| Santa Mask | |
|---|---|
| Season 1, Episode 14 | |
| |
| Air date | 11. November, 1995 |
| Written by | Dean Stefan |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous All Hallow's Eve |
Next Split Personality |
Santa Mask is the fourteenth episode of The Mask: The Animated Series.
Summary[]
All the villains in Edge City (namely Kablamus, Walter, and the Terrible Twos) begin disguising themselves as Santa Claus and committing crimes. The Mask must save Christmas by proving Santa's innocence.
Plot[]
Stanley is stuck with a thankless job: advertising the bank's low loan rates for the holidays during a cold winter day, while dressed as Santa Claus. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when supervillains like Walter, the Terrible Twos and Kablamus have begun dressing up as Santa to commit crimes during Christmas season, a common occurrence every year. Mayor Tilton is forced to declare Edge City a "Santa-free zone" and orders the arrest of every person dressed as Santa, Stanley included.
Stanley is forced to share a jail cell with the supervillains and a person who claims to be the real Santa. As soon as Stanley is released, however, this mysterious man asks him to deliver presents to the children to the world, just like Santa would. Stanley reluctantly accepts the mission and puts on the Mask to deliver presents, with Milo as his reluctant reindeer. This new mission won't be easy, however, as Lt. Kellaway watches him enter a house and believes the Mask to be no different from the criminals that had been impersonating Santa just to commit crimes.
Even when the Mask sinks Kellaway's car to distract him, Kellaway summons a helicopter to chase after the Mask, who attempts to hide downtown. Unfortunately, he is captured by Pretorius, who wants to study Santa's magic sack so he can understand its ability to store trillions of toys. The Mask escapes by separating Pretorius' head from his body with an explosive present and goes back into delivering presents.
The villains escape from prison and attempt to wreak havoc across the city, but the Mask hits them with a giant fruitcake and leaves them tied up with a ribbon so the police can recapture them. Unfortunately, Christmas Day has arrived and the Mask only managed to deliver a single present: a horse to a single girl. Stanley is disappointed that he couldn't keep his promise to Santa, until he notices that children have indeed received presents from Santa.
Stanley theorizes that the man he met on prison must have been the real Santa, so he talks to Kellaway about it, but Kellaway tells him that no such man was ever arrested. He even gives him a catalog that contains information on all the prisoners to prove it. Kellaway, however, gets a secret present from Santa: the Captain Choo-Choo train he wanted back when he was a kid. This makes Kellaway wonder that, maybe, Santa is indeed real.
Meanwhile, Stanley gets his own present, a flannel shirt from Santa, alongside a note. According to the note, Santa never expected an amateur like Stanley to complete the job in a single night, but he saw that Stanley is a good man. Stanley and Milo are happy that Santa can continue his job, as the girl that got the racing horse from the Mask happily rides across the city, celebrating Christmas.
Characters[]
- Stanley Ipkiss
- Milo
- Charlie Schumaker
- Walter
- Putty Thing
- Fish Guy
- Kablamus
- Don Julovit
- Mayor Mitchell Tilton
- Santa Claus
- Mitch Kellaway
- Doyle
- Pretorius
Trivia[]
- Lt. Kellaway doesn't believe in Santa Claus because he never got the toy he wanted one Christmas when he was a kid; a Captain Choo-Choo train set. This possibly could be the reason behind Kellaway's cynical and harsh personality. Except, at the end of the episode, he got a Captain Choo-Choo train on his desk from Santa, which gave Kellaway some belief in him.
- The scene where The Mask confronts Pretorius on the source of his villainous nature by enacting the Three Ghosts of Christmas scenes from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
- The Mask only delivered one present when being Santa, due to him being distracted by Lt. Kellaway and Doyle chasing him, being captured by Pretorius and escaping him and battling and capturing all the false Santa villains.
- The Mask takes his job seriously a lot more than usual, due to the real Santa being captured and imprisoned, and actually poses as him to deliver the presents to the children, showing as always what a good-hearted man The Mask is, and Santa hints on that fact to Stanley.