"Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in 150+ movies, Rifftrax has nothing to say."

December 22, 2010 12:25 PM

Rifftrax's new holiday release (preview highlight clips) tackles one of the most notorious bad movies of recent years, the infamous Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, filmed at a struggling Flordia amusement park and produced by a porno director. More on the movie: Agony Booth, Invasion of the B Movies, WFMU's Out Of Context Cinema. (Unfortunate note: the full version is $10, but includes the movie itself.) (Side link: The park SatICB was filmed at, Pirates World, went out of business when Disney World opened up. The locations seen in the movie are all condos now. Before it closed they were known to host rock concerts, archive.org hosts a video of the Grateful Dead playing Pirates World)

"I am a lesser, baseball-related demon, but I'd still like your soul!"
"If Werner Herzog had invented Strip-O-Grams, this is what they'd be like."
"It's me, the Ice Cream Bunny! I've got all the flavors, from Sawdust, to Robitussin, to Backwash!"

Oh, and don't close your eyes when Mike Nelson tells you to. Trust me on this.

posted by JHarris (18 comments total)

That it involves Santa and fairy tales and was filmed at an amusement park made me think for a moment that it would be Santa's Magic Kingdom. And actually, watching the preview, there's a lot of philosophical overlap between the two. Especially in terms of being terrible.

I am not so big on Rifftrax but I'm glad this kind of demented supposedly-for-children cinema is getting exposure. The world must know!
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 12:37 PM on December 22, 2010

This review from IMDB reads like the kind of cracked-out dream you have after a night of hard drugs:

"Santa falls asleep and sends a telepathic message to kids living in a nearby housing development. The message stops time until they respond to it. They all come help him with their pet animals - a horse, a cow, a sheep, a pig, a donkey, and a guy in a gorilla suit. Must be a pretty lax housing development to allow those kind of animals. Nothing works, so Santa tries to cheer the kids up by telling them the story of Thumbelina. The poor audience (us) doesn't just hear it; we see it, too. It's a movie within a movie!"

My boyfriend just downloaded this yesterday. I cannot WAIT to get home and watch it tonight.
posted by a.steele at 12:48 PM on December 22, 2010

FAMOUS MONSTER: Wow!
posted by JHarris at 12:49 PM on December 22, 2010

A clip from Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny showed up at The Smithee Awards primaries this year. It's been a month since I saw it, and I'm still having bad dreams.
posted by faster than a speeding bulette at 12:59 PM on December 22, 2010

Every saturday I get on a group Voip chat to riff movies, and 2 weeks ago we did Santa Clause and The Ice Cream bunny. Near the end we were pretty much yelling at the movie in agony, peppered with explitives. It was as if Tim & Eric and David Lynch had collaborated to make a re-interpretation of Inception, in the late 60's.
posted by hellojed at 1:12 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm sure Principal Skinner has this in his library for those snowy school days.

I'm thinking it would be the perfect thing to put on the TV to clear out the house at a party that's run too long.
posted by inthe80s at 1:12 PM on December 22, 2010

Ten or fifteen years back I actually found a promo still from this trainwreck in some memorabilia shop quarter bin. Never heard of the movie, but I couldn't pass up a guy in a gorilla suit trying to drag Santa's sleigh through the sand.
posted by Lazlo at 1:12 PM on December 22, 2010

Any commentary with Tom Servo screaming is a sign of a quality move experience (his scream in the clip reminded me of his screaming "END!" at the end of "The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman"). Now I have to go check if I still have credit on my Rifftrax account.
posted by Lokisbane at 1:17 PM on December 22, 2010

This is getting a double-feature treatment at my house, coupled with the classic K. Gordon Murray's Santa Claus. This will be the first time I've seen SatICB, but the south-of-the-border Santa Claus movie viewing on Christmas has been a tradition at my place for over 15 years.
posted by chambers at 1:17 PM on December 22, 2010

re: Pirate's World

There was a short I saw about a year ago, I can't remember what exactly the name of it was, but it was about a pirate ghost who comes out of the water to the front gate of Pirate's World, and convinces them to put on a rock concert to better market the park. (I know I always trust marketing advice from the undead...) I think they actually got Deep Purple to play, if I remember correctly. It seemed to be shot on 16mm in the late 60's. I wish I could find it.
posted by chambers at 1:49 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

As a writer for RiffTrax, I'm obligated to make a sarcastic comment regarding the "Unfortunate note", ie charging for our work.

Damn, can't think of any. What the hell are they paying me for?!
posted by JoeGoblin at 2:01 PM on December 22, 2010 [6 favorites]

But, of course, I'm glad you enjoyed it and think everyone else will as well. It's one of my all time favorites, we discovered it last December and it was very painful to have to wait an entire year to get to actually work with it!
posted by JoeGoblin at 2:03 PM on December 22, 2010

Ah! Found it! It's called Musical Mutiny. No Deep Purple, but a heapin' helpin' of Iron Butterfly.

Hippies, teenyboppers, and late '60s rock n roll. A ghost of a Caribbean pirate rises from his resting-place to visit his old haunt. Finding it covered by an amusement park, and seeing that Iron Butterfly is giving a concert, he decides to liven things up by opening the gates and letting screaming fans in for free. Iron Butterfly gets upset because this means they won't get paid and they storm off the stage forcing park officials to bring on local bands such as Grit, New Society, and the Fantasy to come up and play. Fortunately, a wealthy flower child offers to pay Iron Butterfly if they finish their concert. Iron Butterfly accept and settle down to play their epic hit "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" and several other songs.

The Rifftrax crew could do a good number on this one, if the rights are to be had easily.
posted by chambers at 2:56 PM on December 22, 2010

As a writer for RiffTrax, I'm obligated to make a sarcastic comment regarding the "Unfortunate note", ie charging for our work.

The "Unfortunate note" bit was because I feel weird about linking something that costs Cash Money to the front page. I almost didn't post this, but I found a preview video and enough ancillary links to make it worthwhile for its own sake.

And for the record, I bought this one last night and it's unquestionably one of the best.
posted by JHarris at 3:43 PM on December 22, 2010

This and the Santa/Punch and Judy short were some of the best material RiffTrax has done in a while.

Thanks for all the good work, JoeGoblin!
posted by dhens at 4:39 PM on December 22, 2010

JoeGoblin, please accept my compliments for yourself and the big guys. I'm part of the way through this, and oh, the suffering. The filthy pants. The hallucinatory frogs.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:31 PM on December 22, 2010

OK that preview track is kind of hilarious. I want have to get this.
posted by Theta States at 8:03 PM on December 22, 2010

We need to get Tom and Huck's take on this thread.
posted by dhens at 9:20 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]