Sad Matpat: NOOOOOOO
Santa, why??
Santa: Ho, ho, ho, four episodes on FNAF?
Ho, ho, ho!
You were on the naughty list this year.
* The most Beautiful and Majestic theme plays*
Ho-Ho-hello internet.
and welcome to a special
holiday edition of film theory.
If the songs are to be believed, Its the most wonderful time of the year.
And I would have to agree!
Assuming you ignore all the travel woes, family stress, brutal cold, and rampant consumerism of December.
So for our holiday special this year, I thought I'd take a break from intensive pixel measurements of The Hulk's big toe
to look at something with a bit more holiday cheer.
The stop-motion claymation Rankin and Bass movies from the 1960s and 70s
Depending on who you are these are either on your television every Christmas season,
or continue to haunt your nightmares every time you go to sleep.
Hey, Scott Cawthon!
Now that the Five Nights at Freddy's series is done I think I found you some new horror game potential here.
These movies, which include Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming (Comin') to Town, A (The) Year Without a Sants Claus and Jack Frost
all along with their sequels comprise one of the earliest cinematic universes in known history.
Literally decades before marvel made it a thing that we all talk about!
The producers, Arthur Rankin & Jules Bass, united in their holiday movies around a series of recurring characters and themes.
Complete with nods, sequel setups and easter eggs across all the movies.
So what secrets could a half-century old slate of children's holiday movies possibly hold?
Oh, I don't know. How about Santa Claus' biggest secret? ((Dun dun DUNNN))
An untold Claus family tragedy.
In the movie Santa Claus is Coming (Comin') to Town it's established that
Santa Claus himself was abandoned as a baby and raised as an orphan,
but what if Santa lost himself a child of his own?
A child who, like himself, would also have to be raised as an orphan?
It would be like Star Wars.
It rhymed.
Well, THAT is my theory today.
That Santa Claus literally lost his young son, a poor young boy who would brave the cold of the north pole
and against all odds grow up to become
the intrepid explorer Yukon Cornelius. ((GASP))
[Singing] 'Tis the season to write theories! Falalalala lala lets go!
In case your family holiday traditions DON'T include spending 40 minutes struggling to get your ancient VHS player hooked up to your modern TV just so you can watch a version of Rudolph
your dad recorded back in 1989, COMERCIALS AND EVERYTHING, including that original Clapper commercial from way back then.
OR in the likely event that you were born some time this millennium and have literally no clue what these stop motion creep shows are all about,
Well all these 45-minute movies are available, for free, on YouTube, right now.
Seriously! Links to all the movies are in the i cards in the upper-right hand corner of the screen,
so grab a blanket, some Christmas cookies, a loved one, curl up next to the fire place and watch some Christmas classics with the family.
This theory'll still be here when you're done, just pause it.
Or subscribe, I dunno.
So, are you back?
Filled with the warmth of love and family and a little bit of sugar cookie?
Great! But for all you Scrooges who DIDN'T click, let me give you the quick, much needed refresher.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose and true Christmas fashion got old-school cyber-bullied for it.
Prompting him to run away.
He winds up at Santa's shop one foggy Christmas Eve and guides the sleigh that night,
prompting all the reindeer to love him and shout with glee,
proving once and for all that timeless Holiday message:
"Your physical deformities are only societally acceptable if they serve a useful function."
Hey, that is a Christmas classing talking, not me!
And the rest, as they say, went down in history. ((Just like matpats theories!))
So that's the story we all know from the song,
but along the way in this movie we meet Yukon Corneilus,
the arctic prospector who helps Rudolph and the aspiring Elf-dentist Hermy in their quest of self discovery.
Yukon meanwhile is on the hunt for something else,
veins of (Gold and Silver!), hoping to strike it rich.
And also hoping not to get his tongue stuck to his pick.
If that were to happen we'd be in a very different Christmas movie.
*Muffled talking of an innocent kid* Stuck- STUCK--- STUCKK!!
But watching this movie as a kid, I could never get over how weird these moments were.
And not just because of that licking sound effect.
[Strange yet maybe inappropriate licking sound]
I mean think about it. He throws up his pick and then starts licking it.
Why? Q^Q
Is he able to taste Silver and Gold?
His pick IS metal so wouldn't that also taste like metal?
Well, here's the thing, he actually isn't looking for Silver and Gold.
In a scene that only appeared during the original airing of the film
and has only started to re-emerge in newly printed home copies,
Yukon has been revealed to have been looking for peppermint the whole time.
Now all those licking sessions with his axe make a whole lot more sense.
He can taste the peppermint.
Yukon had forgotten what he was really looking for until he tasted it.
Why does that matter?
Well Yukon says he's been searching for this his whole life,
except there's one problem with that.
Peppermint isn't something that exists underground.
It's a plant that gets processed into hard candy with the one and only exception being this peppermint vein
that just so happens to be right outside Santa's workshop.
And yet somehow Yukon got it into his head that if he digs
around he can just find the candy.
It's almost like he has some childhood history living at the north pole,
around these underground peppermint loads.
And then somewhere alone the line wandered off,
getting himself, and his memory lost.
Now consider this:
Throughout the movie, Yukon repeatedly saves the crew from the Abominable Snow Monster
or, what he likes to call 'The Bumble'
[Didn't I ever tell you about Bumbles?]
[Bumbles bounce!]
*Convenient placed Laughter*
I always thought that Bumble was a strange term for this legitimately terrifying creature
especially when other characters expressly call it The Abominable Snow Monster.
But Bumble sounds exactly like what a small child struggling to say the word 'abominable' might spit out.
And it's not like he uses it as a nickname for the monster,
it is actually what he calls it.
It's even in the script!
'Bumble Snow Monster'
This odd vocal tick could be from him learning the word as a child but never learning the correct pronunciation
because he was lost before someone could correct him.
Now, as a full grown adult, he still talks like a child because he was lost as a kid and had no parents to raise him.
But why would I go so far as to say that his long lost father is Santa?
Well lets start by looking at Yukon and his potential father side-by-side.
That's a pretty decent family resemblance, but it actually goes way deeper than this.
Remember when I said that this theory is all about the whole Christmas Cinematic Universe?
Well Santa Claus is Coming [Comin'] to Town is the prequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
and you should LOOK at Santa in THAT film.
That red hair is a tell-tale sign that Yukon happens to be Santa's son
because in the entirety of the Rankin&Bass universe there is only ONE other person with red hair,
and that person is Mrs. Claus.
In all of the other scenes from Santa Claus is Comin' to Town NONE of the other villagers have red hair.
I mean look at all those dark-haired children.
On top of all of that it's strange to see Yukon Cornelius
wandering around the north pole because, well,
people walking around the north pole is just not that common in this cinematic universe.
According to the end of Santa Clause is Coming [Comin'] to Town, Santa chose his workshop to be at the north pole specifically to avoid people coming to capture him
because by that point in the movie he was a wanted criminal.
Yep! You heard that one right.
Santa is a fugitive.
[Wanted: Dead or Alive]
[The Terrible Toy Maker]
Ho ho ho holy moly these movies are strange. ((Agreed))
And that's even without me mentioning that acid trip scene.
Like I said:
Link in the i card if you wanna watch any of these.
Yukon being Santas son even works thematically.
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer is all about the characters finding themselves.
Yukon finding riches in Silver and Gold mines just wouldn't make sense based on the themes of that story.
The true riches that he would find under this theory is that he would find his home again.
And also last-last note here is that the producers Rankin&Bass REALLY do love their lost orphans.
It's not just Santa, but it's also The Little Drummer Boy
and also Lucas from the 1975 special
"The First Christmas: The Story of The First Christmas Snow"
A redundant title if I've ever heard one.
It's about an orphan who... loses his eyesight.
Soo... Maybe I shouldn't be making fun of that one.
Anyway Yukon would definitely fit in this lineage of characters
as the prospector who loses his parents and his memory as a child.
So lets just lay out all the cards on the table:
We have a man with a missing memory,
but knowledge of underground peppermint veins
running around the abandoned north pole where no one else is
talkin' like a kid and sporting neon red hair in a world where no one else does,
all in a story about finding your place in the world.
But there is one last clue.
One last hint left at the end of Santa Claus is Comin' to Town that seals the deal that Yukon is Santas long lost kid.
During the credit roll of Santa Claus is Comin' to Town,
as the mail truck drives around Santa's castle in the north pole,
we get this.
A short clip of a red-headed child playing with a toy in Santa's castle.
I don't know about you, but that's a small red-headed child living in the north pole,
who, at the time of Rudolph, is completely missing.
Yukon Cornelius, the son of Santa. Destined for greatness, but reduced to a side character in another hero's story.
BUT HEY!
That's JUST A THEORY!
A CHRISTMAS THEORY!
AaaaaaAAANNNND jingle jingle jingle jingle jingle. [fading]
[To the tune of We Wish You a Merry Christmas] There's also another video about another orphan,
so bring me some new subscribers by clicking right here!