Specifically:
Ayn Rand's A Selfish Christmas (1951)
In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts -- and therefore Christmas -- possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as "anti-life."
Reminded me a bit of one of the posts from my archives (12/13/02) which I was looking at the other day listing three possilbe santa movies that I might pursue, the final one being:
Or finally I play Rance the stupidest reindeer who leads the sled into the side of a house, killing all of the eight other tiny reindeer (Whoopi Goldberg, Lance Bass, Taye Diggs, Jamie Kennedy, Willie Nelson, Bart Durham, Dustin Diamond, Cathy Griffin) and Santa (Rodney Dangerfield) on impact. A distraught Rance cries out for assistance to be answered by the chain-smoking spirit of Christmas (Christopher Walken), who teaches him the true value of Christmas and helps him kick the booze. Then Rance takes the reins as the new Santa and captures and enslaves nine multi-national children to pull his sleigh.
Screenplay by Adam Sandler with Jonathan Frakes attached to direct.
(The part with the enslaving of children may be dropped, due to difficulty in child labor statutes effecting the filming schedule)
The saddest part is that my agents tell me with the death of Rodney, the role of Santa is now being pitched to Rob Schneider, who they tell me is "the new Dangerfield." I think I need new representation.
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