This week in the Deep Hurting Project is a very special film for the Deep Hurting Project, if you can even count it as a film: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. Discovering it, it seemed like the worst movie possible in the same way Spirytus Rektifikowany is the most alcoholic drink possible: The plot is about Santa getting his sleigh stuck in an inch of sand on a Florida beach. He summons a bunch of local kids to his location, and they try and fail to move it. Just when they give up hope, Santa tells a story, and is inspired to not give up hope. Then, something called The Ice Cream Bunny comes up and drives him back to the North Pole in his firetruck. And for some reason, everyone acts like they just chugged a bottle of cough syrup before going on set. And did I mention that said story is a full-length adaptation of Thumbelina (filmed by Barry Mahon, the real-life inspiration for Steve McQueen's character from The Great Escape) COMPLETE WITH CREDITS and that this is so irrelevant that some prints of the film (which I do not have) replaced it with another adaptation by the same director of Jack and the Beanstalk? It's because of this factor that I'm kind of hesitant to even consider it a movie (what with its consisting mainly of stock footage of another film). Then again, it was shown in theaters, specifically matinees that parents would leave their children at so they could get some last-minute Christmas shopping done. And shortly before shit got real, I bought a Rifftrax version of the film on DVD to play during my annual Door County vacation, making it the only film I paid money to watch specifically for the Deep Hurting Project. Since the Door County vacation is currently up in the air, and I'm stuck in Skokie for health reasons, I'm watching it here.
Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny Part 1:
Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny Part 1:
- "Kids" in quotation marks playing Santa's Elves "singing" a song about how Santa isn't at the North Pole
- Stock Footage of Reindeer at the North Pole... in perfectly green conditions.
- Well, at least Santa's song puts in a bit more effort than the elves' song. There's instruments, and Santa's apparently trying to conduct a non-existent orchestra.
- Why are Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in Florida? And why did they kidnap a raccoon who clearly doesn't want to be here? And how did they get the rights to Ol' Man River?
- "I'm not hurt, just my feelings?"
- A plane is a dead option because it leaves his sleigh in the sand. Remember this.
- Yep, a guy in a gorilla suit is their Plan A. Then a donkey. Then a pig who's even smaller than the donkey and refuses to face the right way. And a sheep. And a cow. And a horse.
- And 21 minutes in, Santa decides to launch into a rousing speech, which devolves into the story of Thumbelina.
- Well, the audio's clearly crisper than the frame story. It's a shame that it's wasted on a shitty song called "If I were Thumbelina" sung by this very pitchy soprano. Fortunately, I just checked and my ears are not bleeding. So, there's a good sign.
- And, no, I wasn't kidding about Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny including the movie complete with the credits.
- And this attraction about the stories of Hans Christian Andersen looks lame. It's just some tiny dioramas and narration delivered by a bored woman over a tinny speaker.
- So, during the lull created by this lackluster song by the Witch, let me tell you about Pirates World. Pirates World opened on 8 April 1967 in Dania, Florida. It was one of many amusement parks to pop up after the success of Disneyland. It was successful at first, but its fortunes turned as Disney themselves moved into the area and created Walt Disney World. Technically, when I mean "the area," I mean it's about a 3 hour drive from Orlando to Dania, but it was enough to show that their days were numbers. Despite having a second career as a venue for bands like Led Zeppelin and Three Dog Night, (to the point where Johnny Winter recorded part of a live album there and a riot broke out during a Grand Funk Railroad concert in March 1971), Pirates World closed in 1973. And this movie, both the Thumbelina movie and the Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny frame story were shot here, and I think it was more of an ad for Pirates World than anything else.
- And Thumbelina was apparently born with a blue and white rayon dress and Mary Janes. But no bra, so I guess that's nice, even if she is mostly beautiful in the "had a fling with her in high school, then forgot about her until she turned out to have been killed by a serial killer several states over" sort of way.
- Her playthings were kitchen utensils, and her bed was a walnut shell. This is apparently perfect, even though, funny thing, I'm more reminded of Room than anything else.
- The frog needs a little girl to distract him from saying shit beyond "ribbit."
- 12 pennies? That's an odd line. Do they mean $0.12 USD or a shilling? An attempt at being geographically neutral that just makes it sound stilted as fuck.
- I know these things scared the fuck out of the Rifftrax crew, but what are those bug things even supposed to be? They look like bird costumes, painted in black and white, with extra arms, weird black shit coming over their faces to hide what is clearly a beak, and striped shorts.
- And why does the Mole look more like a plague doctor than a mole?
- It's incredible that the way this marry the mole situation is getting so boring that I find myself wishing they sing this song:
Say what you will about Barry Manilow, but at least he has some ability to write songs. They may be sappy as shit, but at least they're songs. - Somehow, this bluebird is the creepiest-looking animal in this thing.
- So, the flower children have a prophecy of the chosen one... who is meant to marry the prince?
- Why do I get the feeling that Shay Garner isn't singing that "Happy Ever After" song?]
- "The End! Visit Pirates World"
- And, of course, it goes back to the frame story. And none of the "kids" ask why this story included opening credits and a "The End" sign.
- And then they try with a German Shepherd?
- Come on, that's Santa? He looks too thin. Hell, I'm fatter than that.
- Good buttery God, that fire truck is moving very slowly. And they just barely avoided running over that dog with a jump cut.
- "The Ice Cream Bunny, of course!" So, what is the deal with the Ice Cream Bunny? He doesn't have any ice cream, he drives a fire truck and not an ice cream truck, so why ice cream? Was this even a character in Pirates World? Did they just not have the rights to make a movie with The Easter Bunny so they created this half-assed variation?
- Well, this is the worst dance I've ever seen in a movie.
- So, Santa accepts a ride from the Ice Cream Bunny to the North Pole, thus leaving his sleigh behind. And the sleigh TELEPORTED TO THE NORTH POLE. Why the fuck didn't they try that before?
- Audio: ACS had a 10-minute lunch scene where the people talking were frequently barely audible, frequently needing to talk over the sounds of their plates and utensils. The audio in SCICB was never that bad.
- Video: One scene in ACS had the protagonist reciting this bizarre slam poem about his love for his love interest. It was so poorly shot that several reviewers mistook him for just some random guy, and I had to do some research to find out that it actually was the protagonist, even though he never did anything like it before. Nothing in SCICB is that horrible.
- Plot: ACS barely has a plot until about two-thirds of the way in. SCICB has a basic story, even if it has enough plot holes to fill the Royal Albert Hall.
- Actually a movie: ACS looks unfinished and was released direct to video but had some theatrical showings. SCICB had a theatrical release, but probably may not count as a move since most of it's a pre-existing film so expendable that it could be (and was) replaced with an entirely different film with no effect on the plot.
- Pacing: ACS has several 10-minute long scenes rendered meaningless by how poorly done they were. SCICB's scenes frequently go on far too long, but are nowhere near as bad, even if it is much longer than ACS.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
