Top 10 Best Portrayals of Santa Claus in Nickelodeon Christmas Specials

Since the two Santa Clauses from both SpongeBob Christmas specials are different in appearance, I consider them to be two separate entities, which is why I put both of them on the list.

In this incarnation, Sandy introduces SpongeBob to Christmas and ultimately Santa Claus. Thus, SpongeBob goes to spread Christmas cheer to all of Bikini Bottom and tell everyone that Santa's coming tonight. While Squidward is acting like a real Scrooge about it, when everyone sings all night for Santa to come instead of going to sleep, everything falls apart when Santa doesn't come.

SpongeBob is truly sad about Santa not coming, and Squidward is unsympathetic. But when SpongeBob gives him a wooden clarinet despite his harsh treatment, Squidward has a change of heart and decides to make it up to SpongeBob by giving presents to everyone in town.

When all is said and done, SpongeBob is happy while Squidward is essentially left with almost all his possessions given away. However, he then gets the chance of a lifetime when Santa sends him a thank-you letter and Squidward gets to see Santa himself flying in the sky with his reindeer, laughing happily. All the more hilarious is that it's a live human in a Santa suit on a green screen. Either way, he closed out nicely by saying, Merry Christmas, as he flies out of and above the sea.

While later iterations of Santa Claus in The Fairly OddParents portray Santa straight as jolly ol' Saint Nick and nothing more, the most memorable one for me would have to be the first one from Christmas Every Day!. In this incarnation, Santa is really a typical corporate executive who becomes Santa every year by having Fairy World's fairies give all their magic to him to make him Santa and make Christmas happen.

However, things don't go well when Timmy wishes for Christmas to be every day, driving everyone to complete insanity and stressing out Santa due to the excessive workload. While Santa is mad at Timmy at first, when Timmy tries to save him from the holiday icons bent on stealing Santa's magic, Santa forgives him after the Easter Bunny and the other holiday icons give him back his magic.

Thus, Santa gives back his magic to Fairy World and allows the Christmas-every-day wish to be undone. But in exchange, Timmy and the holiday icons have to make it up to him by doing his job for one Christmas next year while Santa and his wife go on vacation. That should make amends for good.

Whereas the Christmas Who? counterpart is entirely human and captured on a green screen, the It's a SpongeBob Christmas! counterpart is portrayed more as an anthropomorphic sea pig. Regardless, he's still Santa Claus in the flesh in this incarnation.

Anyway, it's the Christmas season, and SpongeBob and everyone in Bikini Bottom are ready for Santa's arrival. But things are different for Plankton. Tired of getting coal, he plans to use fruitcake infused with Jerktonium to turn everyone into jerks and make himself the only nice person in town.

Plankton manipulates SpongeBob into carrying out this plan by having him give fruitcake to everyone in town and turning them into jerks. Eventually, SpongeBob realizes he's been duped and proceeds to sing everyone out of their jerkiness. It works, but it's too late as Santa has already decided everyone but Plankton is naughty.

Thankfully, SpongeBob is able to save the day again when he defeats a SpongeBob robot and proves Plankton to be the true naughty one, leading to coal being dumped all over him. Thus, a happy ending is secured, but not without Patrick finally catching Santa for himself with a jellyfish net! Looks like Patrick's getting on the naughty list for life...

To say this incarnation of Santa Claus is grim is an understatement. In the Invader Zim universe, Santa Claus seems to be a blindly worshipped holiday figure by everyone in the world as if he were an almighty ruler or god of some sort. Or at least it seems that way from Zim's eyes. All the mall Santa Clauses are simply Santa's little helpers.

With this taken into account, Zim tries to take advantage of the Christmas holiday so that he can persuade everyone into letting Earth be conquered by the Irken Empire. Only Dib can stop him from ruining Christmas as Zim impersonates Santa and carries out his world-conquering agenda.

Eventually, things go wrong when Zim's Santa suit mutates and becomes sentient, leading to Dib having to free Zim and destroy the mutated Santa suit that's now become a mecha. While Dib manages to drive away the Santa suit, it goes without saying that it was the most horrible X-mas for everyone on Earth.

Cue all of this being told by a talking snowman as he puts up the shields to protect himself and his listeners from the very same mutated Santa suit mecha that comes down every Christmas to attack.

To me, this Christmas special is Dexter vs. Santa Claus done right. That said, on to Saint Nick himself!

In this incarnation, it's Christmas in Retroville, and while everyone is in the holiday spirit, Jimmy isn't. This is because Jimmy doesn't believe in Santa due to him not getting a space star when he was younger. So Jimmy sets out to prove his friends Carl and Sheen wrong by going to the North Pole to show Santa isn't real.

Somehow, Jimmy actually manages to reach Santa's workshop but is still unconvinced Santa is real since he thinks it's just a factory where parents use a delivery service to get gifts to their children. Wow, what a great theory you have, Jimmy Neutron. Anyway, Jimmy then accidentally shocks Santa and makes him unconscious, basically ruining Christmas. Now it's up to Jimmy to save Christmas.

While Hugh Neutron back in Retroville is trying to keep the holiday cheer up by inventing a new holiday centered around pie with no success, Jimmy is doing well with delivering presents until he screws up the last one somehow. Thankfully, Santa recovers and rescues Jimmy and his friends, taking over and finishing the job. Christmas is saved, and Cindy and Libby get coal for humiliating Jimmy.

The most heartwarming moment comes when Santa finally gives Jimmy the space star he wanted, which he couldn't give earlier since it had to cool down for five years or so. Thus, a happy ending is earned as Jimmy places it on top of his Christmas tree, now fully believing in Santa and the spirit of Christmas.

I haven't watched The Santa Experience yet, but I'm guessing it's a worthwhile watch for a Rugrats Christmas special. From what I've researched, it's Christmas and the Rugrats and Angelica want to go see Santa. However, when they go to see Santa at the mall, things turn out less than normal with their Santa experience.

Nonetheless, it arguably turns into a fun adventure for our heroes. But the real highlight has to be when, at the end of the episode, it's revealed that the mall Santa they met is the REAL Santa. Huh, neat.

This Santa isn't strictly from a Nicktoon's Christmas special, but I feel that this Santa deserves a mention here. While he makes only a brief appearance in this Christmas special short, I love how his design is a reference to his counterparts from the Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas specials. Who knows? Maybe he's the exact same Santa from those specials!

Either way, it's nice seeing jolly ol' Saint Nick join all the Nicktoons for their Nickmas party! I wonder if he saw the embarrassing picture of SpongeBob's underwear at that Christmas party... Patrick, you sneaky starfish.

And now for CatDog's incarnation of Santa Claus. In this Christmas special, Santa Claus gives up on Christmas and cancels it after Cat decides to sell himself and Dog to Rancine. The effects of this cancellation are quite drastic, as everything Christmas-themed disappears. As such, everyone blames CatDog for ruining Christmas.

Meanwhile, Cat expresses regret for selling himself to Rancine, so he and Dog try to escape from Rancine's mansion. While not without difficulty, the duo manage to make it out and back to their house, where they try to fix Christmas. When all hope seems lost, Santa Claus finally comes back and fixes everything, with Cat sincerely apologizing for selling himself and learning his lesson at the end. The episode ends with Santa having CatDog pull his sleigh, only for Dog to go fast when he spots a garbage truck in front of them.