Ernest Saves Christmas
Of course, Vern was no help. Outside, Ernest and Harmony discover Santa left them holding the bag. The Bag, in fact.
Ernest is reduced to childlike awe and wonder. Harmony has more practical designs. She's still skeptical, though, thinking this bag contains some kind of nuclear device.
Crashing into Vern's house and tearing up the joint has made Ernest and Harmony feel kind of like a team. Together they cook up a way to bust Santa out of Florida's jail system (notice Ernest leaning on the griddle a little too hard--he'll figure it out).
We just saw Harmony going along with Ernest's solution to get help from Vern, with no luck. Now they're going to try it her way, by scamming the authorities, posing as the duo from hell.
Ernest dresses up as an bureaucrat from Gov. Ellington's office to conduct a surprise inspection; Harmony is dressed as the Governor's niece, here to write a paper about how government really works. A perfect opportunity for prison officials to do a little kissing up to the statehouse, if they are so inclined (and they are).
The quickest way to a man's heart is to dress like jailbait, something Harmony found out long before Britney Spears.
Her cuteness is all on the surface, though. She's full of insults and insinuations, making the sheriff increasingly defensive:
"Is this how government really works?"
Santa is free again, but all this subterfuge and deception hasn't made a new person out of Harmony. Instead, it's just confirmed to her this is how the world works, regardless of your motive. Santa himself may have been saved, but the spirit of Christmas hasn't. Santa labels her a cynic, and calls her by her true name, Pamela Trenton, momentarily silencing her.
Back at Ernest's place, Harmony is all smiles. They decide to trust her with Santa's bag while they try one more time to contact Joe. Bad decision!
Harmony heads down to the train station with the bag (even though she has yet to pull anything useful out of it--but she figures she'll get better with practice).
Of course, the station is filled with the holiday crowds, lots of families reuniting. Harmony starts to see the cost of her criminal act, and we can see that Santa's faith in her is not misplaced after all.
More importantly, Harmony realizes his faith is stronger than her selfishness. All tricks aside, that was the real magic she was looking for. She returns the bag to Santa, Ernest, and Joe, who also has found his true self as the next Santa Claus. The flying reindeer are there as well, and Joe gives the reins to Ernest the crazy cabdriver for one night, and Harmony/Pamela gets to be an honorary elf. Christmas is saved!
Around the same time that this movie came out, Jim Varney came out with his own short-lived children's show, which used some of the supporting players seen in here. For those who saw it (I saw part of the last episode), it was a unique experience; unlike PeeWee's Playhouse, it was non-kitschy and almost adult-like in its sensibility; surreal like childhood, but without the frantic pace of most morning kids' shows. Though later on, Jim began to move in other directions, including independent movies, he always had an affection not only for the Ernest movies, but their audience as well, and never seemed to regret the typecasting he suffered as a result. In "Ernest Saves Christmas", art imitated life: a children's entertainer who remained true to himself til the end.
In Memorium: Jim Varney 1949-2000
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