Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV special)


Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a 1964 stop motion Christmas animated television special produced by Videocraft International, Ltd. It first aired December 6, 1964, on the NBC television network in the United States and was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour. The special was based on the 1949 Johnny Marks song "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which was itself based on the poem of the same name written in 1939 by Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May. The concept was developed in New York City, the animation was done in Japan, the music was recorded in England, and most of the voice actors were from Canada. The production was completed in 18 months.
NBC began airing the special annually again in 2024, having previously done so from 1964 to 1971. From 1972 to 2023, the special aired on CBS, which unveiled a high-definition, digitally remastered version of the program in 2005, re-scanned frame-by-frame from the original 35 mm film elements. As with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer no longer airs merely once annually, but several times during the Christmas and holiday season. It has been telecast every year since 1964, making it the longest continuously running Christmas TV special in the United States. The 50th anniversary of the television special was marked in 2014, and a series of postage stamps featuring Rudolph was issued by the United States Postal Service on November 6, 2014. A special exhibit was also mounted at the Masterworks Museum in Bermuda, where the original puppets are held. Since 2019, Freeform has aired the special as a part of its 25 Days of Christmas holiday programming block.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was initially met with a positive reception among critics, who praised the voice acting, soundtrack, animation style, characters, and sets. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is often regarded as one of the best Christmas films ever made, being featured on numerous "top ten" lists. It has become widely popular among both young children and adults familiar with the Christmas season.

Plot

Donner, the lead reindeer for Santa Claus, and his wife are surprised to find out their new fawn, Rudolph, has a glowing red nose. Donner attempts to first cover Rudolph's nose with mud, and later uses a fake nose, so Rudolph will fit in with the other reindeer.
The following spring, Rudolph participates in a series of games where the new fawns learn to fly and are scouted by Santa for future sleigh duty. Rudolph meets a doe named Clarice, who tells him he is cute, making Rudolph fly. While celebrating with the other bucks, Rudolph's fake nose pops off, causing the other reindeer to mock him and Coach Comet to expel him.
Rudolph meets and joins Hermey, a misfit elf who left Santa's workshop to follow his dream to become a dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, a prospector who has been searching for silver and gold throughout his life. After escaping the Abominable Snow Monster, the trio land on the Island of Misfit Toys. It is a place where unloved or unwanted toys reside with their ruler, a winged lion named King Moonracer, who brings the toys to the island until he can find homes and children who would love them. The king allows them to stay the night on the island and asks them for Santa's help in finding homes for the toys. Rudolph leaves on his own that night, worried that his nose will endanger his friends.
Time passes and Rudolph, now a young stag, returns home to find that his parents and Clarice have been searching for him. He travels to the Abominable's cave, where they are being held captive. Rudolph attempts to rescue Clarice until the monster knocks him out with a stalactite. Hermey and Yukon arrive, intent on rescuing Rudolph. Hermey lures the monster out of the cave and pull out the Abominable's teeth after Yukon uses a falling boulder to knock him out. Yukon then drives the toothless monster back, over a cliffside but falls in with it.
After Rudolph, Hermey, Clarice, and the Donners return home, everyone apologizes to Rudolph and Hermey for their behavior. To everyone's surprise, Yukon returns with a tamed Abominable, now trained to trim a Christmas tree, explaining that the monster's bouncing ability saved their lives. As everybody celebrates the arrival of Christmas Eve, Santa announces that a major snowstorm will force him to cancel Christmas, but he reconsiders after noticing Rudolph's bright red nose. Rudolph leads the sleigh, with their first stop being the Island of Misfit Toys, so that Santa can deliver them to the children.

Cast

Development

The special, with the teleplay by Romeo Muller, introduced several new characters inspired by the song's lyrics. Muller told an interviewer shortly before his death that he would have preferred to base the teleplay on May's original book, but could not find a copy. After the script, concept designs and storyboards for Rudolph were done by Arthur Rankin Jr. and his staff of artists at Rankin/Bass in New York City.

Voice cast

Most of the characters were portrayed by Canadian actors recorded at RCA Studios at 225 Mutual Street in Toronto under the supervision of Bernard Cowan. The recording sessions lasted for two days, which was followed by a session in New York City to polish the songs. Rankin and Bass chose Canadian voice actors for two reasons. First, while the last radio dramas in the United States had ended production a few years previously, many were still being produced in Canada, giving the producers a large talent pool to choose from. CBC was large enough to enable American workers, such as Rankin and Bass, to get their shows done in Toronto. Second, Rankin and Bass were taking loans from friends to bankroll and chose Toronto's Crawley Films to financially stretch out 130 short episodes of Tales of the Wizard of Oz, which made the Canadian labor costs cheaper. Billie Mae Richards, who provided the voice of Rudolph, reprised the role for Rudolph's Shiny New Year and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July.
Sam the Snowman was originally voiced by Larry D. Mann, but it was later decided that Burl Ives would voice him. Ives was hired to appease NBC and its sponsor General Electric. This was Rankin/Bass's marketing strategy to employ a bigger celebrity, which would later happen in other specials, such as Jimmy Durante in Frosty the Snowman and Fred Astaire in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town. In the original production, Billie Mae Richards, who voiced Rudolph, was credited under the name of her husband, Billy Richards, since Rankin and Bass did not want to disclose that a woman had done the part.

Designs and animation

The figures were designed by continuity designer Antony Peters in the United States. Peters' name is also misspelled in all prints of the special since 1965. The company's trademark stop motion animation process, known as "Animagic", was filmed at MOM Productions in Tokyo with supervision by Tadahito Mochinaga and associate direction by Kizo Nagashima. Besides Rudolph, Mochinaga and the rest of the Japanese puppet animation staff are also known for their partnership with Rankin/Bass on their other Animagic productions almost throughout the 1960s, from The New Adventures of Pinocchio, to Willy McBean and his Magic Machine, to The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party?
Each "Animagic" figure cost $5,000 to make, including Rudolph and Santa.

Music

The songs were written by Johnny Marks, with musical director Maury Laws composing the incidental score. In addition to songs written specifically for the film, several of Marks' other holiday standards populate the instrumental score, among them "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". Many of the songs are utilized in the score as musical themes for recurring characters and ideas, such as "Silver and Gold", "Jingle, Jingle, Jingle" and "There's Always Tomorrow". The music score was recorded in England. In 1965, an executive of the special's sponsor General Electric decided that "We're a Couple of Misfits" would be replaced by "Fame and Fortune". "We're a Couple of Misfits" was added back in 1998.
Ives re-recorded "A Holly Jolly Christmas", with different arrangements, for the song's 1964 single release. This version, along with a similarly newly recorded version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", was released the following year on his 1965 album Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.

Broadcast

Marketing

Rankin and Bass signed a deal with General Electric to cover the special's cost of $500,000. The contract only lasted for two broadcasts. To promote the special, a set of puppets was shipped from Japan to the United States and displayed at NBC Studios in Manhattan, New York City during the Christmas season.

Release and reruns

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer premiered on December 6, 1964, as part of The General Electric Fantasy Hour on NBC, at 5:30pm. In 1972, the special would start airing on CBS.
In May 2019, it was announced that Freeform would air the special as part of their annual 25 Days of Christmas lineup for the first time, alongside Frosty the Snowman. The agreement was an exclusive rights agreement, as CBS continued to broadcast the special over-the-air each November and December until 2023, but not on Paramount+ nor, in an unusual case of blackout, virtual multichannel video program distributors such as YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, which have traditionally carried all network programming in the same fashion as cable and satellite providers; CBS parent company Paramount claimed, copyright ambiguity notwithstanding, that it did not have streaming rights to the special.
NBC broadcast the special again for the first time in 52 years on December 6, 2024, in a 75-minute telecast. This change also marked the first time that this special can be streamed on YouTube TV, Hulu and other live TV streaming services.