Although sold to audiences as a delightful holiday comedy for the family, John Pasquin’s 1994 blockbuster “The Santa Clause” has a twisted premise at its heart. Divorced dad Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is looking after his young son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) on Christmas night when, up on the roof, there arises a clatter. He goes to investigate and finds the very real Santa Claus preparing to go down his chimney. Scott yells out and startles Santa, causing the jolly old man to fall off the roof to his death. The accidental manslaughter of Santa Claus is a weird place to start a heartwarming fable for kids, much less Disney’s larger “Santa Clause” franchise.
Scott then finds a business card among Santa’s belongings, entreating him to don the furry red coat and pick up the Christmas gig where Santa left off. Scott, in turn, returns the sleigh to the North Pole and is informed by the chief elf Bernard (David Krumholtz) that, in donning said coat, he has formally taken on the mantle of Santa Claus. (He didn’t read the fine print on Santa’s card, it turns out). Over the course of the next year, Scott slowly begins to mutate into Santa. He gains weight, his hair goes gray, and his beard comes in amazingly fast. There’s a darker, twisted, Cronenbergian version of this tale nestled inside the lightweight Disney fantasy in front of us, a movie wherein Scott is revolted by his slow bodily mutations. Of course, “The Santa Clause” doesn’t have the temerity to be wholly horrific.
Indeed, the makers of “The Santa Clause” ultimately had to cut a rather adult joke from their movie after its initial theatrical run and release on VHS. There is a scene early in the film wherein Scott’s ex-wife, played by Wendy Crewson, offers to give him a phone number. He quips, “1-800-SPANK-ME? I know that number.” (Tee hee.) Per a 1994 report in the Orlando Sentinel, however, “1-800-SPANK-ME” was a very real phone sex line, and it was flooded with dial-ups from curious kids after seeing the film.
Disney had to cut a joke about 1-800-SPANK-ME
Calvin, of course, was being flippant. The Crewson character wasn’t a professional phone sex operator nor any other kind of sex worker. Calvin tapped into the sitgmas about sex work, projecting them onto his ex. It would have been fun if Crewson shot back at Calvin that sex work is work.
The 1-800-SPANK-ME line, according to the Sentinel, cost between $2.50 and $4.99 per minute, and at least one curious 10-year-old — unsupervised — cost their parents about $400 in phone bills by calling it. “The Santa Clause” came out on home video in 1995, with incidents peaking in 1996. Disney was flooded with complaints, of course, and the company was quick to take care of the problem. It offered to buy 1-800-SPANK-ME with the explicit purpose of disconnecting the line. Sadly, that effort was not successful. If the studio had been clever, it would have bought the line and connected it to the voice of Santa, who would imply that those calling it are being naughty.
It was revealed in a 1997 Seattle Times article that incidents were continuing. In order to take care of the problem, Disney eventually realized the scene just had to be cut out of the movie altogether. As such, when “The Santa Clause” hit DVD in 1999, the Mouse House removed the SPANK-ME joke entirely, avoiding any future headaches. In the years since then, kids have no longer been privy to a very real phone sex line. Perhaps it’s for the better. Although, thanks to the internet, that scene has been preserved in perpetuity. (No legal action was taken.)
Clearly, though, the SPANK-ME line was not a deliberate ad for the phone sex line on the part of Allen and the film’s screenwriters. Indeed, the line felt like an ad-lib. It was just a coincidence that there was a real 1-800-SPANK-ME in operation.
For the curious: Yes, it seems that 1-800-SPANK-ME is very much still in operation. Of course, you already dialed the number out of curiosity, didn’t you?
