By Baylee Pulliam–

The White Castle slider-seeking duo Harold and Kumar are back in the third installment of the franchise – and this time, they’re taking on Kris Kringle himself.

John Chou (Harold) and Kal Penn (Kumar) star in “A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas,” due in theaters Nov. 4.

Penn sat down with The Louisville Cardinal to discuss the film, Christmas movies and his new friend, Waffle Bot.

“It’s kind of weird, putting Harold and Kumar and Christmas together,” Penn told The Louisville Cardinal. “But it’s great. Not a kid-friendly Christmas movie, but how fun would that be?”

No fun, Mr. Penn. No fun at all. But luckily, the “Harold and Kumar” writers loaded this film with just as much debauchery as the first two.

Six years following their escape from Guantanamo Bay, Harold and Kumar have drifted apart, replacing each other with new friends and teetering on the brink of an uneventful and all-together boring holiday season.

Quite conveniently, a postal mixup lands Kumar at Harold’s door with a mis-delivered package of, well, a certain “high-grade” treat. Show of hands – who saw that coming?
Mr. Penn, put your hand down.

As per usual for the baked buds, this does not end well. The two send Harold’s father in-law’s prized Christmas tree up in smoke and promptly set off on a drug-induced, psychedelic and sometimes clay-mated quest through New York City to find a new one.

The movie is riddled with allusions to Christmas cult-favorites, including “just a ton of movies [the writers and actors] grew up with,” Penn said. Although the references may be slightly raunchier than the kid-friendly films most remember.

“There’s this scene in ‘A Christmas Story’ where a kid sticks his tongue to a pole and can’t get it off,” Penn said. In the film, Harold gets his man parts stuck to a pole.

Before poor Harold can warm his frostbitten nether-region, the script launches the duo into a claymation sequence oddly reminiscent of Christmas specials featuring talking snowmen and misfit toys.

“We did voiceovers once or twice” to sync up with the on-camera clay Harold and Kumar models, Penn said. “It was kind of cool because all the sets had to look like actual places we were filming, so it was like a tiny little version of where we’d been.”

Penn said he didn’t get to keep his clay-mated self, but he proudly shows off a tiny replica of Waffle Bot, one of Kumar’s new stop-motion friends who makes a cameo in the film.

And there are plenty more cameos where that came from, including appearances by big names like Patton Oswalt (“The Informant!”), Tom Lennon (“Reno 911”), David Burkta (“How I Met Your Mother”) and the infamous Neil Patrick Harris.

“The cameos are a part of what makes this film great,” Penn said. “Just a great, really funny group of people.”

But even if Penn didn’t have to say that, it would probably still be true. Every one of the co-stars will likely bring his or her own brand of comedy to the screen, creating an unintentional – yet awesome – blend of satire and insanity.

“It’s been an awesome experience shooting this,” Penn said. “I think the fans are really going to like it.”

Penn said contractually, the third installment of Harold and Kumar is the last, but he thinks “there’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

“I’d like to see Harold and Kumar go to space,” Penn said. “Maybe we can shoot on location.”

Even if the film is the last of the Harold and Kumar brand, fans will at least have the satisfaction of seeing the series take the holiday season to a new high.

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Photo courtesy Warner Bros.