Good concept, poorly executed.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I feel that I should mention that when I got a hold of the DVD for this movie, I decided to watch it with the "Rifftrax" audio track on, which was done by several ex-members of the cult show MST3K. I'm glad I watched it that way, because not only is the comic commentary very funny, I could see that I would have been in serious pain watching the movie as it was originally intended even if I had been at the age of the movie's target audience. Wow, is this movie bad! It's unbelievably cheap, slow, and technically inept. And while the movie has the title "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny", Santa just appears in the opening twenty or so minutes and the closing ten minutes, and the Ice Cream Bunny only shows up in the last five minutes! Most of the movie is in fact devoted to telling the story of Thumbelina, using footage originally shot for another kiddie matinée flick that was just as cheap, slow, and technically inept as the newly shot footage. I can't see that kids even back in 1972 going for this movie, certainly not more sophisticated kids from today. In short, you should only watch this movie if you have the Rifftrax option - otherwise, prepare for your brain to melt a little during your viewing experience.

Garden gnomes sing and dance, briefly, yet interminably, before Santa Clod- I mean, Santa Claus, gets his sleigh stuck in a light dusting of beach sand on a Florida beach. His reindeer abandoned him, and who could blame them? A group of horrendously annoying, ugly kids with huge teeth are telepathically summoned in freeze-frame, they find him (after running past the same house twice) gather round him, and use conveniently located goats, chickens, mules, and even a guy in an ape costume, to try to move his sleigh. When that proves useless, these obviously bored kids spend an inordinate amount of time listening to him tell them fairy tales- either Thumbelina, or Jack and the Beanstalk, depending on which version one watches, which is merely used to pad out the film's runtime.The Santa footage appears to be silent footage, with sound dubbed in afterward, there are continuity issues left and right, a Santa who looks like he's about 30, and taken a dump in his Santa suit, ugly kids overacting outrageously, and massive amounts of stock footage reign, until a guy in a white bunny rabbit costume drives up (is pushed up by obvious stagehands) through the nearly empty amusement park, and gives this clod a ride ... to, the North Pole? I guess. There is repeatedly shown a dog growling and barking angrily at this costume bunny. I was waiting for him to bite the bunny. That would have been a surprising twist.The sleigh then just simply evaporates into fat air..... The End. What the hell is this about? Who thought this was a good idea? And what the hell were they on when they made this barely Christmas movie (aside from the guy in the unwashed Santa suit, there is no mention of Christmas)? It seems like they filmed a short ride through the awful looking amusement park, then padded that with this story of Santa on the beach, but when that still came up short, the padded it out even further with unrelated fairy tale stories, to horrible effect.

On all aspects, this movie is immensely horrible. It's sloppy, as if nobody in the entire production cared as long as the kiddies paid to see it. The plot is mediocre, and at times absurd - there is even a separate film inside the film.But if you love cult movies (Plan 9 From Outer Space, anyone?) you will absolutely find this hilarious.Poor old St. Nick got his sleigh stuck in some inch-deep sand just before Christmas. He needs help from children, who supply their farm animals (including a man in a gorilla suit!) to help Santa Claus. Santa gives up, and tells the children a story....Santa uses his words so colourfully we actually see "Thumbelina"! This is the part to be ignored, as it is painfully boring.The film resumes (after Santa's story includes credits!!) with a huge plot twist! The acting is terrible. Santa's costume (Obviously a fake beard) does not even try to convince us - much like the film. Reindeer are seen in the north pole without any snow. The Ice Cream Bunny's relation to Ice Cream is never mentioned, as if the screenwriter wanted to leave it to our imaginations. There is also singing from the kids' whiny little voices, and kazoos! I laughed, I yawned, I wondered "Why am I even watching this?" at points. It is a complete waste of time, but entertaining also. It's fun to point out all the mistakes and plot holes, and the "visual effects". Don't even try to take this film seriously.

Oh I've seen a lot of bad movies before this: Monster a Go-Go, Manos, Leonard part 6, even Ben and Arthur. But all those movies had effort put into them to make them bad, a combination of the ropey script, non-existent acting, stupid plots and all-round awfulness. Santa and the Ice-cream Bunny is worse them all of them. And it does this with almost no effort at all. I'd even go as far as saying that if I were to write down all the mistakes in this movie while watching it, the movie would end before I would.Take the basic plot, a short narration that Santa's sleigh is stuck on the beach because his reindeer have left, and a single frame from the movie to illustrate this (eer, a scene of the sleigh on a beach and very little else). Straight away there are unanswered questions:-Why is Santa's sleigh so small? There is no space for any presents. - or the reindeer. -How did the reindeer escape? -What is Santa doing on the beach in the first place? -How did it get trapped? -How can such a tiny amount of sand trap his sleigh? Simply farting on it would blow it away. -Even if/when he does dig it out, how can he get home without any reindeer?All that, dear reader, from mere seconds of the movie. Now just imagine that for the entire duration. That's why I think it's a work of art; I can't think of anything ever that provokes so much thought in the viewer. Submit this movie to the Turner Prize and the judges' heads will explode.This movie hit rock-bottom so fast it left a crater at the bottom of the scale. Watch it, and wake up the next day reassured that no other movie can be this bad.