Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review By Professor Popinjay

(1964)

Based on the book written by Robert L. May in 1939 for Montgomery Ward department stores, and etched into our skulls by Johnny Marks’ song, there’s not a soul on this planet who hasn’t heard of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

That’s right, if you’ve ever been to a Montgomery Ward store and wondered why Rudolph is emblazoned everywhere, it’s because they owned that guy! He worked for them!

Max Fleischer (animator of Popeye, Betty Boop, Superman) created a 9 minute Rudolf short that held truer to the original Robert L May story. It’s kind of hilarious sometimes though. Santa moves like Bluto and seems like a creeper by our modern sensibilities.

I loved the animation on the large scale mechanical aspects of Santa’s draw bridge. It makes no physical sense but it’s reminiscent of Fleischer’s amazing Superman cartoons so it gets a gold star from me. It makes me think of Santa as an evil scientist with his evil mountain top lair.

I have some issues with the original story though. I don’t mean to be critical of something that means well. It’s just that the allegory of Rudolf’s story doesn’t quite translate straight across for all perspectives. This is not at all a critique of May’s intentions and one cannot expect everything to be all encompassing. I think all kids at some point can relate to Rudolph. Even the most “normal” of us can feel like an outcast for one reason or another. I put normal in quotes because, if we’re being honest, is normal really even a thing? Or is it a presupposed construct determined by a narrow-minded majority?

If applied generally and with an open mind, the lesson of Rudolf is for everyone and it’s a good message. It’s bad to shun people who are “different”. Our differences are beautiful. But the original story’s message could also be construed as “if you have a physical abnormality then you’re worthless until you prove your differences make you useful.”

I’m certain this was not May’s intention, who felt he too was treated like an outcast in his youth. But allegory can get confusing sometimes if the fictional situations present unintended avenues. 

Thankfully in 1964 Rankin & Bass would animate with stop-motion the 51 minute Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and would take a few liberties which would ultimately deal with some of my concerns, albeit not specifically for me as I would not be born for another 18 years.

The Rankin and Bass film is a little worrying at first because it’s not just Rudolph’s reindeer peers who are insensitive and exclusive. Even Santa and his own father, Donner (yes, THE Donner) are total freaking tools upon noticing Rudolph’s nose.

Let me ask you, if you should happen to have a child and on their day of birth, you notice one of their appendages is glowing bright red, what would be your reaction? Wrong. The correct answer is to notify a doctor and possibly shield yourself from severe radiation poisoning.

Does Donner or Santa have any such concerns? No. Donner’s first reaction is “Better hide that so no one knows what a little freak you are!” and Santa says “Let’s hope it goes away before reindeer tryouts. We can’t have some irradiated Chernobyl mutation on the sled team.”

I have to say a word about Santa in this film. I kind of love him. Everyone reminisces fondly over this cherished piece of their childhood but Santa is straight-up cold blooded! The elves put together an elf song, it’s clearly a big deal. They’ve been working their asses off trying to get it ready to present to Santa. Finally they do and Santa is bored to tears and says “Well, it still needs some work.”

In most programs directed at kids this would be a story arc where we’d see Santa come around and later he’d like the song for some reason. Nope. Not this time. It’s almost Christmas Eve and Santa is fretting FRETTING about how much he hates that stupid elf song. It’s friggin’ hilarious! And he NEVER comes around. They added footage to give the misfit toys closure but Santa gets to just hate this elf song forever. Love it!

Anyway, Rudolf is sad because all of the other reindeer and his dad and Santa have laughed and called him names. Hermey the elf doesn’t want to make toys, he wants to be a jazz singer or something like that. So they join forces and run away to follow their dreams of not being oppressed by a narrow-minded body-shaming/career-shaming society.

Their absence makes everyone they left behind feel bad. They meet a prospector who likes to lick his pick and an abominable snowman who DOES NOT have a tooth ache as opposed to what a large number of people erroneously remember. Nope! The Bumble’s teeth are in perfect working order and Hermey just yanks them all out off camera like a badass.

So the moral of the story is “Accept people as they are unless they’re trying to eat you. In that case, pull all their teeth out like a psychopath.” Good stuff.

With a quick stop at the isle of misfit toys, our heroes return to the North Pole with the promise of telling Santa of the misfit toys’ existence. Not sure why they suddenly regard Santa as the accepting helpful type. If he shuns a reindeer with a shiny red nose what makes them think he’s going to help a Choo-choo with square wheels?

They come back anyway and everyone is happy to see them and very apologetic and accepting, even Donner and Santa. This is great. We’re loving Rudolf and apologizing long before the part where we learn how useful Rudolph’s nose is. I really appreciate this.

And even though the Bumble and Yukon Jack return and reveal what a psychopath Hermey is, they let him be a dentist anyhow. And that’s what Christmas is all about.

Next we see Santa pick up the misfit toys and then watch as elves drop them randomly over the Atlantic Ocean, never to be seen again I assume. Problem solved.

This spawned a myriad of sequels much like the Charlie Brown Christmas Special did. Some of the sequels are well-thought-out, poignant, and fun. Others are clap-trap cash grabs no one has ever heard of nor would they be able to differentiate them from the others. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any of these recently enough to comment on them so until then…

Fly your freak flag you red-nosed weirdos!

And study dentistry. Seriously! I’ve been waiting over a year to get a cavity filled. They’re scheduling into 2028!