Santa and the elves dropping F-bombs, and an elf flashing her breasts.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Santa Inc. suffers from "misguided raunchiness" much in the way the Titanic suffered from misguided navigation. At least the Titanic mercifully only took about two-and-a-half hours to sink. This disaster lingers for four hours through its eight episodes.

In the hands of genuine comedic talent, profanity and over-the-top raunchiness can be used to great comic effect. However it requires a deft touch, and the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. Animal House is a classic example, as are the early episodes of South Park.

Santa Inc. is not in the hands of genuine comedic talent. This is not a surgeon with a scalpel. This is a surgeon with a chainsaw. It is like watching four-year-olds trying to assemble bedroom furniture from Ikea.

Here are some highlights from the trailer. (A mild warning going forward from here. Even with edits it's still a little raunchy.)

Keep in mind that movie trailers are trying to highlight the very best a movie has to offer. They are intended to entice viewers just enough that they want more!

Hey, look! Santa and his pals are urinating on a snow bank! Funny!

Oh, and here's an elf urinating. And his pee is green!

I did not see that coming a mile away at all.

I can't wait to see how many other characters urinate and eagerly anticipate yet more comedic pee colors!

Then there's the profanity.

Ha! An elf just said the F word. About presents. And it's Christmas!

Hilarious.

Again, I think a deftly dropped F-bomb can be funny. But this is clumsy. This is The Nutcracker Suite performed by sumo wrestlers. This is MMA fighters at a quilting bee. This is Joe Biden trying to speak in complete sentences.

There's also an elf getting swept away in a wind storm yelling "If I die get rid of my porn!"

See, he's an adorable elf and he has a porn collection!

Comedic gold.

Then there is an elf flashing Santa Claus.

This is not funny. This is icky. And deeply weird.

But I guess maybe I have a hang up about seeing the breasts of a small green elf that has been associated with children's stories for generations.

Also, I'm not a MAP.

Oh, and Mrs. Clause lifts her shirt up as well.

Yay feminism?

For a series allegedly intended for adults, it feels like it was written by giggling 12-year-olds.

Then there's the wokeness.

So. Much. Wokeness.

Rejecting and mocking traditions cherished by generations of Americans is of course a favorite pastime of generation W, and much like free speech and the institution of marriage, Christmas comes under similar attack.

I'm not at all against this in principle. Exposing the contradictions and at times unspoken shortcomings of long-established cultural norms can be edifying, revealing, and even quite funny.

But again, only if those doing the exposing are not complete morons with the intellectual subtlety of a jackhammer.

Want to guess what the principal theme is of Santa Inc.?

You only get one.

Wait for it...

You see, "the positions of Santa has mostly been..."

Yep, like every problem in America, too many white men.

They are depicted as cigar-smoking, golf-playing, beer-drinking bros.

In other words, the kind of guys I'd want to hang out with.

I mean, terrible stereotypical something or others that we find amusing in contrast to our own enlightened state.

The heroine of the story is an elf who wants to be the next Santa (there have been many over the years, all "white men"). This is a story of her battle to right this terrible wrong, to strike a blow for feminism!

It's also a story about urinating, dropping F-bombs like David Chappelle, and naked children's characters, but mostly it's about striking a blow for inclusivity or something.

I readily concede I only watched the trailer as I don't get HBO MAX. This is probably for the best as it would have been difficult to write this review after having bleached my eyes.

What about those people who have seen the whole series?

Well, before YouTube stopped permitting you to view the number of dislikes, the ratio was... well, a ratio.

How about IMDB?

Rotten Tomatoes?

How did Seth Rogen, who voices Santa Claus, take the criticism?

About as well as you'd expect any Hollywood manchild to take it.

And again you get one guess as to who he blames.

We really ----ed off tens of thousands of white supremacists with our new show #SantaInc which is now available on HBOMAX!

There were additional charges of antisemitism because Rogen and Sarah Silverman (who voices the heroine) are both Jewish which is something I suspect that like me, most people don't even know never mind care about.

If you dare, here is the trailer, you are warned, it's profane and raunchy and deeply unfunny.

Also, some things once seen cannot be unseen.

Now, where is that bleach?...