20 facts you might not know about 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer'

If you are familiar with “'Twas the Night Before Christmas,” (officially titled "A Visit From St. Nicholas") you know Rudolph was not part of the original reindeer canon. Where did he come from? Well, it all began with Robert L. May, who wrote the poem “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” back in 1939.

The TV special wasn’t the first adaptation of May’s poem. Johnny Marks, who happened to be May’s brother-in-law, adapted the poem into a song in 1949. That same year, Gene Autry recorded a version of that song you’ve probably heard. It proved quite popular, becoming a number-one hit in the United States.

When the decision was made to give Rudolph a TV special, Romeo Muller was hired to write the script for it. Muller said in the ensuing years he had wanted to use the poem as the basis for his script, but he couldn’t find a copy of it. Instead, he had to use the song as the source for his story.

These days, Rankin/Bass and their “Animagic” stop-motion animation is synonymous with classic Christmas specials. However, that wasn’t the case when they were hired to work on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” This was their first holiday special, and in fact their second-ever TV special after “Return to Oz,” which also came out in 1964.

The names Rankin and Bass are familiar now, but nobody was hearing those names when the special debuted in 1964. At the time, the company was called “Videocraft International, Ltd.” Not the catchiest name. Eventually, they would change it to Rankin/Bass Productions.

The “Rudolph” special debuted on NBC, and it did so with General Electric as a sponsor. In fact, it first aired during a show called “The General Electric Fantasy Hour.” That show was presenting the special, as opposed to it airing as a standalone entity.

We’ve grown accustomed to stunt casting for voices in animation. “Rudolph,” meanwhile, has a cast consisting mostly of Canadian voiceover actors. Why Canada? One, the country was still producing scripted radio programs, which had basically been phased out in the United States. Two, it was a lot cheaper for the production, unsurprisingly.

Of course, the exception to the rule is Burl Ives, who plays Sam the Snowman and is the narrator of the story. Ives was a late addition to the cast, as NBC thought there should be one notable name they could sell to the audience. Since Ives was added late, Sam the Snowman’s look was able to be designed to look like Ives.

Billie Mae Richards provided the voice to Rudolph. It’s not uncommon in animation for female voiceover artists to voice male characters. For whatever reason, though, Rankin/Bass wanted to keep the fact Rudolph was voiced by a woman a secret. As such, she was credited as “Billy Richards.”

The misfit elf? You may think his name is Herbie. He’s been called Herbie in a variety of merchandise. However, all of that merch is in error. His name is actually Hermey, and it’s right in the script.

It’s important to handle your copyright for a movie or TV show. Copyright issues have affected films from “It’s a Wonderful Life” to “Night of the Living Dead.” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” also had a copyright issue. You can blame the fact that copyright notices use Roman numerals. Instead of copyrighting the special to 1964, they accidentally stated that the copyright came from the year 1164 thanks to a forgotten “M.”

Marks did more than write the song that inspired the special. He’s responsible for all the songs on the soundtrack. Yes, this Christmas legend gave us, “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver and Gold,” and more. Also, instrumental versions of previous Marks holiday songs like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” were included in the special as well.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” has aired every year, sometimes multiple times a year, since 1964. It predates other Christmas staples like “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” That makes “Rudolph” the longest-running holiday TV special in the United States.

After the initial airing in 1964, a scene was added for future airings where Santa arrives at the Island of Misfit Toys to pick them up. That’s the current ending for the special. In order to make room for the new ending, though, something else had to be removed. During that original airing, there was a storyline about Yukon Cornelius finding a peppermint mine near Santa’s workshop which would be excised. In the special, you can still see Cornelius licking his pickaxe, but without mention of the peppermint mind viewers are left to wonder why exactly he’s doing that.

Two songs have been swapped in and out of the special over the years for one another. Both are sung by Rudolph and Hermey. In the original, the duo sing a song called “We’re a Couple of Misfits.” After the first airing it was replaced with the song “Fame and Fortune.” Depending on when you’ve been watching you could find yourself seeing one song or the other.

Stop-motion requires a lot of puppets, but not expecting to create an iconic special, Rankin/Bass wasn’t concerned about the future of their puppets. Most of them were tossed, while nine were given to a secretary. Seven of them disappeared entirely. In 2005, a Santa puppet and a Rudolph puppet were found, though they were in bad shape. Nevertheless, they showed up in an episode of “Antiques Roadshow” and were appraised for between $8,000 and $10,000. They were bought in 2005 and restored in 2007. In 2020, Santa and Rudolph were put up for auction and went for a whopping $368,000. They are now in the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 2018, Hollywood Reporter conducted a poll about holiday movies and specials. The winner? That would be “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Overall, 83 percent of the people who took part in the poll had a “favorable” opinion of the special about the bioluminescent reindeer.

Rudolph has appeared in a handful of movies and TV shows, but Rankin/Bass specifically made two follow-up projects after the success of the original. First came “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” in 1976, which also was written by Muller and had music from Marks. Then, in 1979, we got the feature-length “Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July.” This was sort of like the original team-up movie. Take that, Avengers.

References to “Rudolph” have abounded for decades. Stop-motion animation has popped up in sitcoms and other TV shows for years. An episode of “That ‘70s Show” saw Kelso meet Rudolph and Santa. They’ve also appeared in ads for CBS. Additionally, in the movie “Elf” there’s a stop-motion scene with Leon Redbone playing the equivalent of Sam the Snowman, and the elf outfits in that film are based on what the elves wear in the special.

For the 50th anniversary of the special in 2014, the United States Postal Service decided to give the special the honor of a set of commemorative stamps. Rudolph, Santa, Hermey, and Bumble the Abominable Snowman were all featured.