Rudolph - Tumblr Posts
I have waited ALL FUCKING YEAR TO POST THIS
Santa is coming tonight.
Montgomery Ward Rudolph the red nosed reindeer record player. Circa 1940s. Found at a flea market. His nose is a red bulb that lights up.
Ranking All the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Specials
So, I’m in the process of finishing the script for a review of all the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer specials. However, I don’t know if I will realistically be able to complete my video before Christmas, so here is my ranking of every Rudolph special, from best to worst.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964): Despite all the memes (“Deviation from the norm will be punished unless it is exploitable!”), the original Rankin/Bass Rudolph special holds up much better than most of the internet gives it credit for. It has memorable characters and songs, it is well-paced and does not try to cram too many subplots into its runtime, its stop-motion animation was quite good for the time (and has a unique charm nowadays), and it actually fixes most of the issues with the original song and story. It’s a classic. 9.5/10
Rudolph’s Shiny New Year (1976): The follow-up to the Rankin/Bass special is not as good as the first one, and the lesson of “If people laugh at you, it’s because you bring them joy and that’s a good thing!” is kind of reprehensible, but it’s still pretty alright. It certainly has some nice songs and creative ideas, and Red Skelton is charming as Father Time, although I can see why it didn’t become a holiday staple like the first one. For one thing, it’s less well-paced, and doubling it as a New Year’s special and as a celebration of America’s Bicentennial felt stranger. Still pretty good. 7/10
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948): This Max Fleischer short aired a year before the song’s release and thus is more closely based on the original Rudolph story. The animation is kind of janky (as a lot of Max Fleischer’s shorts are in hindsight, even though he was an animation pioneer) and the story is a bit standard, but it’s still a decent short film and a noble enough screen debut for the character. 6/10
Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July (1979): Rankin/Bass pulled out all of the stops for this big epic crossover film between Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, their own Avengers: Endgame that also doubled as a sendoff for Rudolph and Frosty, who would never star in a Rankin/Bass project after this. However, despite some creative ideas, the plot felt all over the place, with far too many subplots and too much lore to keep track of, plus we did not need a explanation for Rudolph’s nose powers. We could have accepted it as simply being “magic,” and making him a chosen one poses more questions than it answers. Still, at least it was imaginative, which is more than I can say for the post-Rankin/Bass specials. 5.5/10
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie (1998): GoodTimes Entertainment’s attempt at rebooting the franchise has diminishing returns, and reeks of the usual GoodTimes stench. The plot beats and characters felt very derivative of the original Rankin/Bass special, as a lot of GoodTimes movies feel derivative of other films, but this one felt even more obvious since even the songs themselves felt derivative of songs from the first Rankin/Bass one. And the $10 million budget clearly didn’t go to the writing or animation, so I have to wonder where it went. Presumably to the voice cast, and while it does bring in some well-known voice actors (including John Goodman, Whoopi Goldberg, Debbie Reynolds, and Monty Python’s Eric Idle), they cannot save this special from mediocrity. 4/10
Rudolph’s Lessons for Life (1996): There’s a reason this special has been forgotten and isn’t even mentioned on Wikipedia. I only found out about it thanks to TV Tropes. Rudolph’s Lessons for Life feels like a remake of Max Fleischer’s Rudolph short, but a lot worse. At least the Fleischer short was good for the time. This special’s framerate feels like a PowerPoint presentation at points. The only copies that exist of this special are 240p VHS rips, so don’t bother watching unless you are a serious Rudolph completionist. 2/10
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys (2001): GoodTimes Entertainment’s second attempt at a Rudolph movie, this one continues from the original Rankin/Bass special and ignores the two sequels. This movie easily has the worst animation of all of them, summoning memories of Foodfight! to mind, and even if you look past the animation, it’s seriously uninspired. The plot lifts beats from the original Rankin/Bass special, and the villain is ripped from Toy Story 2. Perhaps the only decent plot element is a subplot about an island where toys can get plastic surgery? But even then, it’s wasted because they do nothing with it. And the celebrity voice cast--including Richard Dreyfuss, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Rick Moranis--do nothing to help. This is bad. Awful. Burn it. Purge it with fire. 1/10
And that’s my ranking! What do you guys think? Leave your own rankings in the comments below, feel free to discuss if you have any questions, and look out for my review sometime next month!
@pilferingapples I saw you try to hide this in the tags:
And yes, I absolutely agree. As someone who absolutely dislikes the original song, I get a little annoyed that people use pictures from the Rankin/Bass special to criticize the song’s lyrics, because the special does a lot to fix most of the issues with the song. Just the fact that there’s a whole scene of the characters apologizing to Rudolph and Hermie a while before the storm has become an issue makes it clear that they aren’t just saying they like Rudolph because they need him. It’s almost as though director Romeo Muller looked at the original song and story, said, “Hey, wait a minute…” and went out of his way to fix that specific issue.
(If anything, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year is a lot worse with its message, although I suspect I don’t see as many people complaining about that due to it being less popular.)
Ranking All the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Specials
So, I’m in the process of finishing the script for a review of all the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer specials. However, I don’t know if I will realistically be able to complete my video before Christmas, so here is my ranking of every Rudolph special, from best to worst.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964): Despite all the memes (“Deviation from the norm will be punished unless it is exploitable!”), the original Rankin/Bass Rudolph special holds up much better than most of the internet gives it credit for. It has memorable characters and songs, it is well-paced and does not try to cram too many subplots into its runtime, its stop-motion animation was quite good for the time (and has a unique charm nowadays), and it actually fixes most of the issues with the original song and story. It’s a classic. 9.5/10
Keep reading
Okay, I wasn't going to reblog this post, because I am making a very lengthy video about all the Rudolph movies and I don't want to spoil anything, but when I saw this addition I felt I had to respond, as someone who has dedicated way too much time learning about this character.
Yes, it is true that Rudolph was a marketing mascot from Montgomery Ward. It is also true that Robert L. May created Rudolph and wrote the original book, although it's debated how that came about and whether he created the character for Montgomery Ward or whether he came up with Rudolph first.
However, there is a happy ending to this story: In 1946, Montgomery Ward president Sewell Avery directly gave the copyright to Rudolph back to May. And for the rest of his life, May owned the copyright to the Rudolph character and thus directly profited from sales of the book and the many animated specials.
Sources:
Rumore, Kori. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in Chicago: Here's how the story became a book, song and TV special." Chicago Tribune, Dec 24, 2021.
"The History Of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." NPR, Dec 25, 2013.
"Did Montgomery Ward Give the Rights to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Back to the Story’s Author for Free?" Legends Revealed, Dec 20, 2012.
There are many issues with the Rudolph story and Rudolph as a character, and it is okay to take issue with them! I just wanted to clear this up to make sure all the facts were being shared.
somebody has got to stop the santa claus thing btw. It's getting out of hand. we keep yes-anding new additions to a lore that became outdated a century ago. Most houses don't even have chimneys anymore and nobody wears stockings. At some point we accepted the idea that Santa Claus watches children while they sleep and now we have elf on the shelf to deal with. Honestly we should have put a stop to the whole thing with rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. "Hey so what if there was a reindeer born with a congenital condition that makes him the worlds first known bioluminescent ungulate, and because of this he experienced reindeer ableism" who comes up with something like that
I Watched Every Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Special - TheHappySpaceman Reviews
For a late Christmas special, TheHappySpaceman sits down and reviews every single Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer film and TV special. Yes, even that one.
Feel free to support me on Patreon!
Welp, this is the news I woke up to today…
Screw it.
I'm gonna make a video about YouTube's removal of my Rudolph review. This has gone far enough.
Universal Blocked My Rudolph Review
In which I discuss my latest video, NBCUniversal's blocking of it, YouTube's copyright policies, and the potential options I can take.
Feel free to support me on Patreon!
Merry Christmas and a Happy Reaper Invasion! I just had to do a Volus santa after putting a santa hat on my plushie. Rudolph is a shifty cow lol. I am Commander Shepard and this is my favorite present on the Citadel.
у меня осталось только два экзамена
Ну хоть что-то
Понизация персов из Ghost eyes
#ghosteyes
#GhostEyes #Rudolph #Rudy #Tobias #Karmeleo
Merry Christmas everyone.
Have a reindeer 🦌
The moral of Rudolph the Red nose reindeer is that no one likes you unless you’re useful.
December: Red🌈
Happy holidays! Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) will always be one of my favorite Christmas films (even if some parts didn't age so well, hahah).
ca. 2021
