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Berry's World was a single panel gag strip that ran for a fairly long time, from 1962 to 2003. It was a single panel on weekdays, at least. On Sundays, as you can see here, it had multiple panels. Jim Berry, the cartoonist, tried to keep it as topical as he could. While he wasn't an editorial cartoonist, he seemed to have the same sensibilities as one. He was the president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists for a time, so they at least considered him one of their own. The strip was never one of the main stars of the comic page, but it always boasted a large newspaper client list, and is fondly remembered by many. Berry could probably have kept the strip going for as long as he wanted, but he decided to end it in 2003 and retire.

The conceit here seems absurd, but at the same time seems like it couldn't be too far from reality. I mean, there has to be some kind of quality control for mall Santas, right? I imagine it's a bit more clandestine than this, though. They probably have some "secret shopper" types that bring their kids in and report the whole experience back to management, so the Santas are always on their toes. Either that, or there's some fine print on one of the signs that says "This may be monitored or recorded for training purposes."