(speaking foreign languages)
- Tim Allen.
Santa, baby. (laughs)
whatever you wanna call him,
he's jolly, he's got a beard
and his tum tum shakes like
a bowlful of Christmas jam,
most importantly however, he
drives one of the most unique
and technologically
advanced vehicles ever made,
this is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on Santa's sleigh.
- Santa!
Oh my God!
(Christmas rock music)
Santa Claus has been around
forever, unlike my Dad,
we didn't always call him Santa though,
way back in the Viking times,
a guy with a white beard and a furry robe
would drop gifts down
chimneys or next to a fire pit
in houses that didn't have chimneys.
He rode an eight-legged
horse through the sky
to bring the gifts in
December, they called him Woden
and his horse, Sleipnir,
Adam Slepnir?
That guy went to my high school.
So, for centuries, Santa's
hauling this big bag of gifts,
carrying it over his shoulder
through all of Europe
and he's just like riding a horse,
or walking, trudging
through all this snow,
he would have been miserable,
if he didn't love giving
kids presents so much.
The world's population was growing
and Santa was all, "People are
living all over this world,
"I need a faster vehicle,
I should get a car,
"oh wait, cars won't be
invented for 150 years,
"I'm gonna get a sleigh,"
the rest was history.
Americans got our first look at the sleigh
in the winter of 1821.
Today we love photos of
cars on Trapper Keepers,
I mean, I know I do,
but in 1821, they didn't have photographs,
so their version of
photographs was called poems
and this one dude wrote one
called Old Santeclaus With Much Delight,
the words are pretty
good, I'm not gonna lie,
but more importantly, it
contained the first known
illustration of Santa's frigging sleigh.
Researchers at Donut have discovered
that poplar, a soft wood
was used in the body,
for warmth, the sleigh had
velour seats and carpet
and multiple coats of paint
produced a deep luster
and here's the crazy part,
you know what the runners were made of?
Tungsten, it's a super strong metal,
that comes from exploding stars,
just like 1989, Grammy Award winning
metal band, Jethro Tull.
(lively flute music)
It also had a clearly labeled back seat
to hold rewards for
the children who behave
and it was so light,
that it could be pulled
by a solitary reindeer.
The world population was booming however
and Santa soon realized that one reindeer
wasn't gonna cut it, just two years later,
he added seven reindeer to the drive train
and now had a full eight-reindeer team
towing his miracle sleigh,
the combination of more deer power
and the smaller, lighter
sleigh enabled Santa
to get to more children more quickly
and isn't that the point of Santa?
- Santa!
- This second gen sleigh
setup was so successful,
that for almost 150 years,
it had only minor changes
and facelifts, like a
more aerodynamic nose,
that was added in 1890
and a two-way radio to
the North Pole in 1904.
So it's perfect, why change at all?
Well, the answer came in 1939,
when one foggy Christmas Eve,
well, let's just say the
whole dang game changed,
that night, Santa took
off with his usual eight,
but when he got up in
the air, it was so foggy,
that the stars seemed to have vanished,
just like my Dad, what could he do?
He didn't have any LED headlights
or fancy Bro Dos or Lat Bar, it's 1939,
are you guys even listening to me?
Listen, because what happened next
changed the sleigh world forever,
forever,
I'm talking about the little reindeer,
who nobody thought would
be good at anything,
the reindeer, who saved Christmas,
that's right, I'm talking
about the reindeer,
my main deer, Rudolph,
with his glowing red nose, he
led the team through the night
and made sure that Christmas
would not be canceled.
With one simple addition,
Santa could speed full throttle
through the night, without
worrying about visibility
or crashing into a skyscraper or a plane
and while technology has improved,
nothing has done a better
job at lighting the night sky
than Rudolph's nose,
why do you think planes
have those blinking red
lights on the wings?
The next major changes to the sleigh
came during the Cold War,
with the Yanks and the Ruskies on edge,
the world was worried about
the threat of nuclear missiles,
Santa Claus needed a way to deliver toys
to the good boys and
girls of all countries,
but if either of those countries
picked him up on the radar,
he might start a nuclear war,
so Santa's workshop
perfected stealth technology
on the sleigh, mind you, this is 60 years
before the B-2 Spirit Bomber.
As the Cold War cooled off,
Santa turned off the
stealth mode on the sleigh,
he hoped that appearing on
radar would remind countries
that we all have more in
common than we might think.
Today governments clear a
path for the magic sleigh,
whenever it registers in their air space
and speaking of today's sleigh,
it is an absolute marvel.
I happen to have a buddy in the North Pole
and I know that Santa's sleigh
is a whole lot more impressive
than anything else we've ever seen,
I mean, think about
it, delivering presents
to all the children in one night,
you need some heavy tech for that,
some skeptics argue that Santa's sleigh
must move at a speed
of 650 miles per second,
which is 3000 times faster
than the speed of sound.
(roaring wind)
Within the body of the sleigh
is an anti-matter drive reactor
that powers the stardust propulsion unit,
so it's easy to see how he
gets so much done in one night
and for the really long trips,
I'm talking about the ones
between continents and planets,
Santa Claus travels by literally
bending time and space itself,
"I've got to get to
Jamie and Benny's house,"
(whooshing air)
Ting!
And then we're all like, oh,
my ears feel weird, (laughs)
so it works.
From humble beginnings,
riding around the sky
on a legendary, eight-legged horse,
Santa Claus has been a
selfless ambassador of goodwill
and cheer for as long as
we've recorded history,
he's more than just an old, fat guy,
who delivers gifts and hangs
out at the mall every year,
he's Father Christmas and
sometimes, being a father
is the most important thing a man can be.
Dad.
That's everything you need to know
to get up to speed on Santa's sleigh.
What's your favorite reindeer?
Are you one of those people
that hates Christmas music?
Why are you such a hater?
What are some of your holiday traditions,
that you and your family do every year?
Were you naughty or
were you nice? (laughs)
I'll tell you what I want for Christmas,
a Lamborghini and some sort
of girlfriend or companion.
We got shirts, we got
stickers, shop.donut.media,
perfect gift for any holiday season,
Happy Holidays from Donut,
we love all you guys.
