CHRISTMAS IN KANDOR

I don't think any TV sponsor has been more identified with Christmas than Coca-Cola. In fact, if I remember the MusicChoice factoid correctly (from their "Sounds Of The Season" channel), it was Coca-Cola's depiction of Santa Claus in 1931 which became the standard ever after. (And Coca-Cola's website confirms that claim.)

For a couple of years now, the Coca-Cola Christmas commercials featured CGI polar bears and penguins bonding over bottles of Coke. In the past, the company also reworked their most famous blipvert into a seasonal solstice song. (Man, I do love me some alliteration!)

But this year, there's a very imaginative spot which brings Santa Claus back in the picture. And it provides a very Toobworldian theory which brings another segment of the DC Comics Universe into the TV Universe.

First off, let me remind you that only one version of the Superman mythology exists in the main Toobworld, and that's 'The Adventures Of Superman'. 'Smallville', 'Lois & Clark', and 'The Adventures Of Superboy' - plus the various cartoon series over the years - are all off in their own TV dimensions.

(This is especially disappointing with regards to 'Smallville', as it has brought the most DCU characters into the TV Universe.)

'The Adventures Of Superman' never gave us more from the DCU than the basic premise, characters, and origin story. We never got the 1950's version of Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Mister Mxyzptlk, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris, or Bizarro Superman. They may not have been seen during the run of the series, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist in the main Toobworld.

(In fact, I wrote a blog post about who could have been cast in those roles. At the time, I couldn't insert pictures into my posts, so I relied on links to the actors I suggested for the roles.)

So what does all of this have to do with the new Coca-Cola Christmas commercial?

I think the blipvert suggests that the Bottle City of Kandor exists in the main Toobworld.

Here's the basic legend for the Bottle City of Kandor, from Wikipedia:

Kandor is the name of the former capital city of the fictional planet Krypton in the DC Universe. It is best known for being stolen and miniaturized by the supervillain Brainiac. Upon its recovery by Superman, it has been traditionally kept and monitored in the Fortress of Solitude.

Kandor showed up or was mentioned in these animated series:

'Super-Friends'
'Justice League Unlimited'
'Legion Of Superheroes'

But those are exclusive to the Tooniverse. And its presence in 'Smallville' was just too convoluted to be of any use for any kind of synchronicity between fictional universes.

As for the main Toobworld, we don't have to take it on the flabby sentimentality known as faith that Kandor exists in Earth Prime-Time. A character from Toobworld actually talked about it as being real!

Penny:
What is this?
Leonard Hofstadter:
Oh, that is the bottled city of Kandor.
Penny:
Uh-huh.
Leonard Hofstadter:
You see, Kandor was the capital city of Krypton, until it was shrunk by Braniac before Krypton was destroyed. It was then rescued by Superman.
Penny:
Oh. It's nice.
Leonard Hofstadter:
It's a lot cooler when girls aren't looking at it.....
'The Big Bang Theory'

Leonard talked about it as though Kandor and its history were facts. (However, he was not referring to his own bottled city as the actual Kandor. That was clearly a model.)

By the new millennium, everybody in the main Toobworld knew the basics about Superman, including that his alias was Clark Kent. That's because Superman died back in the early 1960's, saving Ray Luca and his henchman Paulie from a nuclear bomb blast. (This happened off-screen between the first and second seasons of 'Crime Story'.)

"The Man of Steel" might have survived the blast had it not been for the kryptonite particles that were in those desert sands. The force of the blast drove those particles into Superman's once-impenetrable skin and he later died of kryptonite radiation poisoning.

After his death, the truth came out about his double life as that mild-mannered reporter for a large metropolitan newspaper. Even details like the name of his Kryptonian father was revealed - which is how Jerry Seinfeld knew enough to use "Jor-El" as his ATM password.

In the DCU, Superman and Santa Claus have known each other since 1938. Why couldn't it be that their televersions had the same kind of friendship? And since the Fortress of Solitude was in the Arctic Circle, as is Santa's workshop, wouldn't Santa have done what he could for his late friend by taking care of those miniaturized Kandorians who had been left under the guardianship of Superman?

Eventually, after so many decades within that bottled city, Nature still took its course. The population threatened to expand beyond the capacities of Kandor's enclosed environment. So, as seen in the Coca-Cola blipvert, Santa Claus made snow globe suburbs to be homes for any of the Kandorians who wished to emigrate. (The more adventurous of those to do so were probably the ones who had best acclimated themselves to the idea of living on Earth, tiny though they were. As could be seen in the commercial, they had taken to wearing terran-style clothing in the snow globes, and living in homes and working in buildings that could have been found on Earth.)

For the time being, since Santa Claus is immortal, I'm sure he's planning to keep the satellite snow globe suburbs with the original bottled city of Kandor. That way the gene pool won't become stagnant and corrupted in any of them. But if he should ever give them out, being the great gift-giver that he is, Santa would probably only do so to other TV super-heroes, maybe to a powerful yet benevolent alien being - just to make sure the snow globes remain safe from harm by outside forces of evil. (Among those Santa Claus may have entrusted with the snow globes would be Wonder Woman and the Vulcan Mestral, who had been living on Earth Prime-Time since 1957.)

All of that from one TV commercial.....

SHOWS CITED:

Coca-Cola - "Snow Globes"
'The Adventures Of Superman'
'Smallville'
'The Adventures of Superboy'
'Lois & Clark'
'Super-Friends'
'Justice League Unlimited'
'The Legion Of Super-Heroes'
'The Big Bang Theory' - "The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization"
'Wonder Woman'
'Enterprise' - "Carbon Creek"
'Crime Story'


HoHoHo!

For more on Kandor, click here.....