily Quann: cause it's the worst.

[00:09:48] Don Early: It, it, it's pretty bad. I will give you that. Um,

[00:09:53] Emily Quann: Wait, what?

[00:09:55] Don Early: I, it can be bad and I still love the hell out of it.

[00:09:59] Jeremy Spray: He's, he's trying to [00:10:00] move on Emily. He's 

[00:10:00] Don Early: I'm moving 

[00:10:01] Jeremy Spray: he is

[00:10:01] Emily Quann: Okay, well, 

[00:10:02] Jeremy Spray: agreeing with you to move on. 

[00:10:03] Emily Quann: so well, so which is another reason why did you ask me to be on this podcast?

[00:10:13] Don Early: This

[00:10:16] Emily Quann: Oh God.

[00:10:18] Don Early: So my family, I was flipping through and I saw Rare Exports and I was like, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna watch this as a family.

[00:10:30] Emily Quann: Oh 

[00:10:31] Don Early: This will be great. And so we did, we watched Rare Exports.

[00:10:37] Cindy, Caitlyn and I, we sat down and we watched it, and she loved it.

[00:10:46] Absolutely thought it, well, I don't know about loved it, but she got it.

[00:10:50] And she also thought that like, having to read the subtitles was kind of a fun, like part of the movie experience. It's not[00:11:00] 

[00:11:00] something that she always 

[00:11:01] Emily Quann: Don't lose that. Yeah, don't lose that.

[00:11:04] Don Early: you know, and some of the stuff that she does is like, uh, she'll read subtitles from, you know, that was in Spanish or something like that, so it's not totally out of her, like normalcy or whatever.

[00:11:18] But, uh, but yeah, and at the end of it I was like, oh, they're gonna hate this. They just, you know, I'm gonna sit back. It's like, what'd you think? And like Cindy said, actually it was a really good movie.

[00:11:32] Emily Quann: It's so good.

[00:11:33] Don Early: I'm like, wow, look what I've done. Look what I've done,

[00:11:42] Jeremy Spray: Did she say why?

[00:11:44] Don Early: Um, no, but um, but we can get into that, uh, you know, at a later date. But I think that she liked the, the story concept. She liked some of the lore. She liked, [00:12:00] you know, the general idea. I will say a couple of things about Rare Exports. For some reason it has for me a tremendous rewatch value. Um, it, it's just one of those movies I, I don't get super tired of, but you, I do have to be in the mood to watch it, you know, cuz it is still a foreign film and it's still what it is.

[00:12:22] Um, and so you do have to kind of be in the mood for that. Uh, which I apparently was cuz. I think the following night I watched the new Troll on Netflix, which is, I think that Norwegian movie

[00:12:40] that's now out 

[00:12:42] Jeremy Spray: I honestly thought about Troll as soon as I finished Rare Exports and I, I had this, but my reaction was, I bet Troll's the same thing as this fucking thing was.

[00:12:53] Don Early: No, no. Um, I guess similar, but, uh, it, I think Rare [00:13:00] Exports was better, um, in, at least from like a storytelling and an in incorporating like a culture and, uh, and, and some lore to it. Um, Troll Hunter on the other hand, not the animated one, but the,

[00:13:16] Emily Quann: Oh, I've seen 

[00:13:17] Don Early: the, the docu, the sort of found footage film, um, which I think is Swedish.

[00:13:26] that one. Yes,

[00:13:28] that one a hundred percent. Same

[00:13:31] Emily Quann: I, I'm agreeing with Don on this one.

[00:13:33] Don Early: I love that one though. Um,

[00:13:36] Emily Quann: I like, I like Rare Exports better. I, 

[00:13:41] Don Early: I 

[00:13:41] Emily Quann: don't know. I, you, you dig up this, you know, being, millennia, elves come. You know, to rescue him , and then they're trained to be mall Santas. [00:14:00] I'm sorry, can we put in a spoiler alert, because I'm really hoping that people will wanna watch the movie after we talk about this to Don. Please put in spoiler alerts so that I have not just ruined the film for everyone, because I want people to see it because it's so fun. But it, it's just such a charming ending to just this weird action packed.

[00:14:23] Don Early: It's also an ending though, that really, really, I, I, well, I will say this about, uh, Cindy's reaction. I said, you know, it's interesting given that ending that they never made a sequel. And she's like, no, I'm not surprising at all.

[00:14:40] Jeremy Spray: It's really interesting. It's not that interesting.

[00:14:42] Emily Quann: I wouldn't wanna sequel, I don't think, I don't think a sequel

[00:14:45] Don Early: You don't think all those Santa Clauses, all those Santa's little helpers who were conditioned aren't gonna go wrong sometime in the future.

[00:14:59] Emily Quann: [00:15:00] Uh, if 

[00:15:00] Don Early: is a movie that's like watching Aliens After watching Alien. Like that is Murder Santas Worldwide.

[00:15:11] that's a 

[00:15:11] Emily Quann: not what I wanna watch

[00:15:13] Don Early: would watch

[00:15:13] Emily Quann: that. No. See I just like Alien and Aliens Alien is a suspense horror film. Aliens is not. It's an action movie. Um, both of them stand so well on their own, but to do a sequel to Rare Exports, that would be, that would be a Christmas movie. 

[00:15:42] Don Early: yeah,

[00:15:44] Emily Quann: But I think I'd, I don't know.

[00:15:46] I think it, I think it would be overdone. Like, I don't think you could go too far with it, but Rare Export stands on its own so well. You j you just, you have the creepy aspect of it. The, [00:16:00] um, the small Finnish town, uh, for us as Americans, I'm sure that's a novelty. The movie is Finnish so for them it's probably nothing more than, you know,

[00:16:12] Jeremy Spray: I, I gotta tell you.

[00:16:14] Emily Quann: it's,

[00:16:15] Jeremy Spray: I have a whole level of, hang on, there's a whole level of character aspect and story building that y'all have put into this that I either don't get culturally or you are making shit up. When we talked about watching these movies and the murder Santas and the, the car, crazy nature of what this is and the huge beast like the Santa that's there, right?

[00:16:44] The, the Big Santa, much like the Krampus, which I had my own own beef with, you never saw it.

[00:16:51] Emily Quann: Right.

[00:16:51] Don Early: I will give you 

[00:16:52] Jeremy Spray: heck on murder Santas, all they did was put children in bags. That's all. They grabbed kids, put 'em in bags and stole a bunch of [00:17:00] goddamn heaters to melt a big ice block cuz they didn't know what else they were gonna do.

[00:17:03] They didn't really attack anything with the exception of suddenly a throwing ice pick being chucked through the air. Like there was no other killing or attacks or anything. It just, it just wasn't there.

[00:17:17] Emily Quann: Yeah, so I think Rare exports does not,

[00:17:21] Don Early: there though.

[00:17:22] Emily Quann: does not fit into necessarily the same category that Krampus does,

[00:17:26] Don Early: No,

[00:17:26] Emily Quann: though. Not at all, I think. I think for the Santa or Satan, I think the movie Krampus actually fits this podcast better than Rare Exports. Rare Exports is just creepy. There's that lore. What would happen if, uh,

[00:17:45] Don Early: Well, funny you mentioned that though. It was Rare Exports that gave me the idea to do this podcast, uh,

[00:17:53] Emily Quann: Well, cuz that introduced the, you know, the alpine lore of evil Santa [00:18:00] Krampus. But I think, I think that the lore of Krampus is, he is Santa's partner.

[00:18:07] Don Early: mm-hmm.

[00:18:08] Emily Quann: Right? And it doesn't happen on Christmas Eve. I think it happens earlier in December.

[00:18:13] Don Early: December 5th.

[00:18:14] Emily Quann: December, okay. So it is earlier in December and they go together

[00:18:18] Don Early: Yeah, typically

[00:18:19] Emily Quann: so like, so none of these movies actually fit the lore 

[00:18:24] Don Early: no, but Rare Exports, uh, actually very smartly incorporates a bunch of different, uh, lores, which we're gonna get into tonight.

[00:18:36] Emily Quann: right? So it's a smart movie. Krampus just sucks ass.

[00:18:42] Don Early: okay.

[00:18:42] Emily Quann: that's my point. , Jeremy, you just need to watch Rare Exports with Don and I because we really, really like that movie. And I think if you were just surrounded by people who shared as much joy with that,

[00:18:56] Don Early: All right. Well, a coup, let me wrap up a couple of things with, [00:19:00] uh, the movie, uh, the movies I should say, cuz uh, I'm not gonna talk about Krampus too much cuz we're gonna get into the, the lore in, in a bit. Um, the movie is what it is, and I'll give you my thoughts in an in a

[00:19:12] Emily Quann: Really bad.

[00:19:13] Don Early: Um, Jeremy, you're not wrong.

[00:19:16] My, probably my biggest disappointment and I think lost opportunity, but probably due to budget constraints. We didn't get to see the big bad actually get out of the ice and, and whatnot. I thought it was funny as hell though that, uh, they cut his goddamn horns off

[00:19:39] Jeremy Spray: Saw that too. I was like, gotta tell. Pull a trophy.

[00:19:42] Don Early: Still just going to, no, we're gonna take those with us. Uh, but for me, it would've been really hilarious to see this giant hairy Hellboy Santa, uh, you know, with his horns cutoff, uh, reek a little bit of havoc. And I was, I, I would, I would definitely say that is my number one [00:20:00] criticism of the film is that w uh, we just, we don't get that and we don't need it.

[00:20:07] But it would've been there, there was a lot of buildup and there was no real payoff to that other than they took care of it before it became a problem.

[00:20:17] Um, 

[00:20:17] Emily Quann: opposite. Things are scarier and creepier to me if I don't ever see them,

[00:20:24] Don Early: yeah,

[00:20:25] Emily Quann: brain makes it worse. So the fact that we didn't see this gigantic beastly, you know, evil Christmas Elf Kramp is Chris Elf. Krampus is an elf.

[00:20:38] Don Early: no, um,

[00:20:41] So 

[00:20:41] Emily Quann: so evil, Krampus, whatever. That's scarier and creepier to me than had they actually dethawed the entire no de thought, defrosted the entire thing, and, uh, and showed him, I would've been like, eh,

[00:20:56] Don Early: Yeah. I really liked how they [00:21:00] sort of teed up the, the naked guy and the butchers,

[00:21:04] Emily Quann: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:05] Don Early: as like, oh, this is the Santa, everybody's keep talking about,

[00:21:10] Emily Quann: Yeah. Misdirection.

[00:21:11] Don Early: then it does the flip. And I think that was really great. Uh, a hundred percent predictable if you're following story structure, but, uh, I thought it w I thought it was done well.

[00:21:23] Uh, they, to me, I think that it's the threat that these things are super freaking dangerous. Um, you know, they, I feel like the, the. They built that lore a bit for that, that, that, and it was supported that, you know, if they could cut loose, it would be horrible.

[00:21:46] Emily Quann: Well for them also being in Finland, this is their lore. They grew up with these stories. They, they've been hearing them since, as you know, as children and, and generations on. That's, I [00:22:00] mean, they know it for us as Americans, this is new. We're watching a Finnish film wall. We don't know anything about this.

[00:22:04] What is, what? We are relying only on the movie to tell us.

[00:22:08] Jeremy Spray: And I had a couple of moments, uh, to that very point that I, I just had to like, let it go. Like, where did the Santa Helpers come from? What happened to the crew? Where, where's my exposition for who these are? Why is this one German guy who speaks English so invested in finding Santa? Oh, we don't, we don't get to see any of that.

[00:22:27] Okay. Where we're to sit, like, like I had so many moments that I was like, oh good. The story, the story's not doing what I think it's gonna do. Goddamn, damn Finnish films. Okay. Just sit back. It it, like, I had, I had a lot of those that I was, that I had to like, let go later on and go I bet if I knew the culture and if, and if I grew up with the lore, which I think we're gonna get into Don, sorry, I would keep cutting you off for this.

[00:22:49] It might explain a little bit more about what I was.

[00:22:52] Emily Quann: So really Jeremy, what I'm hearing is that you wish the movie was longer

[00:22:58] Jeremy Spray: It's not, it's not what I said. Didn't [00:23:00] say that exactly.

[00:23:03] Don Early: Well, uh, I think some of you, the points that you just mentioned are actually story problems and script problems that the, it actually did have, like, we did not get any exposition around the company. And this one guy's fascination with the whole thing. Like, we didn't get a lot of that and we really should have or could have.

[00:23:26] Um, and maybe it was on the cutting room floor, who knows?

[00:23:29] Emily Quann: I want more.

[00:23:30] Don Early: but

[00:23:31] Emily Quann: this movie so much you guys.

[00:23:33] Don Early: you're definitely not, not wrong on that. Krampus was a giant disappointment of a film to me. Um, it, I thought it was gonna be almost army of darkness level. I thought it was

[00:23:48] Emily Quann: God, that would've been a disappointment too.

[00:23:51] Don Early: You don't like that movie? Oh, okay. So, uh, I, you know, a horror comedy, it, it's a, it's a tough [00:24:00] mix to get right, because when you get it wrong, it's pretty obvious.

[00:24:06] And so

[00:24:08] many, 

[00:24:09] Emily Quann: wrong if you get it, 

[00:24:10] Don Early: and get it wrong

[00:24:11] there is try and get it right and it, and it doesn't happen. Um, but, uh, it, it did some interesting things. It, it told the lore a little bit. Um, it stretched things a little bit. Same thing. Rare Exports did the same thing. Um, so, uh, I, I did not get what I expected out of Krampus either.

[00:24:34] I had pretty low expectations as I usually do going into these films, and it just didn't deliver. Um, and, uh, but there really isn't a better Krampus movie out there, unfortunately. There just isn't one. Um, now I did dig up a, which I think might be in the public domain now, um, [00:25:00] Santa Versus The Devil, or

[00:25:03] Santa, it's like 1970s something.

[00:25:08] It's, uh, and apparently there is a cult following of this piece of garbage film that is out there. I don't even think, I think it's a foreign film. I think it was in Spain or Mexico or something. I think it's a Spanish film, um, of some kind. 

[00:25:29] Jeremy Spray: And in 1970, Santa is a little different than what we have right now cuz our, our Santa is very, very curated.

[00:25:37] Don Early: Yeah. Yeah. So. Let's talk about some lore. I did, uh, dig some of this stuff up and honestly Rare Exports and the kids little like, dive into the books and reading this and trying to figure out what, who the real Santa Claus was. Um, that got me thinking like, okay, I want to do that well. And so I [00:26:00] started my search strings with like, uh, Norse Santa Origins and Finnish you know, what was the, inspiration for Rare Exports and where did this, you know, and um, evil Santa, by the way, don't look up violent Santa cuz that's all about Violent Night. Um, and you're just gonna get a bunch of movie reviews, which I haven't seen yet, and I really wanted to see it. 

[00:26:25] Emily Quann: so wanna 

[00:26:26] Don Early: Oh 

[00:26:27] my 

[00:26:27] Jeremy Spray: see it too. Maybe we should like try to pull a trip together. That would be amazing.

[00:26:31] Emily Quann: Oh my gosh, that would be so much.

[00:26:33] Don Early: It, it would be, it would be badass. I, uh, so the fact that all three of us are in agreement on that, I think speaks volumes. Um.

[00:26:43] Emily Quann: I mean, John Leguizamo, David Harbor,

[00:26:47] Jeremy Spray: Harbor.

[00:26:48] Emily Quann: what is, what is not to love about this film? I'm already sold, I'm giving it like two thumbs up already just based on the previews that I've seen.

[00:26:57] Don Early: Well,

[00:26:59] I know better 

[00:26:59] Jeremy Spray: the [00:27:00] way, did either of you watch the trailer for rare exports?

[00:27:02] Emily Quann: Yes.

[00:27:03] Don Early: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:04] I don't think I 

[00:27:05] Jeremy Spray: that they gave away the ending and showed you the entire film before the film didn't surprise you or shock you or upset you by any means?

[00:27:10] Emily Quann: Did you watch a different trailer?

[00:27:12] Jeremy Spray: A hundred percent. Watch the two minute trailer that showed them exporting the Santas at the end.

[00:27:17] Emily Quann: Uh, well, I don't remember that part. I,

[00:27:22] I

[00:27:23] I've 

[00:27:23] Jeremy Spray: to let you know 

[00:27:24] Emily Quann: I watched Gigantic explosions 

[00:27:27] and 

[00:27:28] Jeremy Spray: moment, the, the best giveaway of what the film is and like all this buildup that that leads you to, like, what the hell are they doing? And then selling them off at 85,000 a piece. Like, I was like, I knew this was coming. You told me this already.

[00:27:40] Emily Quann: Oh,

[00:27:41] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[00:27:42] Don Early: Well, it's in the title

[00:27:44] Jeremy Spray: Finish

[00:27:46] Emily Quann: But how cute was the logo?

[00:27:49] Jeremy Spray: the logo

[00:27:50] Emily Quann: Right? Thank 

[00:27:51] you. 

[00:27:52] Jeremy Spray: the logo. Yeah. I'll give you

[00:27:53] Emily Quann: a charming movie. I j I love it

[00:27:56] Jeremy Spray: Wait, wait. You just made a leap From cute logo to [00:28:00] great charming movie. That's a, that's a chasm that you just 

[00:28:04] Emily Quann: guys. I have seen this movie no less than 10 times. I watch it every single year because it brings me so much happiness.

[00:28:13] Don Early: Yeah. On that note,

[00:28:17] Emily Quann: I'm like that

Lore setup: What do we commonly know about Santa?

[00:28:18] Don Early: let's, let's dive in. So, I wanted to go down the route of, I just want to know about the Devil Santas, I wanna know about the evil Santas and, and what is the deal with that? Turns out you can't really do that very well without covering both, uh, because like a good mythology, uh, it's, they're integrated.

[00:28:46] And so today, let's start off with who, what do we know about Santa Claus? List the, all the things that are popularly known that we are, that are [00:29:00] common knowledge of who is Santa Claus? What is Santa Claus? Go ahead. 

[00:29:05] Emily Quann: so I, I have follow up questions to your question. Are we talking about the Coca-Cola, Santa Claus, or are we talking about

[00:29:13] Jeremy Spray: everything,

[00:29:13] Emily Quann: St. 

[00:29:14] Don Early: All, all of it. All of it. All of. So St. We have a name. St. Nicholas.

[00:29:20] Jeremy Spray: Nicholas, uh, he has several names. In fact, there's also Chris Cringle.

[00:29:24] Emily Quann: yeah.

[00:29:24] Jeremy Spray: Santa Claus, uh, Pere Noel, Father Christmas 

[00:29:28] Don Early: Okay. Father Christmas. Yep.

[00:29:30] Emily Quann: Uh, gold coins in, uh, socks that were hung up to dry at the, the fireplace.

[00:29:38] Jeremy Spray: or eventually later on. Toys and candy,

[00:29:40] Don Early: Toys and candy. And presents in the, in the stockings. Yep.

[00:29:44] Jeremy Spray: Lives in the North Pole,

[00:29:45] Don Early: Lives in the North Pole. Yep.

[00:29:49] Emily Quann: elves as workers in the workshop. Building toys.

[00:29:54] Jeremy Spray: drives a sleigh. Uh, that powered by flying reindeer in some areas. Gives toys [00:30:00] to children who are good. Gives coal to children who are bad or naughty. Naughty. A nice

[00:30:05] list, 

[00:30:05] Emily Quann: Naughty & Nice 

[00:30:06] Don Early: Naughty & nice

[00:30:07] Has a list.

[00:30:08] Jeremy Spray: Has a

[00:30:09] Emily Quann: yeah, there's a 

[00:30:10] Jeremy Spray: Keeps track.

[00:30:11] Don Early: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:12] Jeremy Spray: Fucking watches you,

[00:30:13] Don Early: Yeah.

[00:30:15] Jeremy Spray: Everybody can do it all.

[00:30:18] Emily Quann: old 

[00:30:18] Don Early: he look like? 

[00:30:19] Emily Quann: watching little kids.

[00:30:20] Jeremy Spray: man. Right. So, so he large, jolly old man, long white beard.

[00:30:25] Red, red outfits

[00:30:27] Emily Quann: red. Yeah. Yeah. With white fur,

[00:30:30] Don Early: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

[00:30:31] Jeremy Spray: more often than I, yeah.

[00:30:33] Don Early: And the

[00:30:34] mechanism. 

[00:30:35] Emily Quann: black belts, uh, rosy cheeks,

[00:30:40] Don Early: Rosy cheeks.

[00:30:41] Jeremy Spray: Comes in through the chimney.

[00:30:42] Don Early: Yes. Comes in through the chimney and brings toys.

[00:30:47] Jeremy Spray: What else?

[00:30:49] Don Early: what else we got?

[00:30:50] Jeremy Spray: That's Santa Claus, right? That's

[00:30:52] Don Early: Yeah, so Chris Kringle, St. Nick,

[00:30:56] Jeremy Spray: that

[00:30:57] Don Early: thing.

[00:30:58] Emily Quann: a

[00:30:58] Jeremy Spray: para Noel Father Christmas. Right? [00:31:00] Same thing.

[00:31:00] Don Early: Father Christmas.

[00:31:00] Emily Quann: a wife, Mrs. 

[00:31:02] Don Early: Mrs. Claus. Yeah. Has a wife.

[00:31:05] Emily Quann: I don't know. He reads letters from kids. Kids write letters to Santa. I don't know.

[00:31:11] Don Early: Yeah. 

[00:31:11] Jeremy Spray: Takes lists.

[00:31:12] Don Early: Toy maker.

[00:31:13] Jeremy Spray: Toy maker

[00:31:15] Don Early: yeah. Alright. That's a pretty good list. You know, these are kind of the, the general things. Well, how's, we'll find out.

St. Nicolas of Myra

[00:31:23] Don Early: This comes from a whole bunch of shit. Whole bunch of shit. And, uh, so a lot of Christians say that Santa started with Saint Nicholas. This is a real historical figure. Uh, from the fourth century. It was a Greek, under the Roman, Roman empire, you know. Um, And he came from a wealthy family, St. Nicholas of Myra.

[00:31:55] And, uh, when his parents died, he had all this wealth and the [00:32:00] story goes that he would secretly, he would not be overt about it, he would secretly, uh, leave, you know, coins in the shoes of kids or, you know, drop toys, maybe down the chimney. I don't remember exactly, uh, some of those stories. But one of the big stories is that doesn't actually get told in church very often, which oddly enough, is that, um, there is a story of, uh, three daughters.

[00:32:30] And, for three consecutive nights, St. Nicholas or this Nick guy dropped a bag of coins down, I think it was down the chimney, or through a window or something, for each night. For three nights in a row so that, um, their father didn't have to sell them into prostitution and that he could [00:33:00] now afford to buy a dowry for each of his daughters

[00:33:05] Jeremy Spray: Oh wow. That's.

[00:33:07] Don Early: So he heard that, uh, these three girls were going to be sold into prostitution cuz they were really poor. Um, and this is a thing that he did. So, you know, trying to, and, and ultimately Nicholas of Myra was a bishop. He, he was made bishop and he, uh, is most known for using his wealth to, uh, to provide charity and, and gift giving to children.

[00:33:39] He is not the first gift giver around the Christmas time, uh, in, in all of history or lore. He is one of them. He was the Christian one, and the one that everybody sort of gets like concocted to.

[00:33:57] Another one is [00:34:00] Odin.

Odin

[00:34:01] Jeremy Spray: Odin?

[00:34:02] Don Early: Odin.

[00:34:03] Jeremy Spray: Nice.

[00:34:04] Don Early: Odin in, uh, the Solstice, uh, would begin the long hunt or the wild hunt. Uh, he rode an eight legged horse and, they would f uh, fly and.

[00:34:24] Just, uh, unleash this massive, you know, specters and uh, and Gods, uh, roaming the land. And if you were caught out at night, uh, they would harvest your soul. They would take your, your soul or, or you would have to join the hunt or, or, or go along with him. And if you were particularly good or you pleased Odin, he would, uh, provide gifts. So Odin, old guy, long beard, um, wore a hat, and that sort of [00:35:00] thing. Horse flew, eight legged horse flew. Um,

[00:35:06] Jeremy Spray: like

[00:35:06] Emily Quann: I, I heard that as like, oh, the horses were sick,

[00:35:11] Don Early: horse flu,

[00:35:12] Emily Quann: So I was like, well, I've heard of swine flu and bird flu. So

[00:35:16] Don Early: Yeah, so, and then you're gonna read a lot of stuff of like, no, Santa Claus is not Odin. Well, he's kind of Odin, he's not totally Odin. You're totally right about that. But, um, but there's a bit of that in there. And again, it depends on where you're getting your lore. You know, some of this is North Germanic, some of it's South Germanic.

[00:35:41] Um, it just kind of depends. But then you can kind of get into some of these other, uh, middle European, even into Iceland,

[00:35:54] Jeremy Spray: I was actually gonna ask that real quick right before we jump in, is everything that we know about Santa [00:36:00] is that all European, Iceland, like this is not an international figure, right? Other than what it's come out of from the US and.

[00:36:07] Don Early: I mean, so, um, the, the Russia and the Slavi cultures have their own sort of Santa like person. Um, he's actually more, uh, I think it's translated Grandfather Frost and he's more around all things, wintery. So it's not really evil. He's not really nice, but

[00:36:35] Jeremy Spray: the cold.

[00:36:36] Don Early: he's, he's, he is where we get Jack Frost kind of, you know, kind of comes from that as well a little bit.

[00:36:42] But, uh, but for the most part, will, all the things that we know about Santa Claus, is European and Iceland and, and Christianity trying to superimpose their own sort of context [00:37:00] on all these different cultures and lores, which then spreads to other countries as it goes. So it's kind of part packaged and parcel.

[00:37:09] I'm, I didn't find this, but, uh, so what happens is, like the Dutch, so we have, we have St. Nicholas, right? And he gets a, he gets his own church, uh, even a little bit later on a church named after him. And this goes on for quite a while, up until I think about the Reformation, um, which is the 15 hundreds, uh, CE where the Protestant Reformation is.

Sinterklaas

[00:37:39] Don Early: So we're dumping all the saints, right? No more Catholic shit. This is bullshit. We're not doing that anymore. We're not gonna revere or, or, um, ask for Saints for any, you know, uh, intermediary kind of stuff, um, and that sort of thing. So, uh, the Dutch [00:38:00] create Sinterklaas, uh, Sinterklaas k l a a s, um, and he's essentially like a repackaged St. Nicholas. Um, he wears like a red bishop's robe. He's got the red bishop or the, the Golden Bishop hat he wear, he, he carries the bishop's cane and that sort of thing. Um, and so this tradition of Sinterklaas, uh, gets carried on and even passed on to, uh, the Americas when they, when they settle into, uh, the colonies, um, I think in Pennsylvania and whatnot.

[00:38:42] Um, and so they bring that sort of part of the culture and then Sinterklaas again, brings gifts to those who were, you know, who were good and that sort of thing. Um, but they also often these cultures [00:39:00] who, so we have Sinterklaass, um, and, uh, there are other cultures that we we'll get into in a second that.

[00:39:12] Had that sort of naughty, nice kind of thing, right? So Sinterklaas would have, would provide the gifts, but he had maybe had a partner or, uh, his equivalent figure in this lore would have a partner, um, who doled out the whoopins,

[00:39:33] Jeremy Spray: the punishment

Krampus

[00:39:34] Don Early: the punishments. And so, in Austria, uh, there was Krampus and Au in it.

[00:39:46] It comes from a, a German word meaning claw. Uh, and so Krampus actually predates Christianity, and his lore [00:40:00] is traced to the Norse mythology as thought to be a son of Hel. Uh, the goddess of the dead. And so, uh, he would,

[00:40:14] Jeremy Spray: I, I wanna make sure I heard that correctly. Krampus the claw is son of Hel. H e l, the goddess. Got it. Alright, great.

[00:40:24] Emily Quann: Hela, goddess of death?

[00:40:27] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[00:40:28] Don Early: Yeah. And so, uh, he, his role is like, gather up the wicked children and cart them off to hell. Um, or yeah.

[00:40:41] Or to be eaten or tortured, uh, in his own layer. And what's interesting is that, you know, it, it started out as like, he will take you to Hel. Hel, is his mother.[00:41:00] 

[00:41:01] But when Christianity came around, it was, no, I'll take you to hell.

[00:41:06] The place of eternal damnation. Yeah. So,

[00:41:11] Jeremy Spray: Christians

[00:41:12] Don Early: yeah, so Krampus then follows around, uh, St. Nicholas on December 5th, the eve of St. Nicholas, or actually Santa, he follows around Santa or the Santa equivalent. And, uh, the Santa figure provides gifts and the Krampus figure, uh, whips with a birch, branch, doling out the spankings.

[00:41:43] Jeremy Spray: Dang.

[00:41:44] Don Early: Um, or, uh, your kid just disappears and I, he gets stuffed in a sack and hauled off.

[00:41:56] Emily Quann: So at what point did we change from Santa [00:42:00] Claus coming the night of Christmas Eve

[00:42:05] Don Early: Yeah,

[00:42:06] Emily Quann: to Santa coming December, the night of December 5th with Krampus. Or I mean, or right. As, I mean at what point did that change? So at what point did it change from, oh, okay. So then it all of a sudden became the 24th to coincide with the winter solstice.

[00:42:26] Don Early: No to, it changed to December 25th, which coincided with Christmas. Um, Christmas has already been established. 

[00:42:34] Emily Quann: set there because it was easier to turn Pagans Christian 

[00:42:37] Don Early: yeah, 

[00:42:38] Emily Quann: setting that date close to the winter solstice. Okay. 

[00:42:42] Don Early: Saturnalia and. 

[00:42:43] Emily Quann: okay, so Santa used to come on the fifth.

[00:42:47] Don Early: Uh, actually Santa used to come on the sixth, which is, uh, St. Nicholas Day. But when, um, when the Reformation hit and uh, [00:43:00] it was like outlawed to do anything to do with, um, the Saint, then they could get away with it going the day before.

[00:43:12] Emily Quann: Ah.

[00:43:13] Don Early: and uh, and now we have this Krampus figure, um, which kind of took off on its own as its own sort of lore.

[00:43:24] And today Krampusnaucht is its own giant festival and it's a real thing that you can go see and it's really fun. And um,

[00:43:33] Emily Quann: So what year was the Reformation?

[00:43:35] Don Early: uh, that was Martin Luther. That was the 1530s

[00:43:40] or whatever. Yeah. 

[00:43:43] Emily Quann: 15 hundreds.

[00:43:44] Don Early: Yeah. 16th century as it were. and, uh, and yeah, so that is, that's our origin for Krampus. And Krampus of course, has this devil like horns, it's covered in hair typically, [00:44:00] usually has at least one foot is a cloven hoof, if not both.

[00:44:05] and, uh, and, and so it was, uh, obviously banned in certain, uh, under certain times because of his, uh, resemblance to the devil himself, you know? Um, so yeah.

[00:44:24] Jeremy Spray: So going back you, we mentioned, say Nicholas first. Is that the first occurrence? Historically of Santa Claus is the St. Nicholas story, uh, from the Christian side 

[00:44:35] Don Early: So Santa Claus doesn't come until the 1800's

[00:44:42] Emily Quann: Until Coca-Cola

[00:44:43] Don Early: No. Before

[00:44:44] Emily Quann: No, I'm, I'm kidding. Yeah.

[00:44:46] Don Early: Coca-Cola cements it later on in the early 1930s. But, uh, Santa Claus comes out of Sinterklaas. It's a translation or, or a [00:45:00] translator, you know, um, whatever morphing of that. Similarly, uh, another tradition is happening where, uh, the 

Kriskingel aka Chris Cringle/Kris Kringle

[00:45:12] Don Early: Christ child, everything's supposed to be the Christ child kind of thing.

[00:45:16] You know, where the Christ Jesus is the source of all good things, right? So it, there is a tradition of, of the Christ child is the one that brings you gifts. And this was called, um, Chris, Kriskingel or Chris King, Chriskingel?

[00:45:42] Jeremy Spray: Like, like the Chris Kringle, but, but, but the original term of.

[00:45:46] Don Early: yeah. Um, it wasn't Chris Kringle. It was Kriskingel, I think is what it was called. And it

[00:45:52] Emily Quann: When you said Chris King, I was like, oh, Christ King,

[00:45:54] Don Early: and it's, uh, supposed to be, it's, it's, uh, I think as German word or or [00:46:00] something, uh, a cannon. It's, um, supposed to be, uh, translated as the Christ child. Well, as you can imagine, that didn't really make a whole lot of sense.

[00:46:11] People were really stuck on this old guy with a beard being the gift bringer. And this whole like, infant bringing gifts doesn't make a lot. Sense. Um, and then we get this guy that 

Belsnickel

[00:46:29] Don Early: gets, um, sort of imported from Germany into Pennsylvania called Belsnickel. And he is this older male, disheveled, he's got a beard, but he wears like really shoddy clothing.

[00:46:46] He's dirty. Um, and uh, kind of comes from like Dutch customs as well. And he carries a switch and to, you know, [00:47:00] beat the naughty children or at least frighten them. And, but if they're good, he's carrying candy and nuts and fruit and cakes in his pockets and he hands those out. Um, and he, Belsnickel gets associated with Kriskingel.

[00:47:18] But in America there's a sort of a mistake in the translation and it becomes Kris Kringle.

[00:47:27] Jeremy Spray: Yep.

[00:47:28] Don Early: he gets associated or gets this name of Kris Kringle a, you know, gift bearing, but also, you know, naughty switch beating, um, uh, person.

[00:47:42] Jeremy Spray: That checks out. I, I a hundred percent believe that's exactly how the name would be occurring is, is that someone mishear it. Everyone else likes the mishearing version of it better because now we're in America and that's what we start calling it. Absolutely. Buy that a hundred percent.

[00:47:59] Don Early: And then of course [00:48:00] later on as Santa Claus gets established from Sinterklaas. And then, you know, we want to bring this Chris Kringle over and we're just gonna mash that up into there as well. And cuz it works and yeah. So we're getting there. But that's Belsnickel. He's this. Uh, you should look up.

[00:48:20] I, I, I'm gonna have loads of, um, uh, different links and stuff in the, in the description. I'm gonna try that again.

[00:48:33] Emily Quann: I am gonna have loads,

[00:48:34] Don Early: gonna have loads. Oh man, it's been a long night. Um, yeah, the links to, uh, different articles and YouTube videos, uh, from where I dug up all this stuff up, uh, are, is in the show description. So definitely check those out. There's some really cool illustrations of these different characters. Um, Belsnickel in particular is kind of a, a [00:49:00] funny odd duck.

Hans Trappc

[00:49:02] Don Early: Hans Trapp is another anti Santa who hands out punishment to, uh, shitty children in like different parts of France. Um, this is where I think. Uh, Rare Exports, uh, got this bit, um, that he wa uh, legend says he was a real man who was rich and greedy, and who apparently worshiped Satan and was excommunicated from the church.

[00:49:31] So he was, uh, then like, you know, like in a lot of these stories, booted off, he lives in the forest where he preys on children. Um, well, he disguises himself as a scarecrow and, uh, even like, you know, straw jutting out from its clothing and, um, you know, tries to kill them or whatever. Well, oh no, it's not Hans Trapp.

[00:49:58] It's the next one I, I was gonna [00:50:00] get to. They kinda run in, run together a little bit depending on, but, uh, he gets struck down, uh, dead, uh, by lightning, by his own God, apparently.

[00:50:12] Jeremy Spray: that's amazing. I wanna see that movie

[00:50:15] Don Early: Yeah.

[00:50:15] But, uh, 

[00:50:16] Jeremy Spray: Killer that gets knocked out by Lightning.

[00:50:18] Don Early: he still comes back every year and visits young children before Christmas to scare them into good behavior.

[00:50:26] Jeremy Spray: Come on now. That is the kind of mythology that we should be talking about right there. The, the, like, you can tell such a good horror story about Hans Trapp who lives out there eight miles away in the frigging forest that you can go through the cornfields and if you see a scarecrow effing run. Cuz that's how he used to get kids until he was struck down by lightning.

[00:50:50] But every year he still returns. Like that's,

[00:50:55] Don Early: Writes itself.

[00:50:56] Rights 

[00:50:57] Jeremy Spray: creepers all

[00:50:57] Emily Quann: on it. Jeremy

[00:50:59] Don Early: yeah.

[00:50:59] Jeremy Spray: it's, [00:51:00] it was called Jeepers creepers. It was already made, but still it's a great story.

Pere Fouettard

[00:51:02] Don Early: Yeah. So, uh, I cannot pronounce this. Uh, it's French, uh, it's PET

[00:51:12] Emily Quann: Oh, where are you going with that

[00:51:13] Jeremy Spray: Spell it, spell it. You're not helping yourself.

[00:51:16] Don Early: I don't know, p e r e. And then the last name is F O U E T T A R D. I don't know.

[00:51:25] Jeremy Spray: per tale, which is father something.

[00:51:28] Don Early: yeah, Father Whipper.

[00:51:29] Jeremy Spray: Father Whipper.

[00:51:30] Don Early: Yeah. Uh, and so this is the one I was thinking of. Uh, he's an evil butcher who used to crave children to eat. And so he lures, uh, these three boys into a shop where he kills them, chops them up and salts them. And Saint Nick comes to the rec rescue resurrects these kids, oh, by the way, he's offered the kids as a snack.

[00:51:58] First off, when St. [00:52:00] Nick shows up, uh, this guy offers and he immediately recognizes who they are, and he resurrects them. And, uh, uh, takes, then he takes custody of this butcher, this evil guy,

[00:52:16] Emily Quann: he was on the naughty list.

[00:52:18] Don Early: and now goes everywhere. St. Nick goes as a threat to naughty kids.

[00:52:27] Jeremy Spray: He recruits him.

[00:52:28] Don Early: uh, you do, you keep doing, you, I'm going to use that.

[00:52:34] I like this act you got going on. Uh,

[00:52:37] Emily Quann: You show PR promise

[00:52:41] Jeremy Spray: you got here. You

[00:52:42] Emily Quann: I, I like your drive. Come on board.

[00:52:46] Don Early: I, I want to tell you about an opening that I have. It's in a North Pole, but every year

[00:52:57] Emily Quann: Well sign me up. I'm in.[00:53:00] 

Iceland

[00:53:01] Don Early: Alright, so we've got some of that weird shit going on. Um, let's go to Iceland because that's where things get real out there.

[00:53:14] Um, 

[00:53:14] Emily Quann: weren't before.

[00:53:15] Don Early: yeah.

[00:53:16] Jeremy Spray: I love Iceland. I just love that so many times we can say this is where the weird stuff comes from, and we almost always point there at one point or

[00:53:25] Don Early: Yeah, that island.

[00:53:26] Jeremy Spray: That island 

[00:53:27] Don Early: Oh man.

[00:53:29] Emily Quann: Have either of you been?

[00:53:30] Don Early: No.

[00:53:32] Jeremy Spray: I understand. It's very green,

[00:53:33] Emily Quann: I have friends who went and they said it was like the coolest trip they've ever been on.

[00:53:39] Jeremy Spray: super magic. Yeah.

Jólakötturinn aka Yule Cat

[00:53:40] Don Early: So let me tell you about the Christmas cat or the Yule cat.

[00:53:45] Jeremy Spray: Yes, please.

[00:53:46] Emily Quann: I know. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:47] Don Early: Jólakötturinn is his name. Uh, and he is not a nice cat. Think about like a giant children [00:54:00] eating Cheshire cat.

[00:54:02] Jeremy Spray: Got it.

[00:54:03] Don Early: Um,

[00:54:04] Jeremy Spray: I mean,

[00:54:05] Don Early: uh, he, uh, so his tradition is that, uh, when he's on the prowl, he looks for any of the kids who do not have any article of clothing that is new. If y if all your clothing is like shodden and worn out, you are the target.

[00:54:27] And the reason is because, um, who, who put in the work who, who were not lazy, always had at least something new to show for it. It was a sign of your hard work. And those who were lazy looked like it.

[00:54:50] Jeremy Spray: Wow, that is an entitled cat.

[00:54:53] Don Early: Yeah, 

[00:54:53] Emily Quann: that, is the opposite of what I would 

[00:54:55] Don Early: yeah. 

[00:54:56] Emily Quann: You're working so hard. Your clothes are messed up and disheveled and

[00:54:59] Don Early: [00:55:00] yeah, so to encourage they, uh, the children to work hard, do your chores, that sort of thing. They told the story of the Yule Cat, the Jólakötturinn. Um, It wasn't enough because they recognized that some family were just poor. So it was also your duty to make sure that those people had something new as well,

[00:55:26] so that they didn't get innocently s you know, sucked up by the, by the, the cat,

[00:55:33] Emily Quann: I was like, God, talk about class wars here. Thanks Iceland.

[00:55:37] Don Early: But, uh, it's, they apparently have some real issues around like work ethic cuz you know, it's, you know, you do the work and they have like the most overtime of any nation apparently, and

[00:55:53] Emily Quann: Oh geez.

[00:55:54] Don Early: Yeah. Yeah. That's

[00:55:56] Jeremy Spray: So it, it's, it's a cultural thing for work ethic. [00:56:00] Got it.

[00:56:00] Emily Quann: If you don't work hard, a cat's gonna come and eat you.

Yule Lads

[00:56:03] Don Early: yeah. Um, then let's talk about, uh, where are they? The Yule lads?

[00:56:17] Jeremy Spray: You made that one up,

[00:56:19] Don Early: No, no. They're 13 Icelandic trolls that each have a distinct personality and they usually used to like steal things and cause trouble around Christmas time. Uh, and so they were used to sort of scare children into behaving much like the Yule cat. Um, but as times kind of got more modern, they're like, eh, maybe this, we gotta borrow some stuff from the Santa Claus thing going on over in, you know, Norway or, uh, the Americas.

[00:56:51] And, um, you know, uh, maybe they should bring gifts and and stuff instead. know,[00:57:00] 

[00:57:01] Jeremy Spray: Yule lads went all Backstreet 

[00:57:02] Don Early: Yeah, 

[00:57:03] Jeremy Spray: Doc Girl. We're cool now.

Grýla

[00:57:06] Don Early: but the Yule Lads were nothing compared to, uh, their mother Grýla she predates the Yule Lads, uh, by a long shot, and she's like an ogress who kidnaps, cooks and eats children who don't obey their parents. Um, she got, uh, associated with Christmas in the 17th century when she was assigned as the mother of the Yule Lads, um,

[00:57:35] Jeremy Spray: What was her name? You said Grella?

[00:57:38] Don Early: Uh, G R Y L A.

[00:57:41] Um 

[00:57:42] Jeremy Spray: of, uh, of, of Beowulf.

[00:57:44] Don Early: hmm.

[00:57:45] Jeremy Spray: Didn't he? Uh, right when he went on his journey, he went and, and conquered, uh, what was the name of the, of the bad guy.

[00:57:55] Emily Quann: I don't know. I repressed

[00:57:56] Jeremy Spray: It was like Gra Andre's.

[00:57:58] Don Early: Grendel 

[00:57:59] Jeremy Spray: Grendel. [00:58:00] Thank you. Yeah, that's right. It was Grendel.

[00:58:02] Yeah.

[00:58:03] All right, cool. Thank you,

[00:58:04] Don Early: Um, so she had, Grýla had apparently three different husbands and 72 children, uh, who caused trouble ranging from harmless mischief to outright slaughter and murder. Um, yeah, so she's fun. 

[00:58:21] Jeremy Spray: a spectrum.

[00:58:22] Don Early: Uh, we're gonna, we're gonna take a break from Iceland. Uh, oh, by the way, uh, the Jólakötturinn, uh, the Yu Lad.

[00:58:30] I just love saying that cause I actually looked it up and was like, how do you pronounce this? Um, probably still pronouncing wrong, but I like it. Um, uh, there, uh, the Yule cat is, uh, their house cat.

[00:58:43] Jeremy Spray: Oh, perfect. So they're all 

[00:58:45] Don Early: It's all all the same house.

[00:58:47] Jeremy Spray: God. Worst family 

[00:58:49] Don Early: Brutal, brutal 

Frau Perchta

[00:58:51] Don Early: household there. Um, uh, and then we have Perchta or Berchta? [00:59:00] Uh, Perchta.

[00:59:00] Emily Quann: I was picturing Gargamel and Azrial there, but 

[00:59:04] Don Early: Oh yeah. 

[00:59:05] Jeremy Spray: Nice. 

[00:59:05] Don Early: Right. 

[00:59:06] Emily Quann: cat, except

[00:59:07] Don Early: So in Germany and Austria, there was Frau Perchta uh, I think is how you pronounce her name, and she's a witch who hands out both rewards and punishment during the 12 days of Christmas. So 25 through Janu, January 6th through Epiphany. And, uh, she, she actually, she had a broom that she flew on and she flew down your chimney to

[00:59:35] Emily Quann: Ooh, here we go.

[00:59:37] Don Early: Um, and. Her story is my favorite for the wicked children. If she found that you were, uh, sinful, she would, um, get into your house and then rip out your intestines, and stuff the hole with garbage and sew it back up.

[00:59:59] Jeremy Spray: Oh my God,

[00:59:59] Emily Quann: [01:00:00] my God.

[01:00:05] Jeremy Spray: there's no halfway around that

[01:00:07] Don Early: No, no. She means business. Um, and, uh, she's, she's thought to have descended from like the alpine goddess of nature, um, w who tends a forest and, and, uh, only really deals with humans during Christmas time. So, you know, hold your guts.

[01:00:29] So 

[01:00:30] Jeremy Spray: I got, I got one more thing that like, I don't know if you dove into this, but the. We mentioned Yule a couple of times, right? It, Emily, you mentioned it and, and Don, you were bringing up for Iceland, like Yule was the, the non-Christian, right? The, the, the Pagan turning of the winter Equinox and, and there was, there's the whole celebration of, of 

[01:00:49] Don Early: O Odin was, uh, like a Yule father.

[01:00:52] Jeremy Spray: Oh yeah.

[01:00:52] The Yule father. Right. So, so that, that was kind of what I was, uh, originally asking about, like where does this, [01:01:00] I don't know that this character figure outside of the Christian Saint Nick, like originally base itself from it. And is that really kind of the basis that we can look at is Odin and that you'll switch and, and just different variations 

[01:01:15] Don Early: it's all of these, right? I mean, it's just like we've seen with the devil and these different, um, characters. It's wherever your culture is and how you deal with these stories, um, and whatnot and, and particularly, and then if Christianity comes around, they much like the Romans, they just like, oh, let's borrow that shit and make it work into this story.

[01:01:38] And, um, and that sort of thing. So it, it's kind of, it's kind of all the, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

[01:01:45] Jeremy Spray: I am just, I'm fascinated that there's this repeated story of getting your comeuppance around Yule right near, near the end of the year. In the darkest time of the year, you either get taken care of by [01:02:00] neighbors or receive treats from some unknown entity or a God, or you get your intestines ripped out and filled with garbage.

[01:02:07] Don Early: Yeah.

[01:02:08] Jeremy Spray: It's just, it's 

[01:02:09] Don Early: I mean, consider the time of year and where these are located. It's cold.

[01:02:16] Jeremy Spray: It's cold and dark.

[01:02:18] Don Early: Winter is brutal.

[01:02:22] Jeremy Spray: I was thinking about that when watching Rare Exports that there were like three different scenes where they started in the morning. The second scene was the afternoon and the third scene, it was dark and like they never talked about the transition. They just like, well, we went from one side of the town to the other and it was dark.

[01:02:37] I was like, what the ? It's, I was just assuming that's how it was. Right. Four hours of light or whatever.

[01:02:42] Don Early: hats off to all those older gentlemen who stood there in the snow buck naked for how many hours? I don't know, but holy damn. Those some tough dudes,

[01:02:57] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[01:02:59] Don Early: Yeah.[01:03:00] 

[01:03:00] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. I wasn't excited about that scene by the way. It felt like I could have gotten like a, a warning. No one warned me. You knew. You knew there were naked men in there,

[01:03:08] Don Early: sometimes you just, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

[01:03:14] Jeremy Spray: Still not my favorite. Emily

[01:03:16] Don Early: it's, it's, it's fine.

[01:03:17] Emily Quann: Sorry. It's good. And you know what? Penises and balls exist and women have to watch movies all the time with their breasts and vages hanging out so men can can watch movies with penises and balls hanging out.

[01:03:29] Don Early: It's fair.

[01:03:30] Jeremy Spray: Fair. It's fair. Great point. Great point.

[01:03:33] Emily Quann: So you didn't need a warning.

[01:03:37] Jeremy Spray: female gaze.

[01:03:42] Don Early: Yeah. Um, okay, so, I'm not gonna go into, uh, I think his name is Black Peter. Um, it there anyway, basically it's in a long line of Santa has a helper or, or a partner [01:04:00] really, uh, like a equal partner. Santa does the good thing, is the carrot and then the partner, it doles out the beatings and stuffs you in a sack and, you know, carries you off. There's a lot. Blackface tradition around, uh, this Black Peter character. So, um, you know, there's links to that if you wanna read more about it, but it's, uh, obviously doesn't hold up.

[01:04:29] Um, yeah. Uh, actually was Sinterklaas's, uh, partner apparently in Netherland and Belgium.

[01:04:38] Jeremy Spray: Okay. It was a familiar name and I was thinking about, uh, the Santa Claus with the long cane, like, like a shepherd script or whatnot that I've seen before. But there was, there was a character 

[01:04:50] Don Early: Yeah. The long cane, uh, that is definitely Sinterklaas, which is model after, uh, Bishop Nicholas.

[01:04:59] Uh, yeah, a [01:05:00] hundred percent. So, How did we get to the fat jolly old elf, you know, big guy 

Father Christmas

[01:05:08] Don Early: with red and all of that. Because in Britain also we have Father Christmas who gets away from this sort of like Sinterklaas, but also not super, uh, religious as well.

[01:05:24] It's just sort of this Christmastime father figure. Um, and that I think is more directly related to Odin. Uh, and there is more of a tradition around Father Christmas and Christmastime being more adult activities, uh, being ruckus and rowdy and drinking and parties, um, and that sort of thing. And so that's where we, we kind of get this, the whole idea of caroling, which is very similar to trick or [01:06:00] treating, is you go, you know, the, the original tradition is that these people would go around and show up at your doorstep and demand that you give them stuff.

[01:06:11] Um, either strong drink or presents or, uh, uh, cakes or whatever.

[01:06:18] Jeremy Spray: It's in the songs

[01:06:19] Don Early: and if you don't do it, then they'll beat the hell out of you and lay you on your doorstep or break your house or, you know, vandalize. And it's, uh, you know, so the, there was some.

[01:06:33] Emily Quann: That's not the caroling. I know, but

[01:06:35] Jeremy Spray: We won't leave until we get some. We won't leave until we get some. We won't leave until we

[01:06:46] Don Early: So bring some out here.

[01:06:48] Jeremy Spray: Yep.

[01:06:51] Don Early: Okay. Um, and so there was, there's some thought around that. [01:07:00] Uh, the concepts that we have now, were a conscious sort of rebranding of that time to make it less ruckus and less rowdy and less violent. Um, and to really tame it down and, and kind of change things up. So there's some thought that the conservative elite wanted to protect their valuables, um, and spun the story differently to quiet that shit down. Um, and so, yeah, and maybe that's probably true. Uh, kind of tracks, but it wasn't until now. Where do I have my notes? 

Thomas Nast

[01:07:39] Emily Quann: Thomas Nast? 

[01:07:41] Don Early: Yes, 

[01:07:42] Emily Quann: oh, really? Because that pull that pulled up political cartoons, but, 

[01:07:46] okay. 

[01:07:46] Don Early: Yeah, that's the one. Thomas Nast. Thank you. Uh, Thomas Nast, uh, illustrated the very first, most memorable illustration of Santa Claus, [01:08:00] uh, of this jolly, you know, rotund, bearded white, bearded man in a red suit. Um, and. This, this happened first, and it started kind of creating this image in the mind of, of people.

[01:08:18] And advertisement as we were gonna see makes a huge, huge difference in impression on how we, as a culture adopted a certain concept of what this looks like. Uh, and then it was, um, now a lot of people will bullet point to, in 1822, Clement Clark, Clark Moore, 

Clement Clark Moore

[01:08:42] Don Early: uh, writes his famous poem, uh, and it's, you know, Twas the Night Before Christmas, but I think it was also, uh, titled like a Visit from Santa or, or something like that.

[01:08:54] I can't remember the, the, the famous visit or whatever. Well, [01:09:00] uh, according to this guy named Tom Jerman with a J, not a g, Tom Jerman,

[01:09:06] Jeremy Spray: I'm like, yeah, to clarify that, like, was he No, no, no, no, no. It's different guy.

[01:09:11] Don Early: He's not the German, Tom Jerman. Um, he, he wrote a book, uh, called Santa Claus Worldwide, A history of St. Nicholas and Other Holiday Gift Bringers. And, um, and he, what he says is like, literally like yards from Clement car, Clark Moore's, like Winter home, there was a printer, uh, near his house.

[01:09:38] And it, this printer published a book called The Children's Friend. And it had the entire story with illustrations and everything that Moore clearly, uh, that, that it is found in his poem. And so it predates him and, and like this book The [01:10:00] Children's Friend does, didn't get any visibility until the 1950s. And I would say to this day, probably most people don't know about it.

[01:10:07] I didn't know that. I just learned about it today myself. But a lot of people, one way or the other, will attribute that poem to what we know about Santa Claus today. And it does it in, in print. It paints all of these different aspects of Santa, um, brings in him as, you know, Santa Claus, jolly Old St. Nick.

[01:10:37] Um, I don't think we get Chris Kringle, uh, in there. But, uh, it, that will come, uh, eventually. And then of course, in a hundred years later in the Coca-Cola ads, we would, we would get that cemented in, in those, um, very, very memorable, vibrant red and green colors, [01:11:00] uh, of those illustrations.

[01:11:01] Jeremy Spray: It's amazing that this is the 200 year anniversary of that poem 

[01:11:06] Don Early: Hmm. 

[01:11:07] Jeremy Spray: 2022.

[01:11:08] Don Early: Yeah. 

[01:11:08] Jeremy Spray: Cuz I, I know that poem probably better than I know The Lord's Prayer. I don't know either of them a hundred percent. I'll be very clear, but I know both of them about 70 or 80% and so Twas the night before Christmas is one that like, has the cadence that, and the rhythm that that flows.

[01:11:28] So I can get to the next one. I can tell you when the reindeer's names come in and like, and like, like I, that one's really clear for me. So let's, let's kind of a pacing

[01:11:37] Don Early: Yeah. Yeah. And it really, it fascinatingly it, it wasn't, you know, really until then that some of these main elements going down the chimney and all that stuff, and definitely borrowing from Sinterklaas and calling it Santa Claus and um, and that sort of thing, and which,

[01:11:58] Jeremy Spray: right? Yeah.

[01:11:58] Don Early: Yeah. And [01:12:00] Santa of course in Spanish is Saint, um, so, or even Italian as well.

[01:12:06] So that, that also kind of makes me wonder about like, you know, obviously it wasn't a verbatim slip, like it it makes sense Saint Nick Santa Clause, you know, that sort of thing. So that's a lot of the lore where we get a bunch of this stuff and some of these murder Santas and, um, you know, anti Santas that come along. Uh, and, and you know, but then I found this article in Las Vegas Weekly.

The Santanic Conspiracy

[01:12:43] Don Early: The Vast Satanic No, the Vast Santanic Conspiracy.

[01:12:50] Jeremy Spray: That's so much better than the first one. I'm so glad you slipped up on that. I was like, I was like, don't glaze over. And then he went, Santanic Conspiracy, and I was [01:13:00] back into it a hundred percent.

[01:13:01] Don Early: Is Saint Nick the tool of a plot too monstrous to mention? And this article puts it in its place of what this is, but it basically calls out a couple of really extremists Christian, uh, uh, I don't know, uh, evangelical organizations

[01:13:27] that, that have, you know, we're gonna talk about the fact that Satan and Santa are anagrams of each other.

[01:13:39] Emily Quann: There's a SNL church lady

[01:13:41] Don Early: yeah.

[01:13:42] Yeah. 

[01:13:43] Emily Quann: vividly remember her 

[01:13:45] Don Early: You know, 

[01:13:46] Emily Quann: the letters

[01:13:47] Don Early: That, that whole like Chris Kringle Christ child and how that sort of like became the name of a person that, that was [01:14:00] diabolically intentional. Um, uh,

[01:14:03] Jeremy Spray: Stealing it away and starting the 

[01:14:05] Don Early: to Santa Wears Red, the Devil is red. Um, the Santa's known as Saint Nick and the Devil is known as Old Nick. Um, you know, and it brings in a lot of these weird things, uh, but uh, there's real organizations.

[01:14:26] So this one is called, where is it? Um, cutting edge.org. Please God don't go there. It is a website that looks like it was built in 1995.

[01:14:42] Um, but.

[01:14:44] Jeremy Spray: yellow font.

[01:14:45] Don Early: Yeah, it's, uh, and then we've got like, uh, it's got book covers of like the end days and there's like, a gray alien on the cover and it's, it's all kinds of, of out there.[01:15:00] 

[01:15:00] Uh, but they definitely are, picturing and, and painting this Santa lore as a satanic ploy to drive you away from, you know, the true nature of Christmas, which is Jesus, you know. and then, uh, Dr. Terry Watkins over at Dial The Truth Ministries. a uh, Baptist, offshoot, has done something very, very similar.

[01:15:30] Weaves a tangled web connecting the man in red with the great beast. Did you know that the Devil's signature line and Medieval Miracle plays was ho, ho, ho This kinda shit is being pulled together. Um, and then, you know, Santa Claus meaning Satan's claws

[01:15:53] Jeremy Spray: Of course.

[01:15:54] Don Early: and you know, um, and I just have to, [01:16:00] uh, bring it back to this is stuff real people actually believe.

[01:16:06] You know, growing up in, in Idaho, the only really, religious group of people that were like against Christmas and birthdays and anything happy was the Jehovah's Witnesses. Um, and I knew a couple of Jehovah's Witness, uh, in my class who they were very, very, uh, intentional about telling you h how Christmas is a pagan holiday and that it's anti Jesus and that, that they, you know, um, they would pull all of these, a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about tonight as proof that it's not, you know, this whole Santa thing is, is, uh, satanic.

[01:16:54] But it didn't ever occur to me until recently that, uh, other [01:17:00] extremist Christians would hold a, a similar, you know, line

[01:17:07] Jeremy Spray: Right. Yeah. Constantly just trying to rule with fear. The, the more I keep looking at it, the more I'm just aware of the amount of fear used for control.

[01:17:19] Don Early: Mm-hmm.

[01:17:20] Jeremy Spray: Right. And it, and not necessarily because they feel like they have to be in power, but. Because they genuinely are afraid. More often than not, they're super esca afraid of what's gonna happen, and if they don't do something no one else will.

[01:17:35] Right? They're saving the day.

[01:17:36] Don Early: Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that this article points out, uh, is that, I mean, there's a bunch of exhaustive research that these people have put out to sort of explain why, you know, their point and where this lore comes from. And it turns out, you know, basically most of it, maybe they're not wrong about, [01:18:00] you know, as far as like where it comes and how it got to get, you know, I don't think it was this obviously diabolical, satanic, cultist you know, uh, conspiracy from

[01:18:13] Emily Quann: With intention to sell people's souls to the devil or what have you.

[01:18:17] Don Early: You know, culture and the time happens. That's thing that I've learned. people, people share shit together and new stories come and, 

[01:18:30] Emily Quann: I like that people share shit together.

[01:18:33] Don Early: yeah, they do.

[01:18:34] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[01:18:36] Don Early: They really do. They really, really, really do.

[01:18:41] Jeremy Spray: really, really

[01:18:43] Emily Quann: this is getting fucking creepy. You guys need to stop that

[01:18:48] Jeremy Spray: Great white buffalo..

[01:18:50] Don Early: well, on, on, on that note, uh, that concludes all the things that I had put together and, and dug in and I feel like we should leave, [01:19:00] uh, how we started. On movies. 

Murder Santa Movies

[01:19:04] Don Early: So there was, there's a bunch of murder Santa movies out there, particularly starting in the late seventies and on in the heyday of the eighties, let's not forget.

[01:19:15] Um, but the one that I remember the most, but what I don't remember is how many frigging sequels it spawned, cuz apparently I just stopped watching. Was Silent Night, Deadly Night. And this is a movie franchise that apparently has at least five, see

[01:19:34] Jeremy Spray: Oh wow.

[01:19:35] Don Early: of them.

[01:19:36] Jeremy Spray: This is my first time hearing about it, so go on.

[01:19:39] Emily Quann: heard of it. I can't remember if I've seen it. If I have seen Silent Night, Deadly Night, I have definitely not seen the rest of them though.

[01:19:46] Don Early: Yeah. I, I don't think I have either. Um, It. I've, I know I've seen Silent Night, Deadly Night. That was in the eighties. Um, it was kind of in a similar [01:20:00] vein from like, Don't Open Till Christmas, um, and Tales From the Crypt. Did one called All Through the House? Uh,

[01:20:08] Emily Quann: there something called Black Christmas?

[01:20:10] Don Early: yes. Black Christmas is a, yeah, that's, that's a big cult classic, uh, murder Santa. Um, but apparently the nineties, um, is where, the Fi Silent Night. Deadly Night Five was the final entry of the series. Uh, and,

[01:20:35] Emily Quann: That lasted decades.

[01:20:37] Don Early: yeah. Yeah. And apparently seriously convoluted, not surprising here, but um, You know, you can get like the extra gory version on, you know,

[01:20:52] Jeremy Spray: What is now is are they Monster movies or are they just people murderers? A as dressed up as Santa, like Killer clowns.

[01:20:59] Don Early: [01:21:00] Well, uh, I think the first one is just a psycho, you know, psychopath person like they did in the eighties and, and that sort of thing. I don't really remember. It, it, I probably watched it when I was 14 and haven't watched it since.

[01:21:16] Um, but uh, but apparently, uh, it does move on and, and progress to more of a, a monstrous Santa.

[01:21:26] So I bring it up because now I'm kind of interested. Now I kind of want to go check it out. Um,

[01:21:33] Jeremy Spray: of course you do.

[01:21:34] Don Early: I mean there's, there's other ones like Santa Claws

[01:21:38] Jeremy Spray: Sure. Yep.

[01:21:39] Satan 

[01:21:39] Don Early: Klaus and Feeders 2: Sleigh Bells.

[01:21:44] Jeremy Spray: Roku hooked me up when I just, uh, said the word Krampus and I got Lady Krampus and Lady Krampus two,

[01:21:52] Don Early: Whoa.

[01:21:52] Jeremy Spray: uh, Sleigh Another Night or something like that. S L E I G h.

[01:21:57] Don Early: Mm-hmm.

[01:21:58] Jeremy Spray: Yeah,

[01:21:59] Emily Quann: Not [01:22:00] s l a y,

[01:22:01] Jeremy Spray: I, I mean they wanted to make sure they really got the Santa Sleigh in there.

[01:22:08] Don Early: Apparently there's also a Christmas Evil is a film that as your typical murder, Santa Romp, where a child catches his mother having sex with someone in a Santa costume and then builds his naughty or nice list from there.

[01:22:29] Emily Quann: uh,

[01:22:30] Don Early: Some quality films from the eighties. You know, 

[01:22:35] Emily Quann: weren't there like Jack Frost films. Was 

[01:22:39] Don Early: there were

[01:22:40] Emily Quann: horror movies 

[01:22:41] Don Early: Yeah, I, well, 

[01:22:43] Emily Quann: I never saw any of 'em.

[01:22:44] Don Early: There was the Jack Frost films from like, uh Oh.

[01:22:51] Jeremy Spray: There was Michael Keaton's, Jack Frost, but that was a comedy, right?

[01:22:55] Don Early: Yeah. And didn't, um, oh, I [01:23:00] think it was animated though. Uh uh Martin Short was Jack

[01:23:06] Jeremy Spray: Martin Short was Jack Frost in the Santa Clause three.

[01:23:10] Don Early: Yes, that's what it

[01:23:12] Jeremy Spray: that was, that was a Tim Allen versus Martin Short moment.

[01:23:15] Don Early: you go. There you go. That's what I was

[01:23:16] Emily Quann: No, I,

[01:23:17] Don Early: But you're not wrong. I think there is a I think there are, there was, there was a ho In fact, I'm picturing a snowman on the cover of the VHS

[01:23:28] Jeremy Spray: I'm seeing it too.

[01:23:29] Don Early: um, that's like this monstrous snowman.

[01:23:35] Emily Quann: Yeah.

[01:23:36] Don Early: I think it exists. Yeah. So, Go out and find your favorite murder Santa Movie and uh, have some merry holiday.

[01:23:45] Jeremy Spray: 1997 Horror slasher Jack Frost starring Shannon Elizabeth Scott McDonald plays Jack Frost and Christopher Alport was Sam Tiller

[01:23:59] Emily Quann: I thought this was, [01:24:00] I thought this was in the eighties though. Not the late nineties, but

[01:24:04] Jeremy Spray: Height, height of Blockbuster here. 97 The Good Times.

[01:24:10] Don Early: Yeah. Not Blockbuster as in the scale of movie,

[01:24:14] Jeremy Spray: Oh no, no, 

[01:24:14] Don Early: blockbuster

[01:24:15] Emily Quann: Oh,

[01:24:16] Jeremy Spray: Blockbuster video. 

[01:24:17] Emily Quann: Straight to D V D.

[01:24:19] Don Early: walk in the shelves

[01:24:21] browsing to find out what you want to bring home that night.

[01:24:25] Jeremy Spray: My favorite sick burn about Blockbuster is that the series of Blockbuster video. The last one that's that's, uh, exists is a Made for Netflix TV show.

[01:24:37] Emily Quann: Aw.

[01:24:38] Don Early: That is. Oh,

[01:24:40] Emily Quann: did watch, I did watch the actual documentary though, about the last Blockbuster

[01:24:46] Jeremy Spray: That one's probably much cooler. Th this

[01:24:47] Emily Quann: No. Yeah. The documentary about the owner of it and the staff, and it's actually, it's, it's pretty touching

[01:24:54] Jeremy Spray: I gotta go visit it. It's not far from me. It's in Bend, Oregon.

[01:24:58] Don Early: Oh, all right.

[01:24:59] Jeremy Spray: [01:25:00] Just that way.

[01:25:01] Don Early: Yeah. Well, I think I'm gonna see if I can dig me up a Silent Night, Deadly Night five. I might need to go full on marathon.

[01:25:13] We'll see. We'll 

[01:25:14] Jeremy Spray: I'm looking forward to hearing about it

[01:25:16] Don Early: Yeah,

[01:25:17] Jeremy Spray: and 

[01:25:17] Emily Quann: gonna watch Rare Exports at some time this week to, to get Krampus outta my head.

[01:25:23] Jeremy Spray: All I gotta do is watch a little bit of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. I am in the season

[01:25:27] Emily Quann: Oh,

[01:25:27] Don Early: That's right.

[01:25:28] Emily Quann: Christ.

[01:25:31] Jeremy Spray: All right, you guys. Happy holidays.

[01:25:33] Emily Quann: Yeah, you too.

[01:25:35] Don Early: Have the merriest of holidays. This is our final episode of the year. Uh, thank you all for listening and tuning in, and, uh, we look forward to filling your head with more quest for the historical Santanic conspiracies.

[01:25:56] Jeremy Spray: Every chance we can.

[01:25:57] Don Early: Yeah,

[01:25:58] Emily Quann: questionable content.

[01:25:59] Don Early: questionable [01:26:00] content

[01:26:01] Jeremy Spray: questionable content.

[01:26:01] Don Early: and questionable sources.

[01:26:06] Emily Quann: and seriously questionable hosts.

[01:26:08] Don Early: you. Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. Well, thank you all and enjoy the holidays and we'll see you in the new year.

[01:26:16] Jeremy Spray: Bye. You two.

[01:26:17] Emily Quann: Bye.