'Chris' Co-Creator Dodges the Santa Claws
PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 19
Critics blew the lid off Santagate on Thursday, forcing "Everybody Hates Chris" co-creator Ali LeRoi to defend the highly controversial mid-December episode of the UPN sitcom in which
  Imani Hakim and Terry Crews in the infamous Christmas episode of "Everybody Hates Chris." (By Robert Voets -- Upn Via Associated Press) Television Blog |
SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER 7, OR IF YOU ARE BILL O'REILLY:
it was revealed to viewers that there is no such thing as a fat jolly man with a little round belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly and who once a year goes on a tear in a reindeer-powered sleigh, breaking and entering homes all over the world, leaving cool stuff behind.
"The show is told from the perspective of a 13-year-old boy, and that boy would not believe in Santa Claus. . . . That's in the landscape of our writing," LeRoi explained to the mob at Winter TV Press Tour 2006.
"Because we have a child star, many parents will look at it and go, 'Hey, that's great. That's family programming.' But it's not the Disney Channel -- it's not 'Raven,' " he said.
The fault lies not with the episode but with parents.
"Parents tell their children how they're supposed to interpret things, so if a grown person freaks out when they're watching a TV show because somebody said Santa Claus doesn't exist, what's their kid supposed to believe? You're supposed to guide your children. We're entertainment."
In the episode of the series, loosely based on the childhood of comic Chris Rock, Chris's brother tells his younger sister that Santa doesn't exist, noting correctly, "We don't even have a chimney -- we have radiators." Making matters worse, Chris's dad tells her there's no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, either. Mom tries to make it better, explaining that Santa is a symbol and asking the little girl if she understands what that means. "Yeah, it's okay to lie," the little girl replies, summing things up nicely.
The "Everybody Hates Christmas" episode got loads of press -- none of it good. One critic wondered whether LeRoi was surprised at the outpouring of outrage.
"You know, there were people that got shot that day, you know. There's a war in Iraq; gas prices were high. There were a lot of bad things happening, so in the landscape of things that were horrible, the fact that we got a little press it's, like, 'Man . . . nothing was happening that day, huh?' " Cast member Terry Crews, who plays Chris's hardworking, penny-pinching dad, warned the critics that they'd not heard the last of this:
"What I've got to warn everybody about is we've got [an episode] 'Everybody Hates Playboy,' which is going to do for men what the Christmas episode did for kids.
