I've often said that Julia Roberts has a Cinderella complex: most of her movies trek the same path to a glass-slipper climax after portraying her as downtrodden until sympathies strain. Tim Allen is her male equivalent--if not in box-office viability, then in persecution vanity, his 'Cinderfella' complex unveilling itself in the first big-screen vehicle built for him, The Santa Clause, a stinky holiday film that seemed to get elevated to instant-classic status upon taking in a hefty $145M in the U.S. alone. How it became so popular is a zeitgeist anomaly, one of those mysteries you'll never have enough information to solve; why it's bad, that's a little easier to break down.

Allen stars as Scott Calvin, divorced father of an insufferable only-child named Charlie (Eric Lloyd) who can't stand the thought of spending Christmas with Tim Allen--and only in this aspect is he a reasonable facsimile of a human being. When Charlie wakes Scott because he hears storybook "clatter" on the roof, Scott scurries outside, sees Santa tiptoeing across the shingles, and startles him down. As St. Nick lay there dead on Scott's lawn, with Charlie curiously unfazed by the sight of our jolliest Christmas icon tangled up in this mortal coil, Scott snatches a business card that, by its very acknowledgement, obliges Charlie's dad to don the red suit, take the reins of eight animatronic reindeer, and become "the new Santa," for that night and for all time.

John Pasquin, Allen's regular "Home Improvement" director, helmed The Santa Clause as his feature debut and brings to it a heavy-handedness more appropriate to the subject matter of, say, his telefilm Don't Touch My Daughter. So much emphasis is placed on misery in this picture--The Calvins' divorce, Charlie's psychological health, a custody battle, Scott's job security, a kidnapping--that the twisted facts of "the Santa Clause" itself are left unmonitored to become the poison in this righteous pabulum.

I love a kid's film with a morbid premise (Walter Murch's Return to Oz being a shining example), but not when the filmmakers are ignorant of it as such; lots of "but how does Santa?"s are addressed, some cleverly (it takes a convoy of FedEx trucks to deliver the naughty/nice checklist), most feebly (how does Santa fit through the more constrictive chimneys? Post-production morphing technology!), yet Santa's death, or Scott's Cronenbergian mutation to fit the Coca-Cola precept of Santa Claus, are not, which is irresponsible at the core, as is the fact that the North Pole's head elf (David Krumholtz) is Jewish. That's the small world after all, ain't it? The Victorian model where little people serve the big ones and everybody believes in Santa Claus.

Last, least, we have Scott the reluctant prophet. He gets to prove that he's better than his ex-wife's new lover, a psychiatrist (Judge Reinhold!), earn the respect of his elf charges, and ride off into the Christmas night with Charlie at his side. Another home improved by Tim Allen--must be a contract clause.

Disney presents The Santa Clause on DVD in a Special Edition intended to replace their previous, sub-par release, but don't be misled by the collectible banner. The overhauled image, now in THX-approved 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen*, looks very nice, its clarity and strong shadow detail betraying every last weakness of the production's cheap design. A Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix breathes life into the flying sequences and aforementioned rooftop rattle, though the workshop scenes might as well be dead-air since they're mixed with vague regard for ambience.

Extras: an interminable "So You Wanna Be an Elf?" featurette hosted by Krumholtz as Bernard the Head Elf, discovering over the course of six minutes that children want "Toy Story on DVD" (ah, sweet corporate synergy) for Christmas and teaching non-professional tyke thesps how to prepare Santa's deliveries; three admittedly cute segments (totalling fifteen minutes) nonetheless poorly assembled wherein velly-scally Wolfgang Puck teaches children to bake pizza, Christmas cookies, and cocoa (text recipes included); sneak peeks at The Santa Clause 2, The Jungle Book II, and the upcoming videos Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas - Special Edition, Lilo & Stitch, and Inspector Gadget 2; and a difficult-to-navigate "Santa's Helper" trivia game. A ROM-exclusive advent calendar and option to send Santa a letter round out the DVD upgrade of the hopeless The Santa Clause.-Bill Chambers

*A full-screen edition with identical supplements is also available.