I've written about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer before, but I won't bother asking you to read that. Rudolph, Santa Claus' new reindeer with a bright, shiny red nose, debuted in 1939 as the lead character of a giveaway storybook from Montgomery Ward, written by Robert May and illustrated by Denver Gillen.
The original story told of a young reindeer named Rudolph, who has a large, bright, luminescent red nose. This difference makes him a target for mockery by the other young reindeer. He goes to bed on Christmas Eve, awaiting his gifts from Santa, who's being held up by dense foggy weather and has to fly low to see his way. When he arrives at Rudolph's home, he notices a bright light. When he realizes it's coming from the nose of a reindeer, he wakes Rudolph and asks him to join his team to lead the way. Rudolph agrees and with his help, Santa makes his deliveries on time. Upon returning home, Rudolph's contribution is honored, putting his former detractors to shame.
The book was finally mass-marketed in 1947, followed by a faithfully adapted animated short by Max Fleischer in 1948. In 1949, the story was adapted into the famous Christmas song by Johnny Marks, recorded by Gene Autry. (The animated short would be reissued with the song added.) With these new versions, Rudolph danced into the public's consciousness and took his place in Christmas lore. Rudolph would spin into more merchandise and books.
Then, in 1964, Rankin-Bass released their new version. Well, Rankin-Bass is what the company was eventually called. At the time, it was called Videocraft. Its famous name was from producers Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, who were making new content for television. They would eventually move into theatrical films as well, but the bulk of their output was on television. In 1960, they launched their first "animagic" TV series: The New Adventures of Pinocchio. It was the only series they did in stop-motion, their next series, Tales of the Wizard of Oz, switching to traditional animation.
Rudolph was the first of their many Christmas specials, which would make their "animagic" style of stop-motion animation famous, created by an outsourced company in Japan, usually Topcraft. Some Christmas specials would be traditionally animated as well.
This new version doesn't stick too closely to the original storybook, largely building off of the song adaptation, which had basically summarized the story.
This version is narrated by Sam the Snowman (Burl Ives), who teases the story a year where the North Pole almost had to cancel Christmas. We move into the birth of Rudolph, born with his red, shining nose to Mr. and Mrs. Donner. Santa, who visits, is doubtful that such a reindeer will make his team. Donner coats Rudolph's nose with mud. "There are more important things than comfort: self-respect!"
When Rudolph joins Comet's team for reindeer games, a girl reindeer named Clarice flirts with him and calls him cute. In his excitement, the cover for Rudolph's nose comes off, revealing his glowing red nose. The other reindeer make fun of him, and Comet tells him not to join the games, but Clarice still likes him.
Rudolph meets an elf named Hermey, who'd prefer being a dentist to making toys. As both consider themselves "Misfits," they go off to find a new purpose in life, meeting a miner named Yukon Cornelius. After escaping The Abominable Snow Monster, they find the Island of Misfit Toys, a kingdom of imperfect toys who are deemed undesirable.
Rudolph heads off on his own, and as he grows older, he discovers that the Abominable Snow Monster kidnapped Clarice and goes to rescue her, but is captured himself. Hermey and Cornelius find Rudolph and lure the Abominable away from the reindeer, pulling out its teeth and making it fall over a cliff, taking Cornelius with it.
They head back to the North Pole, where apologies are made for shunning Rudolph. Santa promises to pick up the Misfit Toys before Cornelius arrives with the Snow Monster, now tame and called "the Bumble." Santa discovers that the stormy weather threatens to stop his delivery that Christmas Eve, but then realizes that Rudolph's nose will help them find their way. Happily, Rudolph joins Santa's team and heads out to make the annual rounds.
There's scenes that have been added and changed out and even cut over the years. The version available on home video is generally the original broadcast, which includes an epilogue of Cornelius finding a peppermint mine at the North Pole, saying this is what he's always been looking for. (It explains why he was always licking his pickaxe.) The 1965 rebroadcast dropped this epilogue for a new scene in which Santa arrives to pick up the Misfit Toys and the end credits showed them being delivered to new homes. The home video edits it so both epilogues are present. Airings over the years have had to trim moments to make more times for commercials. The home video version is about 52 minutes, today, programs meant for a network hour timeslot are about 40 minutes.
Rudolph's story is one about discrimination. Rudolph has a perceived difference and is ostracized for it. The thing is, Rudolph finds redemption in discovering that his difference can be useful. (If you want a non-Christmas version of this story, try Disney's original Dumbo.) This is okay, but when we take the same logic and apply it to real world cases of discrimination, it just doesn't work. People are from different ethnic groups and this can manifest in people looking different. People can have disabilities that affect how they look. LGBT people sometimes are perceived to be different. All of these can result in discrimination. These people shouldn't need to prove themselves to be specially useful to be accepted. They can be functioning members of society, they're okay people.
When you take this view and put it back on Rudolph, there's a nastier side to the story. To be fair, it does stem from the original, but the Rankin-Bass version exacerbates it. Rudolph's father, a coach and even Santa Claus engage in shaming him because of his nose. Young reindeer peers are one thing, parents and authority figures are another. No wonder he runs away.
Santa Claus here is depicted as being grouchy, not very jolly at all. Early on, Mrs. Claus notices he's lost a lot of weight and encourages him to eat. During a song called "We Are Santa's Elves," Santa sits around, grouchy, and the lead elf glances back fearfully at Santa. Even when Santa is figuring out what to do about the storm, he figures out that Rudolph can help after yelling at him about his nose being too bright.
Apparently, this nastiness from Santa trickles down as a lead elf yells at Hermey for preferring dentistry to toymaking.
The problem critics have isn't that this happens, but at no point do Santa, Comet or anyone else say, "I'm sorry for what I said to you, Rudolph, it was wrong." Instead, it gets brushed away just because Rudolph has proved useful.
Luckily for families, this is background dressing and our chief focus is on the sweet and innocent Rudolph, Hermey and Yukon Cornelius. Our heroes are rather just one-note good guys, but it's a simple family Christmas story, what else did you want?
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