Headscratchers / Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

• THE OPENING OF THE SPECIAL! It is so confusing! It starts the entire special with a snowstorm in the background along with newspaper articles about snowstorms, I know they somewhat explain the snowstorms with the abominable Snow Monster, but why open the entire special that way?
  • It's meant to be foreshadowing the stormy Christmas Eve that Santa would need Rudolph's help in dealing with.
• Presuming that all toys are assembled by elves, that would include the misfit toys? And if so, it leaves one wondering why an elf would make a toy that wouldn't be enjoyed by a child.
  • Maybe these were practice toys made by newly hired elves.
  • Perhaps Santa utilized an assembly line in the past, but after the misfit toys were unwittingly created by overworked elves, he switched to a more old-fashioned style.
  • There's undoubtedly going to be goofs when it comes to toy making. No manufacturer is going to get a perfect line of toys fresh off the assembly; one small part of it will always be defective in some way. The same could apply to the North Pole Staff, whom, while competent, are not infallible. Some of those toys were undoubtedly going to be made incorrectly (why else would they blame Santa Claus for their predicament?)
  • Speaking of the misfit toys, what was supposed to be wrong with that doll?
    • She suffered depression after being abandoned by her former owner.
    • Given the era when the special was made, merely having been crafted with a sad face rather than a happy one might've been enough to make her a misfit. Children weren't as encouraged to express their darker feelings for emotional health's sake back then.
    • Jules Bass once jokingly gave the reasoning that she's an alcoholic.
• One has to wonder why Santa hasn't ever invested in some lamps to light his way in the fog or snow before, especially given how common snowstorms are in winter.
  • Given Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July retroactively shows the storm and fog were caused by powerful magic that only the magic in Rudolph's own nose can surpass, it's safe to assume headlights or lamps wouldn't have helped Santa's case anyway. The writers of the fourth sequel seemed to be aware enough of this to have a joke lampshading what'll happen if Rudolph gets his nose surgically removed and another foggy eve comes along ("Santa can't afford headlights?")
• Yukon is seen carrying what appears to be a revolver◊ for the majority, if not the entire span of the film. He had plenty of situations where a gun would be handy, and yet never uses it.
  • Considering this is a guy who's looking for silver and gold up at the North Pole and using a team of dogs who are not at all suited for sled pulling, he isn't exactly the sharpest tack in the package.
  • For all we know, he may have used all his ammunition before making his first appearance in the movie and it simply never occurred to him to drop the extra weight of the now-useless gun. Unless he has a reason to keep it even if he can't use it, such as it being a memento or something.
• Concerning the original song these animations were based on, there's the line, "But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?" after listing the other reindeers with the assurance that the audience knows their names. If it can be assumed the audience knows the other reindeer but one has to question if they know the "most famous" one, then it means he's not the most famous.
  • Possibly "famous", in this context, means "famous for individual achievement". None of the other eight can claim much that sets them apart from the rest of the sleigh-pulling team, unless Blitzen having a hard-for-little-kids-to-pronounce name counts.
• Hermey says he doesn't want to make toys. The head elf tells him he's an elf, and elves must make toys. Then when the break whistle goes off, he tells Hermey to stay and finish his work or he's fired. Why exactly did he think would Hermey care about being fired, when he wants to quit? And how is it possible to fire an elf as a toymaker if they don't have a choice about doing it to begin with?
  • Maybe he'd have sent Hermey back to toy-making-elf school for remedial education.
  • Perhaps the elves don't have much of an economy outside of making toys. Remember, Santa Claus is Comin To Town established that the Kringle Elves were toymakers first and foremost, and they had built their entire livelihood to their craft. All the elves since had known nothing but making toys, thus they stood out as staunch traditionalists. The Elf Foreman never once thought elves could ever step outside of their craft, thus he thought he could scare Heremy into thinking that he'd better put his mind on his work, otherwise he won't be able to work anywhere else.
  • Some types of toy-making work are probably more desirable than others. Possibly if Hermey had been fired from the manufacturing line, he'd have been stuck with the lowliest grunt-work tasks at the toy factory, like sweeping up sawdust from wooden toys or cleaning brushes used to paint them.
• Santa brings up he won't be able to get his sleigh off the ground without Rudolph's father, Donner. At the end of the movie, however, he is seen flying his sleigh just fine despite having only seven of what should be nine reindeer. (Not counting Donner since he, along with his wife and Clarice, was watching Rudolph lead the sleigh in the full uncut version)
  • Maybe the wind speed changed between Santa expressing this concern and the film's conclusion, which affected how easily the sleigh could take off?
  • In reality, they couldn't afford to make all eight reindeer, and could only use six. Perhaps Donner stood behind to watch over his wife (who had just been kidnapped by the Bumble mind you), and merely served as the team's flight commander, instructing them on what maneuvers to take. He may have given such knowhow to Rudolph, seeing as he was trying to prep him to join the sleigh team.
  • I thought it was an animation error and there actually were supposed to be nine reindeer pulling the sleigh. But then I realized Donner was watching which means he can’t be pulling the sleigh. Speaking of which, why wasn’t Donner (as well as the other reindeer who’s missing) pulling the sleigh along with the other reindeer? Isn’t that his job, just like with the others? Regardless of the fact that he is proudly watching his son make the sleigh team, shouldn’t he still be doing his job as well?
  • In-universe, maybe the sleigh needs exactly eight reindeer to fly properly, which is why Santa said he needed Donner before Rudolph was added to the team, but why Donner stays behind after Rudolph takes the lead. Of course this doesn't explain the other missing reindeer, which really is an error because they couldn't afford to make another one.
  • Santa does say "get the sleigh off the ground," but perhaps he's really referring to Donner's leadership and navigation skills rather than the actual physics of flight. They fly just fine with seven, after all.
• Yukon Cornelius is said to have survived his fall off the cliff because “Bumbles bounce.” If that’s the case, shouldn’t he and the Abominable Snow Monster have bounced back up just a few seconds after they went over the cliff?
  • An object capable of bouncing never returns to the original height if it merely falls.
• So which toys are sentient in this universe? Are all toys sentient but they can only reveal it to other magical creatures? Is their sentience a side-effect of being made wrong in the first place? Does King Moonracer imbue all toys on the island with sentience (this one is disproved by the end sequence where they're still alive while being delivered, but it would be the most reasonable)? Is this a sort of inverse Velveteen Rabbit situation, i.e. a sufficient lack of love creates misfit life?
• Santa's reindeer have to worry about foraging and predation. He can't make a stable for his crew specifically, at least?
• So Yukon Cornelius licks his pick because he's looking for a peppermint deposit, and in the original ending he does so. Putting aside the ludicrousness of a peppermint mine, why did they take away the footage in later airings? The peppermint mine was a great gag, and makes more sense than looking for the taste of gold or whatever.
  • Same reason they hacked up the "We're A Couple of Misfits" sequence: to make room for more commercials.
• In this special, Santa is naturally thin, and his wife orders him to eat a lot and gain weight every year because apparently his skinny appearance will disappoint the children who expect a fat Santa. So where did the idea that Santa has to be fat come from?
  • Probably a straightforward "Christmas = celebration = feasting = fatness" chain of reasoning.
  • Plus, we only see him being thin and having to eat to become fat twice; hardly a sufficient sample size to extrapolate that this happens every year. Perhaps his weight just fluctuates and these two years happen to be times when he's not living up to his image. Or maybe he lost weight at some point but the old image of fat Santa persisted.
• After Hermey removes the Bumble's teeth, Yukon mocks the monster saying that he's completely harmless without his choppers. But the Bumble has been shown to be able to harm characters in ways not involving his teeth, like when he whacks Rudolph with the stalactite, and he's much bigger than the other characters. So even if he's toothless, that doesn't mean he isn't dangerous, and yet he just nervously backs away when Yukon pushes him instead of attempting to fight back.
  • Being de-fanged probably left the Bumble feeling more vulnerable and weak than he'd ever felt before. He may still be bigger, stronger, and tougher than Yukon, but he doesn't feel that way, so the snow creature wimps out.
• Fireball is the only reindeer with scruffy blond hair. Why wasn't he bullied as well?
  • Just because he's the only blond in the group doesn't mean he's the only blond period. It's likely perfectly normal but just rare.
• Why do only the male reindeer calves seem to participate in the Reindeer Games while the females just watch, and why does Donner take a Stay in the Kitchen attitude with his wife? At least one of the reindeer already on Santa's team is female: Vixen. It wouldn't make much sense for a male reindeer to have name meaning "female fox," and The Year Without a Santa Claus confirms her gender.
  • The traditional names are only listed in the opening, when Sam announces that he's telling Rudolph's story from some point in the future. The only reindeer confirmed to be on the sleigh team when Rudolph is a child are Donner, Comet, and Dasher, and Rudolph flies with all male reindeer. The sleigh team probably changed policy to allow female reindeer sometime after Rudolph's first flight, and Vixen was one of the two added to the lineup at that point (at the end of the film Santa takes off with seven, leaving two empty spots on the team).
    • This would also explain why Vixen is the youngest and smallest reindeer on the team in The Year Without a Santa Claus: she was a later addition.

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