Rankin-Bass, I love y’all’s work. I have seen and reviewed so much from y’all that I never saw until I was at least 20, and I passionately love. From a masterful Christmas special, to masterful Tolkien adaptation, The Flight of Dragons, and so much more. That is why it feels so wrong that I never liked their most acclaimed work of all.
The second adaptation of Rudolph is their most famous special or movie, and it is highly divisive. Either a masterful children’s movie or terrible. A great message or full of awful messages. Wonderful or awful characters. There is basically no middle ground.
Romeo Mueller is known for very faithful adaptations, and that makes me wonder about this. Wikipedia says he could not find the book. That makes sense, but the cited source is not a primary source, gives no source, and it just says that was a rumor and cannot be verified.
It starts with its first problem, newspapers about a storm. Like the next Rudolph adaptation it has horrible unity of plot. In the original the storm is the villain, as it is man vs nature. Both longer adaptations make it about fighting something else, and then the storm is a tacked on epilogue. They describe it like it is the main plot, and that makes it feel disjointed. Then it cuts to Sam the Snowman.
“If I live to be 100…” You are a snowman in the North pole. You should be calling Methuselah a whipper snapper. “Never seen a talking snowman before?” Yes I have. I guess this was a shock to 1964 children, but when I was born in 1996 this just comes off as slow.
Still I like this opening. To Sam the Snowman Rudolph is a well known story, so he briefly alludes to it building up mystery about this giant snowstorm. Then he realizes the audience is unfamiliar and sings the song.
I really do not like these human designs. Animagic came so far from this. These same people doing Life and Adventures is shocking. This somehow makes Santa come off as very selfish and mean. He also sings badly. They are going for a grumpy Santa who then eats more and gets fat and jolly in the end. I just find that whole plot boring and out of character for Santa. Just compare him to his look in Adventures.
I am glad these guys got so much better over the next two decades. Those beedy eyes and emotionless body language were gone.
I have been critical enough, and I have to say this- I am under no delusion that this was lazily made. Rankin focused on the Japanese production with Bass focusing on the North American side showing why they needed two producers. At one point production took a ten hour train ride to watch deer. The puppeteering on this scale was groundbreaking and keeping the white ones clean was incredibly hard. I see why children from 1964 were fascinated by this, and I appreciate all the work even if it is not my cup of tea.
Unlike many detractors I do not hate Donner. He is effectionate in many scenes, and his attempts to hide the nose are just practical. After all Bad Santa said it had to go.
Why is Hermie the only Elf with normal eyes. He wants to be a dentist a job associated with scaring children. As somebody who always had great teeth I never noticed that until now.
Songs are so forgettable other than “We’re a Couple of Misfits.” Santa is right that “Santa’s Elves” needs work. A lot of work. I actually agree with him.
Why is Clarice wearing a Minnie Mouse bow? She already looks different from him. Clarice asks Rudolph why he talks funny. You talk funny Rudolph, as you sound like an adult trying to sound like a boy.
Only time the eyes show emotion. It is not so much it is shiny, but it whistles. It is hardly even big. Santa sucks so bad. Is Comet kicking him out of discrimination or… It is discrimination. They can deal with a little whistling. It does not even blind them, as they can clearly still see. “Tomorrow” is terrible, as her singing voice sounds nothing like her talking voice.
In the original Rudolph cannot stop his nose from glowing meaning it is a constant problem. I do not know why both adaptations made it only glow rarely. That change lessons the tension and plot when they need more plot.
Yukon Cornelius is the best character. Sure he has beady eyes, but his body language gives good emotion. All his dogs are also misfits. His quick thinking is one of the few actual entertaining scenes, and fleeing Bumble is one of the few highlights. For one it is an exciting scene, it has Yukon’s comedy, and he actually does use smart planning to escape. Rudolph is convinced Bumble is tracking his nose, but that seems overly pessimistic, and it hardly ever actually glows.
Why does King not just go to Santa himself or send somebody? Those toys have nothing wrong with them anyway.
By leaving for months Rudolph doomed the toys to wait for months, as Cornelius and Hermie were looking for him instead of helping the toys. Focus on helping this family Santa, not just your sleigh. Why do you have no spare flying reindeers?
In a scene full of convenient coincidences. we get our climax. Bumble happens to have Rudolph’s parents and Clarice trapped even though they were in two different groups. After Rudolph gets knocked out Hermie and Yukon happen to arrive. For a short named after Rudolph he is completely unimportant until the very ending. Yukon does all the work, and Bilbo Baggins has nothing on this. Then the narrator tells us-
“The best thing to do is get the women back to Christmastown.” What type of dialogue is that?
Now with it basically over the actual plot of the book and song starts with a giant storm. Contrary to what Sants said later he now can fly without Donner and apparently some other reindeer (counting Rudolph there are only seven). It ends with the actual events of the song, and all three sequels forgot he got older.
That is their first Christmas special. Sometimes I just think it is bad and other times I think it is awful (I have to give it another shot every few years to see if there is something I missed). I do not like this one at all. I just think almost every scene is either boring or disjointed. The unity of plot is awful. Other than Yukon the characters are forgettable (Hermie) or suck. Larry Mann as Yukon is the only good actor. The animation is very bad.
The Animation Historian 