Trivia / Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

• Acting for Two: In the 1964 TV special:
  • Larry D. Mann voiced Yukon Cornelius and provided the Bumble's roars.
  • Donner and Comet are voiced by Paul Kligman.
  • In addition to voicing Santa Claus, Stan Francis also voices King Moonracer.
  • Mrs. Claus and Mrs. Donner are both voiced by Peg Dixon.
  • Carl Banas not only voices the head elf, but also provides the voices for several of the misfit toys.
  • Fireball and Charlie-In-The-Box are both played by Alfie Scopp.
  • Though credited as the recording supervisor, Bernard Cowan voices Clarice's father as well as the Misfit Elephant.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: One line floating around the Internet is Mrs. Claus' demarnd, "Eat Papa, Eat. Nobody likes a skinny Santa." This exact line is not uttered in the special. She says the former sentence towards the end by itself, and earlier says, "Whoever heard of a skinny Santa?", but never both at the same time.
• Blooper: Santa's sleigh is supposed to have eight reindeer pulling it (Dasher, Dancer, etc.), which would make nine total when Rudolph is with them. But when we see the sleigh being pulled at the end, including Rudolph, there are only seven. The producers said they didn't have the budget to make nine reindeer, and indeed the original ending revealed Donner to be one of the two reindeer left out of this run, content to watch Rudolph's debut on the sleigh team with his wife and Clarice, which begs the question: who was the other reindeer not on this year's sleigh team?
  • It was probably Vixen; the wide cut reveals that all of the reindeer pulling the sleigh that year are male.
• Breakthrough Hit: Rankin/Bass Productions, then known as Videocraft International, mainly specialized in now-obscure television series during the early sixties. It wasn't until this special was released that they became a household name and synonymous with Christmas specials.
• Channel Hop: After eight years on NBC, in 1972 the broadcast rights were snapped up by CBS, where it has remained ever since.
• Children Voicing Children: Janis Orenstein was fifteen when she voiced Clarice.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • The titular character was voiced by Billie Mae Richards, who was credited as Billy Richards from 1965 onward, as mentioned in obituaries mourning her death in September 2010. Kathleen Barr later played the character for the Goodtimes-produced films.
  • Also, in the Latin American Spanish dub, Hermey is voiced by an actress.
• Digital Destruction:
  • Early pressings of the Blu-ray had Yukon Cornelius' coat look green instead of blue. Thankfully, the 50th Anniversary Edition has it changed back to blue.
  • On a minor note, for foreign language dubs made since the '90s, the songs sound noticeably crispier than the audio used for all DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the original English version. For the 2007 DVD, only one song "There's Always Tomorrow" sounds sharper and clearer than the others.
• Directed by Cast Member: Besides being the special's recording supervisor, Bernard Cowan voiced Clarice's father as well as the Misfit Elephant.
• Edited for Syndication: Several scenes have been cut by CBS for more commercials, including the instrumental break in "We Are Santa's Elves", the original version of "We're a Couple of Misfits" (which CBS had butchered by trying and failing to sync it to the visuals for "Fame and Fortune"), and the Peppermint Mine scene (which has been absent from television broadcasts since the '70s). Home media releases and Freeform telecasts keep these parts intact.
• Hostility on the Set: There wasn't much drama behind the scenes, except early on when Larry Roemer was supposed to direct. According to Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Making Of The Rankin/Bass Holiday Classic, even though Roemer got screen credit for directing he did very little work on it due to causing problems early on, with sound engineer Bill Giles saying he thought everyone was doing everything wrong. In the end, Rankin became the de facto director. Roemer's relation with Rankin and co-producer Jules Bass continued to degrade and he would ultimately leave the company not long afterwards.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Nearly half of the voice actors in this Christmas special were Jewish, including Paul Soles (Hermey), Larry D. Mann (Yukon Cornelius), Janis Orenstein (Clarice), Alfie Scopp (Fireball and Charlie-in-the-Box), and Paul Kligman (Donner and Coach Comet).
• Live on Stage!:
  • In 2011, the "Center For Puppetry Arts" (America's largest organization dedicated to the art form of puppetry) adapted the special into an hour long puppet show by Jon Ludwig. The puppets for Rudolph and the main characters are all designed after the original designs for the special. The museum would annually perform this show during the Christmas season.
  • Beginning in 2015, the special was adapted into a live musical stage show called "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical" which tours across the United States and Canada during the Christmas season between November and December.
  • A ballet adaptation of the special was performed at "The Maryland School of Ballet and Modern Dance" in the United States in 2011.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • In honor of the special's 50th Anniversary in 2014, "Build-A-Bear Workshop" commemorated by releasing Rudolph and Clarice stuffed animals. This time, both characters are able to interact with each other if both are close together.
  • CBS also honored the special's 50th Anniversary by airing special anniversary promos for the special featuring Rudolph and Sam wandering through backlots of CBS. These includes stars from Hawaii Five-O, The Talk and other CBS exclusive shows all wishing Rudolph a happy anniversary.
  • SeaWorld also announced that Rudolph, Clarice, Bumble, and Yukon will be meetable characters in numerous theme parks owned by "Sea World Entertainment" (such as Busch Gardens and Sesame Place) in mid November of 2014. A year earlier, all four of the characters were meetable at Dollywood and SilverDollarCity. Since 2014, Rudolph and friends (including Sam the Snowman) still make meetable appearances at all parks every Christmas (notably Dollywood, Sea World, and Busch Gardens that has an entire section for the special).
  • A year after the special's 50th anniversary, the special would get turned into a musical stage show called "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical" in 2015.
• Money, Dear Boy: Animator Tadahito Mochinaga was not enthusiastic about taking on Rudolph and other outsourced American productions, but had just suffered a significant financial loss from earlier works, followed by a major studio fire. The 18 million yen offered for just one production was impossible to resist.
• One-Book Author: With only three other (minor and obscure) credits on IMDb, the voice of Clarice is Janis Orenstein's only notable role in any film or show. After this special, the rest of her career was spent performing opera.
• One-Take Wonder: Despite being only fifteen at the time, Janis Orenstein managed to nail "There's Always Tomorrow" in just one take. While she recorded multiple extra takes afterward, her first was the one used in the final version.
• The Other Marty: Larry D. Mann, the voice of Yukon Cornelius, was also going to voice Sam the Snowman, and even recorded his lines before Burl Ives was cast.
• Tie-In Cereal: Beginning in the mid to late 2010s, the special gained its own cereal by General Mills only sold during the Christmas season. It includes cereal pieces shaped like reindeer while the marshmallows are shaped like a Christmas Tree, Rudolph's red nose, a Christmas Tree, and Hermey's hat. The package includes a Rudolph cut-out that can be used as a Christmas tree decoration.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • Some time after Rankin/Bass replaced "We're a Couple of Misfits" with "Fame and Fortune", and before they put it back, they used "Misfits" in 1979's Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, as a duet between Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman.
  • One of Johnny Marks's other popular Christmas songs, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," is heard as background music as the reindeer children are gathering for the Reindeer Games. It was later properly sung in Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July.
• Role Reprise: Billie May Richards^note Originally credited as "Billy Richards" provided the voice for Rudolph in every Rankin-Bass special featuring the character until her death. A curious example occurs in the 2001 special, where Kathleen Barr from the Goodtimes animation reprises Rudolph, despite the interpretation following the Rankin-Bass continuity.
• Screwed by the Network: While CBS usually schedules at least one airing of the special on a weeknight, its sole 2023 airing was slotted on a Saturday immediately following a college basketball game. Sporting events on broadcast networks almost-always run over their time slot, which pushes back the shows after it or skips over them (60 Minutes and the rest of CBS's Sunday lineup suffers from this almost every week during NFL season). The college basketball game ran 25 minutes past the time slot, resulting in Rudolph not airing until about 8:25 PM instead of its scheduled 8:00, resulting in DVR recordings only containing the first five minutes of the special following 25 minutes of sports. This also affected Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns, which were scheduled afterwards.
• Sequel Gap: There was a 12 year gap between the 1964 special and its first sequel Rudolph's Shiny New Year, then another 3 year gap for Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July. And then there was another 22 year gap before the direct-to-video Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys came out (not counting the 1998 Goodtimes feature length retelling).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Early drafts included a Delivery Stork, but when the idea of a Celebrity Voice Actor in the form of Burl Ives as the narrator was introduced, the stork was cut for time.
  • "Silver and Gold" was originally intended to be sung by Yukon Cornelius rather than Sam the Snowman.
  • Antony Peters' original design for Sam the Snowman originally didn't have a mustache and beard, which were added later when Burl Ives was casted as the character.
• Word of God: Many wondered what made the female doll a misfit. It was revealed decades later in a talk show, when Arthur Rankin, Jr. said her problem was psychological, from feeling unloved. Jules Bass was quoted as saying, "I dunno. Maybe she was an alcoholic or something?"

---