Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! We always have our Christmas on Christmas Eve night. Some of the family comes over and we all celebrate. My nephew has three children and one is only 3 years old so we will have a good time. This year my son is in Germany visiting his girlfriend so it’s our first Christmas without him…that part is hard but we will enjoy this Christmas Eve.

Watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer every year is the same as setting up the tree. Every year I would look forward to seeing this along with the others but what a fantastic durable show this has been. When I hear Burl Ives in anything…I think of him as the narrator Sam the Snowman of this program.

I’ve marked out some time to watch this tonight during our Christmas Eve party.

The characters are wonderful. Well except those other young reindeer who really come down on Rudolph when his nose lights up.

Hermey the elf who wants to be a dentist
Clarice – The reindeer who likes Rudolph just as he is red nose and all.
Yukon Cornelius the prospector who loves silver and gold and has a tongue that can find his silver and gold.
Abominable Snowman – The bad guy of the show who only needs a dentist to make him a good guy.
Head Elf – He leans on Hermey to get his elf self-act together and discourages him from being a dentist…I never liked him too much.

Throughout the special, Yukon Cornelius is seen throwing his pickaxe into the ground, taking it out and licking it. It turns out that he is checking for neither gold nor silver; Yukon was actually searching for an elusive peppermint mine. In a scene right at the end of the special’s original broadcast, deleted the next year to make room for the Misfit Toys’ new scene, Cornelius pulled his pick from the ground, licked it and said, “Peppermint! What I’ve been searching for all my life! I’ve struck it rich! I’ve got me a peppermint mine! Wahoo!” The scene was restored in 1998 and has been reinstated in all the subsequent home video release except for the 2004 DVD release. However, this scene is still cut from recent televised airings.

The Island of Misplaced Toys got to me when I was a kid. I really felt sorry for these lonely toys. King Moonracer was over the island and tried to convinced Rudolph to tell Santa about them so he could pick them up and find kids who would play with them.

Related image

The original 1964 airing did not include the closing scene where Santa picks up the misfit toys. That scene was added in 1965, in response to complaints that Santa was not shown fulfilling his promise to include them in his annual delivery.

The stop animation in this works really well.

The songs are really good. Silver and Gold, Holly Jolly Christmas, Jingle Jingle Jingle, We Are Santa’s Elves, There’s Always Tomorrow, We’re a Couple of Misfits and The Most Wonderful Day of the Year.

https://christmas-specials.fandom.com/wiki/Rudolph_the_Red-Nosed_Reindeer_(Rankin/Bass)

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

30 thoughts on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

    1. Merry Chistmas John! Yea he is 21 and in college and this was the only chance he got to go . He felt bad about it…I felt bad and he promised not again….but I told him to have a great time…it does suck though.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  7. I never knew of the missing “peppermint” scene. Neat. I agree, it’s a timeless classic…maybe we’ll watch it here tonight too,it’s missing from our playlist this December so far. I always wanted that spotty elephant as a kid.
    Merry Christmas to you and your family Max, enjoy your get together tonight. Hope Santa is good to you all!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I know what you mean….I didn’t like it either early on….the Monkees version kinda strips it down…I thought it was interesting.

      Like

      Reply

  8. It’s a wonderful show, probably #1 on my list of holiday movies. I like stop-motion animation, so much better than some of the cgi they use today. Glad you are having a holiday party at your place. Merry Christmas Eve.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Oh i do also….the stop-motion makes it more tangible. My mom’s first name was Clarice…the same as Rudolph’s girlfriend…I use to joke with her about it so this one is connected to her.
      Merry Christmas Eve to you Lisa.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      2. It is around 70 degrees here! Yes Clarice Faye…you don’t hear either one of those names anymore. I hope your Christmas is wonderful Lisa.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Thanks Max. Got home an hour or so ago. It was a very Merry Christmas. 70 degrees sounds pretty danged nice. How was your Christmas? Did you get a chance to “Zoom” with Bailey?

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Yes we talked to him Christmas Eve…It was great Lisa….his parents talked to us and said how great of a person he was…that meant a lot to us.
        Also her mom was telling us in broken English how “beautiful” he was. I was going to joke about her needing glasses but I refrained lol. …But Lisa…I sure miss him. It’s not the same .

        It’s 70 here and we have the air on. Merry Christmas!

        Like

  9. As I am often wont to say, this is one of the truly great Christmas specials of all time. Burl Ives was wonderful as the narrator. A few years ago, CBS decided to screw with the end of this and insert a stop-action Destiny’s Child singing “Rudolph” and screwed the whole thing up. The next year, they went back to doing it the way it was made.

    I hear about all these extra scenes and ask myself why they don’t make it an hour long and put all of them in. I’ m sure they have a reel of misfit scenes for this…

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I would LOVE to see the full version of this. I have the strongest connection to this one probably if only for “Clarice” which was my moms name.
      Yea I hate when they screw with classics….it’s classic for a reason.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. I think CBS, probably at the behest of a young executive, added in Destiny’s Child because they thought it would appeal more to young urban audiences. Instead, they probably got a rash of angry phone calls from people like you and me, who had grown up with the show and waited all year to hear Burl Ives sing “Rudolph.”

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Yes that makes sense. My feeling when they do that is…hey you want something modern? I get it…start from scratch.

        I mean when I heard Burl Ives sing it as a kid…it wasn’t like he was burning up the charts either…It would have been the same for my age group if they would have inserted Elton John or someone.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment