You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?
In case you don’t, you will be reminded in weeks to come through an endless surfeit of song and sell-abration. It’s that time of the year again folks – time for mistletoe and holly (or challah, if you celebrate Chanukah.) Time for cold weather and warm feelings; and time to pay homage to the beloved Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
But what do we really know about Rudolph? Where did he come from and when did he become an integral part of holiday history? I did some online research and here’s what I learned:
The darling deer started out as a department store promotion back in 1939 when Montgomery Ward executives decided to give away an original Christmas story instead of the usual ‘same-old’ coloring book. Lucky for them – and for all of us – the store employed an inventive young copywriter named Robert L. May who came up with the imaginative tale of Rudolph, an underdog reindeer with a glowing red nose.
The story was met with less than good cheer at first. A red nose may have been okay for a circus clown but not for a Christmas symbol. May persisted, however, and after a while, he and Rudolph won out. Well, kind of. Since ‘Rudolph’ was a work-for-hire, the store was able to hold on to the copyright until 1947. By that time, Rudolph had outgrown Montgomery Ward and was ready to join the publishing mainstream. May convinced the head of the store to hoof over the copyright and allow him to fly solo with Rudolph.
The charming Christmas story made it into the bookstores and was even the subject of a short cartoon. Now here’s the really amazing part. May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, a well-known songwriter with a penchant for Christmas songs, was so inspired by Rudolph that he set the reindeer’s story to music. I can hear you thinking instant hit. Right? Wrong. Nobody wanted to record it. Nobody, that is, except Gene Autry, the popular “Singing Cowboy” – and he did it only to please his wife. Poor Rudolph, however, wound up on the “B” side of the disk. Autry left the country soon after making the record. He returned home to find that he had a number one hit on his hands! To this day, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is one of the most popular Christmas songs of all times.
“Then how the reindeer (and the public) loved him, as they shouted out with glee. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you’ve gone down in history!”
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Harriet Posnak Lesser is an award-winning journalist and social satirist whose articles have appeared in Long Island’s The South Shore Record and Nassau Herald, The New York Times, Cracked Magazine and others.