Nick (Nigel Hawthorne) is nearing the end of his 200 year term as Santa Claus and needs to find his successor. Failure to do so will bring calamity such as the melting of the North pole ice cap.
Nick hopes to recruit Lucy Cullins (Whoopi Goldberg) someone who was a true believe in the spirit of Christmas as a young girl. However her father died in the Vietnam war soon after she sat on Nick's lap.
Now the grown up Lucy is a cynical grinch working for a shopping channel. Nick applies to be the Santa salesman for the shopping channel in the run up to Christmas, so he can get near Lucy an persuade her to take on his job.
The plot about finding a replacement Santa is a well worn one in these days of mass produced Christmas movies. This is indistinguishable for those types of quickly made and low budget films apart from having a better calibre cast.
Despite being made for cable back in 2001, Call Me Claus is not that funny or appealing. It actually wastes the talents of an Oscar winner and Oscar nominee.
This was Nigel Hawthorne's last film role. At least he got to play a sweet natured part, a far cry from his mean and cynical Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister.