Although sold to the public as a delicious family vacation comedy, John Pasquin’s blockbuster in 1994 “The Santa Clause” has a twisted premise in his heart. Divorced dad Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) takes care of his young son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) on the evening of Christmas when, on the roof, a rattling occurs. He will investigate and find the real Santa Claus preparing to descend his fireplace. Scott shouts and surprises Santa Claus, dropping the joyful old man from the roof to his death. Santa’s involuntary accidental is a strange place to start a comforting fable for children, Much less the biggest “Santa Clause” franchise in Disney.

Scott then finds a business card among Santa’s business, begging him to put the red coat with fur and collect the Christmas concert where Santa Claus had stopped. Scott, in turn, returns the sleigh to the North Pole and is informed by Chef Elf Bernard (David Krumholtz) This, by carrying the said coat, he officially took the coat of Santa Claus. (He has not read the small characters on the map of Santa Claus, it turns out that). During the following year, Scott slowly begins to mutate in Santa Claus. He takes on weight, his hair becomes gray and his beard arrives incredibly quickly. There is a darker, twisted and Cronenbergian version of this tale nestled inside the Disney Light fantasy ahead of us, a film in which Scott is rebellious by its slow body mutations. Of course, “The Santa Clause” does not have the temerity of being completely horrible.

Indeed, the manufacturers of “The Santa Clause” finally had to cut a rather adult joke of their film after its first theatrical race and its release on VHS. There is a scene at the start of the film in which Scott’s ex-wife, played by Wendy Crewson, offers to give him a phone number. He quips, “1-800-Spank-me? I know this number.” (Tee hee.) Per A 1994 report to Orlando SentinelHowever, “1-800-SPANK-ME” was a very real phone sex line, and it was flooded with dial-ups of curious children after seeing the film.

Calvin, of course, was unpleasant. The character of Crewson was not a sexual operator of professional telephone or any other type of sex worker. Calvin hit the sitgmas on sex work, projecting them on his ex. It would have been fun if Crewson retaliated to Calvin This sex work is a job.

According to Sentinel, line 1-800-sank-me cost between $ 2.50 and $ 4.99 per minute, and at least a curious 10 years-not supervised-cost their parents around $ 400 in telephone bills by calling it. “The Santa Clause” released video at home in 1995, with incidents culminating in 1996. Disney was flooded with complaints, of course, and the company was quick to take care of the problem. He offered to buy 1-800-SPANK-ME in order to disconnect the line. Unfortunately, this effort did not succeed. If the studio had been intelligent, he would have bought the line and connected it to the voice of Santa Claus, which would imply that those who call it are naughty.

It was revealed in an article by Seattle Times 1997 that incidents continued. In order to take care of the problem, Disney finally realized that the scene was to be completely cut off from the film. As such, when “The Santa Clause” struck the DVD in 1999, the mouse house completely removed the spanking joke, avoiding future headache. In the years since then, children have not been aware of a very real telephone line. It may be for the best. Although, thanks to the Internet, this scene was kept in perpetuity. (No legal action has been taken.)

Obviously, however, the spanking line was not a deliberate announcement for the phone line of the phone from Allen and the writers of the film. Indeed, the line looked like an AD-Lib. It was just a coincidence that there was a real 1-800-Sank-me in operation.

For the curious: yes, it seems that 1-800-sank-me is still active. Of course, you have already composed the number out of curiosity, right?