Four year old Caroline was down in my office yesterday, and she came running up to me waving a DVD box. “Daddy…I found TREASURE!” she informed me and handed me her discovery: A set of Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, most prominently being “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer.” Caroline had become intrigued by Rudolph, you see, because the Build-A-Bear catalogue had arrived here the other day and she’d become enchanted by their Christmas offering of a plush version of the R-B Rudolph (not to mention Clarice.) She thrust the DVD box at me and said firmly, “See Rudolph, please?”
I shrugged and said, “Sure.” She hadn’t watched much TV that day and it would keep her entertained while I continued work on the “Iron Man” novelization.
She watched it. Then she watched it again. And a third time. She would have watched it a fourth time if we’d let her.
In the meantime last night Kath swung by our local DVD shop and picked up “Ratatouille,” a collection of all the Pixar shorts, and “Shrek III,” all DVDs we’d been planning to get for a while.
This morning Caroline came downstairs and announced she wanted to watch “Rudolph.” I pointed out all the new DVDs we’d acquired. “I want to see Rudolph” she said firmly. As of this writing she’s on her second (and I swear last) viewing for today.
And I have to say, it sure brings back memories. I still remember being utterly terrified as a kid of the Abominable Snowman, even though the character design is truly ludicrous. Hëll, I even remember the commercials with elves riding on electric shavers. Still, I have a feeling that I’m going to be well and truly sick of this special by Christmastime.
PAD
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The high point in Rudolf for me is the song “There’s Always Tomorrow.” I even sing it in my car, I like it that much. I think it was last year when I was watching Rudolf on TV, and the music barely started for that wonderful song, and then…
…a worn-out, pouchy-faced, grey-haired, Kent-Brockman-wanna-be TV anchorman interrupted the show. “Hey, we will go back to Rudolf in just a minute, I promise, but we have some votes counted for the election, here, look at these numbers, see the numbers?, and I am telling you about the numbers, these voting numbers, just look at them, look at them some more, and I, the very important anchorman, am telling you because you can’t wait until the polls are closed to hear about how some other people voted, hey, look at the numbers some more, and try not to notice that my anchorman’s suit and face are getting a little worn…”
I went out and bought the DVD soon after that. Only bad thing was that it had Destiny’s Child as an extra feature. I have watched “There’s Always Tomorrow,” but not Destiny’s Child. OK, maybe it would be nice for the getting-close-to-teen-and-older male fans, but little kids might ask why the ladies keep moving like that. (Could be worse. Could be a Disney blonde teen girl clone.)
And why in the heck didn’t they have Yukon Cornelius discovering his peppermint mine and getting rich, like in the original airing (which I am old enough to remember)? Are the editors communists? Or are they so used to chopping out chucks of show to make room for one more fast food or toy commercial, that the concept of putting missing chunks back in is completely alien to them?
Sigh. I think I will sing “There’s Always Tomorrow” on my drive home tonight.
I was scared of Abominable Snowman, too. Seriously, it has such giant freakin teeth that its kinda hard not to be freaked by it as a kid. Heck, his intro is scary as hëll because they build it up the tension so much that by the time he shows up its just like, “Yeearrggghhh!! Run away!!”
My 28 year old girlfriend is horribly obsessed with Rudolph, and we have to sit and watch it at least 3 times each holiday season.
She made me buy the sequels also, but hated them. Would have been nice to have *some* variety 🙂
Isn’t there a CGI sequel, Rudolf 2: The Revenge or something? I saw an ad for it last X-mas and it just looked gawdawful.
Weire. I was looking through teh DVD cabinet Friday, when our copy of “Rudolph” felout onto the floor. 😉
Sorry for the spelling mistakes in the above post, I hit post instead of pre-view. It must be Sunday morning.
“Weire. I was looking through teh DVD cabinet Friday, when our copy of “Rudolph” felout onto the floor. ;-)”
Obviously that should read:
Weird. I was looking through the DVD cabinet on Friday, when our copy of “Rudolph” fell out onto the floor.
TallestFanEver, to paraphrase one of my all-time favorite PAD scenes which I don’t know why I didn’t throw on the thread looking for them, my what a long name, may I call you simply Tallest?
There’s a CGI special, Rudolph and The Island Of Misfit Toys. Then there’s Robbie the Reindeer, apparently Rudolph’s son, in two BBC ones, Hooves of Fire and The Lost Tribe. Mildly amusing, but really only when someone tries to say “Rudolph.”
Ah, yes… I fondly remember when the Christmas decorations going up on the day after Thanksgiving was a big thing.
Seems to me that “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was usually the first of the animated specials to air, followed closely by “How the Grinch…” and the original Rudolph…although “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol” came out three years before Charlie Brown’s troubles aired for the first time (and it’s still one of my favorites).
I never thought much of the animated Frosty shows, nor of most of the other Rankin/Bass stop-motion stuff (“Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” set my teeth on edge for some reason). But those “first” four, plus the 1951 “Christmas Carol” with Alistair Sim (“Scrooge” in the UK) and “Miracle on 34th Street”, pretty much defined my December television schedule as a child.
I hope, PAD, that you and yours will survive the endless replays!
My wife Lynda and I would faithfully every year watch Rudolph when it’s on TV, usually just after Thanksgiving. With our Cocker Spaniel “Ian” firmly planted in her lap we would enjoy every moment, every song.
Lynda passed away from a massive stroke on November 1st and now I can’t imagine watching Rudolph without her.
I’m so terribly sorry to hear that. My condolences.
PAD
Sorry to hear about that, Terry.
Count my condolences in, too, Terry.
My sympathies, sir.
The passing of a loved one is never an easy thing. The passing of a loved one so young even less so. My condolences, Terry.
I always felt incredibly sad for the Misfit Toys as a child.
But I think my favorite of them as an adult is the Rankin/Bass adaptation of “life and adventures of Santa Claus.” Very good job with the Baum book (which was the first attempt I know of to “explain” Christmas traditions through Kris Kringle’s life story).
My niece, when she was four, would not only watch things over and over, but ask the same questions every single time (I eventually adopted a “Well, why do you think they’re so mean to the puppy?” response and she’d invariably know).
I always felt incredibly sad for the Misfit Toys as a child.
But I think my favorite of them as an adult is the Rankin/Bass adaptation of “life and adventures of Santa Claus.” Very good job with the Baum book (which was the first attempt I know of to “explain” Christmas traditions through Kris Kringle’s life story).
My niece, when she was four, would not only watch things over and over, but ask the same questions every single time (I eventually adopted a “Well, why do you think they’re so mean to the puppy?” response and she’d invariably know).