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*Santa Inc.*
Santa Inc.
Genre	Comedy
Created by	Alexandra Rushfield
Directed by	Harry Chaskin
Voices of	Sarah Silverman; Seth Rogen
Music by	Anna Waronker
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Executive producers	Alexandra Rushfield; Sarah Silverman; Seth Rogen; Evan Goldberg; James Weaver; Joshua Fagen; Seth Green; Matthew Senreich; John Harvatine IV; Eric Towner; Chris Waters; Amy Zvi; Rosa Tran;
Production companies	Rushfield Productions; oh us.; Point Grey Pictures; Stoopid Buddy Stoodios; Lionsgate Television;
Original release
Network	HBO Max
Release	December 2, 2021

Santa Inc. is an American stop-motion adult animated Christmas comedy television miniseries created by Alexandra Rushfield that premiered on December 2, 2021, on HBO Max. The series is currently available on Tubi as of December 7, 2024.

Premise

The story follows Candy Smalls, a female elf who's currently working as a second-in-command of the North Pole, as she 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 and one of Candy's friends.
Gabourey Sidibe as Goldie, a bisexual reindeer and member of the B-team and is one of Candy's friends.
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

No.	Title	Written by	Original release date ^[3]	Prod. code
1	"Where The Hell is Brent?"	Alexandra Rushfield	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	101
2	"Faces of Meth"	Lisa Goldberg	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	102
3	"Spring Awakening"	Rachna Fruchbom	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	103
4	"The South Pole"	Guy Endore-Kaiser	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	104
5	"Santa’s Birthday"	Rochée Jeffrey	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	105
6	"The Announcement"	Ryan Shiraki	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	106
7	"Cracks in the Peppermint"	Dave King & Paul Rust	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	107
8	"Cracks in the Peppermint"	Andrew Gurland	December 2, 2021 (2021-12-02)	108

Production

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

Reception

Santa Inc. was panned by critics.

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 telling 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 series 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]

Some viewers also have said that it is similar to Syfy's series "The Pole", another adult animation show about the political power struggle of becoming Santa Claus, the only difference is the rivalry between Santa and his oldest son Jack (calls himself "Black Jack") who only wants to become the new Santa so he could have total control of the North Pole.

Antisemitic backlash

After being uploaded to YouTube, the trailer for the series received over 20,000 dislikes, while its comment section had allegedly been the target of brigading by commenters making antisemitic and Holocaust-denial jokes. Commenters targeted Silverman and Rogen's Jewish background and took aim at the series' supposed "woke" messaging. In response, YouTube disabled the video's comments and hid its dislike count, stating that commenters had violated the site's guidelines against hate speech.^[11]