There's a bunch of these Ernest movies (Ernest Saves Christmas; Ernest Saves Camp; Ernest Saves Jail; Ernest Saves Face; Earnest Saves on Car Insurance), but I never bothered watching any of them before now because let's face it, I'm angry enough as it is. As it turns out though, this one at least is fairly tolerable. Santa Claus is looking for his replacement, and in most movies his pick would be the star, no matter how inappropriate, annoying, or repugnant that choice would actually be. In this case though the guy he has his eye on makes perfect sense, but before he can pass the torch a bunch of circumstances go awry and Santa winds up in the slammer. You know, Santa Claus ends up in jail in a lot of Christmas flicks, and I can't help but wonder if this is supposed to be like some parallel to that other Christmas guy. One of these days I'd like to see a movie follow through on this angle and actually show Santa getting tried, convicted, and crucified. Then he could rise from the dead and found his own religion: "Santa-ria".

Anyway, back to Ernest. Before Santa gets arrested he leaves his magic bag in Ernest's's's cab,* so Ernest ends up tracking him down and lending a hand, along with this farm-fresh little hottie who looks like Punky Brewster's delinquent older sister. (This chickie dresses as a schoolgirl at one point, and trust me when I say that this flick is almost worth watching for that alone. Although her skirt could've been a lot shorter.) It's your typical Xmas crap, and I wouldn't recommend it to someone I was trying to impress or anything, but not unlike The Fast and the Furious 3 it's probably the best possible Ernest Saves Christmas that could theoretically exist. Hell, they even wrap it all up with the newly-retired Santa landing himself some Bobtail! The only truly painful part is the sideplot with the two warehouse guys who have to deal with Santa's reindeer. Every time they broke out that dumb rattling sound effect to underscore the fat guy's eyes moving back and forth I wanted to knock someone's Christmas teeth out.