Santa Inc.

Santa Inc. is an American adult animated Christmas comedy miniseries created by Alexandra Rushfield that premiered on December 2, 2021 on HBO Max.

Premise[]

The story follows Candy Smalls, a female elf who's currently working as a second-in-command of North Pole, goes for her ultimate goal to become a successor as the first female Santa.^[2]

Cast and characters[]

• Sarah Silverman as Candy Smalls, the highest-ranking female elf and Santa's second in command, who wants to become the next Santa.
• Seth Rogen as Santa Claus, known as Saint Nick (real name Llewellyn Fartini), a jolly, overweight, middle-aged man who distrusts Candy for becoming a successor.
• Leslie Grossman as Cookie, a gingerbread woman.
• Gabourey Sidibe as Goldie, a bisexual reindeer and member of the B-team.
• Craig Robinson as Junior, the leader of the all-male reindeer A-team and the son of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
• Nicholas Braun as Devin the intern.
• Maria Bamford as Mrs. Leonard Claus and Big Candy.
• Paul Rust as Jeremy/Grandpa Smalls.

Episodes[]

Production[]

The stop motion animation is produced by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios who also created Moral Orel and Robot Chicken.^[4]

Reception[]

Daniel D'Addario of Variety wrote that the series' reliance on raunchy humor led to it "feeling dour and heavy, a televised lump of coal". He felt that jokes about reindeer being methamphetamine addicts and Mrs Claus being a stripper "doesn’t say anything, really; it just suggests a readiness to provoke". He was more approving of plot elements about a female character seeking to rise in a hostile workplace.^[5]

Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg praised the parody of corporate culture, but called the sexual jokes "repetitive and self-satisfied". He also did not find the humor to have good shock value, unlike a recent Christmas special of Big Mouth.^[6]

Mira Fox of The Forward gave a negative review, criticizing the massive amount of raunchy humor and Holocaust jokes, poor plot, lazy stereotypes of Jews, and ultimately poor message of the show, saying "You might think that this Christmas series made by two famous Jews would have some greater message about antisemitism or Christianity's hegemony in the U.S. But instead Silverman, too, has reduced Jewishness to a handful of hackneyed stereotypes in "Santa, Inc.""^[7]

Joel Keller in an article for Decider wrote that the miniseries is "more raunchy than it is merry", and came close to being "gratuitously dirty", but praised the story and the series' take on gender politics.^[8]

Barbara Ellen of The Guardian in a mixed review wrote that the show used "such a relentless bombardment of pointless crudity...the humor is all but flattened", and that ultimately the comedy was "funniest when it's not dirty".^[9]

Seth Rogen was subject to criticism when he claimed that the generally negative reception the series received was review bombing by "tens of thousands of white supremacists".^[10]

Controversy[]

According to The Daily Dot, the trailer for the series received backlash in the comments section and over 200,000 dislikes on YouTube, with various antisemitic and Holocaust denial jokes.^[11] However, HBO Max defended the trailer and disabled the comments due to its controversies.

References[]

External links[]

• Santa Inc. at IMDb
• Santa Inc. on HBO Max