THE WORST WE CAN FIND - Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 5 - SANTA'S CHRISTMAS CIRCUS with Whizzo the Clown

 

It’s Day 5 of the The Worst We Can Find Christmas Advent Calendar, and we’re back with RiffTrax and Whizzo the Clown presenting to us a film version of his regional television show, with Santa, a kid with a scary cough, and much, much padding. Oh, and a short before that with Christmas Trees that will live in your nightmares.

Santa’s Christmas Circus (November 1966) & The Christmas Tree (1975)

Program: RiffTrax

Air-Date: December 22, 2016

 

Original 1966 newspaper ad for the film and the artwork from the RiffTrax version.

Plot: Mike, Bill, and Kevin welcome everyone on-camera and introduce The Christmas Tree, a short film about three Christmas Trees and their journey. The trees are played by mimes dressed up as fir trees with only their faces showing, and it’s not easy to get used to seeing. The trees are cut down and meet other trees, where sexual tension occurs that is even more disturbing. They then arrive at homes, get trimmed, and one child draws a picture on a wall that is weird and disturbing. It all ends with the trees being tossed out after Christmas like garbage, but their “spirits” rise after death and become stars in the sky. Seriously.

After another interlude with the RiffTrax guys, the main feature starts as Whizzo the Clown arrives at his “Wonderland” with presents and goofs around while rambling non-stop. Soon several children arrive, and they perform a “circus” after having their clothes magically transform. One of the girls is sad, and Whizzo tries to cheer her up before showing the children footage of various shop displays featuring Christmas decorations via his Atomic Time Machine. Eventually the crew are whisked off to visit Santa, who cheers up the one girl during their brief visit. Whizzo and the kids then all return to his “wonderland,” where they are returned to their normal clothes and leave. Whizzo is left alone and wishes everyone a merry Christmas before going to sleep in a chair. Welcome to Wonderland, Whizzo!

From the movie trailer.

Thoughts:  There was a time when regional television invented regional superstars. The days where television signals only travelled so far, every major city had their own cluster of local stations that brought with them actors of all ages performing as hosts of talk-shows, movie programs, and children shows. Many would move on to other areas or even Hollywood to bigger things, but some remained in their local area for years, even decades, and became small-time famous in their cities.

Whizzo with his trombone. There's an odd moment where he mentions playing one, and as this photo makes clear, it was actually part of his act and not some weird improvised comment.

Such was the case with Whizzo the Clown, who was played by Frank Wiziarde (1916-1987). Wiziarde had grown up in a novelty act called the Wiziarde Novelty Circus before arriving in Kansas City in 1953 just as the popularity of local children programming with a funny host, such as with Bozo, became the norm around the country. Wiziarde would begin doing his Whizzo the Clown character for KMBC and continue in that role through television and personal appearances straight up until the year of his death.

One thing as well about growing up with regional television: when you’re a kid you laughed and ran home to watch these local shows, and begged your parents to take you to the mall to see the performers live and get an autograph. Many of us have no way to relive such memories, as these were shot live or the stations eventually discarded any footage they did have of such shows.  Yet, in some rare cases, there will an episode or two found and we, remembering our childhood, gladly obtain such footage to watch again.

And a majority of the time, it’s all rather disappointing.

Santa looks to be in much better shape here than seen in the actual movie.

 
It's not the fault of the performer or those working on the show. They were just doing as they always did in programming that was commonly live, with no money available, and no time for a script. And the performers actually were good enough that they could eat up that time and put on a show that kids loved, but as adults are painful to watch. Case in point here with Whizzo. The man was loved and he had a long history on television, but – man – it’s hard to take for over an hour as in the case of Santa’s Christmas Circus. Whizzo spends so much time talking and moving about it’s like watching Bane being juiced with the essence of Howie Mandel. You just want him to calm down. It’s also both dull and in disarray at the same time because we’re not familiar with the format as most kids seeing this movie in Kansas City at the time would have been. There’s a dog puppet seen briefly that was probably a bigger part of the regular show, but just seems to be there for no reason. It’s clear the crew is in on the gag with the way they throw stuff to Whizzo from off-stage, and fans would know it’s a staple of his show, but it looks miscued and sloppy.  And hearing Whizzo saying his catchphrase, “Well, now I’ve got that to worry about!” over and over again to the enjoyment of no one gets on the nerves pretty quickly.

The kids at least seem to be trying for the most part, even if they are confused half the time. The one miserable little girl’s increasing cough through the show (noted by the RiffTrax guys) is worrisome as well. Add in the padding of storefront windows to eat up time really slow down the show and a tired Santa (whose beard is threadbare) and you can sense flopsweat from Whizzo during most of the hour. It just feels uncomfortable, and we get to see it in color fifty years on.

As to the short beforehand, it is mildly amusing once you get used to the human faces on the tree, although it’s not really clear who the intended audience was. It seems like the type of short you’d find playing between movies during the early days of HBO or on a PBS station back in the days. Besides, what is up with that family and their kids’ drawing on the walls (especially that last one)?

Whizzo trying the best he can in his Wonderland. Aren't we all?

Favorite Riff: (After one of Santa’s elves accidentally slams a door into the face of her fellow elf) “That’s for upstaging me, Janet, you slag!”

The Riffing: By this point RiffTrax had been around for quite a bit of time, with Mike, Bill, and Kevin appearing on-camera more often than not at the beginning of a number of features as we see here, which is always welcomed (with the members now living in various areas of the country, they no doubt don’t get the opportunity to do this as much as they used to). Many good observations made during the program, lots of laugh-out-loud riffs, and, unlike a few of the others Christmas movies used by RiffTrax, the hour-long format of Santa’s Christmas Circus allows for the show to be over before it begins to drag.

Santa’s Christmas Circus is also available for free on RiffTrax’s YouTube channel, so you can check it out there and decide for yourself if it really fills you with Christmas spirit or dread.

Oh, and Santa never gets a circus in the movie. Just a bunch of nosey kids playing with his racist toys.