| “ | Let's see how foolish you appear! | „ |
| ~ Pitch taunting Santa Claus. |
Pitch is the primary antagonist of the 1959 film Santa Claus.
He was portrayed by José Luis Aguirre in the original film, and by Paul Chaplin in his appearances on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Role[]
Pitch was the chief lieutenant of Lucifer. On one Christmas Eve, Lucifer had enough of Santa Claus. He decided to turn the children of the Earth against Santa Claus, and sent Pitch to Earth.
While on Earth, Pitch attempted to convince young children to do bad things. This included the little girl Lupita, whom he tried to convince to shoplift a doll. However, Lupita resisted the demon's influence and remained pure, even though it meant she wouldn't get a doll as her family was too poor to buy her one.
Working with some young boys, Pitch tried to delay Santa Claus and prevent him from completing his mission to deliver the toys to all the good children of the world. Pitch had the boys attempt to capture Santa, but they failed in their mission, and only received lumps of coal for Christmas. Tiring of them, Pitch turned them against each other, and left them as they fought each other, hoping that at least Lucifer might be pleased that he caused some mischief.
Pitch then attempted to steal Santa's sleigh. The attempt failed, but Pitch was able to cut Santa's dream powder bag, causing the powder to drain out while Santa was making his rounds, and the flower that made Santa disappear also fell away.
While making a delivery, Santa was later cornered by a dog in Mexico City that had been provoked by Pitch. Santa was forced to climb a tree to get away from the dog. Pitch convinced the residents of the house the tree was located next to call the fire department and report a fire. This would have resulted in Santa being seen by many people. With assistance from Merlin, Santa was able to escape to complete his deliveries. Pitch, meanwhile, was doused with a fire hose from the firemen who had responded to the fire call.
It's safe to assume Pitch was then tortured by Lucifer for his failure, as Lucifer had promised at the beginning of the movie to punish Pitch by force-feeding him chocolate ice cream if he failed in his task, a double-whammy punishment as Pitch was both lactose intolerant and unable to handle cold foods due to a usual diet of red hot coals.
MTS3K[]
At the conclusion of the episode in which Mike and the 'bots riffed Santa Claus, Pitch appeared in Deep 13. He spent several minutes talking to Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank before Santa (played by Kevin Murphy) appeared and a battle between the two commenced. Seeing Santa wipe the floor with Pitch, the Mads declared it to be their best Christmas ever.
Pitch would later appear in the episode Devil Doll, trying to sell Devil Dolls door to door, and teaching Crow the art of soul transference. By the time San Francisco International aired, Pitch and Santa had buried the hatchet, and laughed together at Mike Nelson's Urkel impression.