Talk:Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV special)

Untitled

If anyone brings up the "Hermey" vs. "Herbie" name thing again for the misfit, here is a more or less definitive answer from Rankin/Bass. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 00:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Another Trivia and Goof

Another goof that was not talked about already was that when Santa was leaving Christmas Town, their are only 7 reindeer, not the 9 that there would have been. 205.200.41.19 21:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.200.41.19 (talk) 21:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Another Parody

The Manitoba Telecommunication Service's (MTS) 2006 Christmas commercials feature an elf, an abombdible snowman and a bison (Manitoba's provincial animal) in the "Valley of Unwanted Gifts." They even go as far as doing the ads in stop-motion animation. You get the idea. 205.200.41.19 21:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Misfit Doll

I thought the doll's problem was that she said "How do you do?" instead of "mama". Morgan695 23:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sexism

I watched this film with my wife the other day and we were both taken aback by the dated views put forward in the movie, especially where a male character tells a female character that she can't help with something because "this is a man's job." Would it be appropriate to make mention of this in the article? Andrewdoane 19:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I think so. I certainly wouldn't condemn the program for this, but it is an important point to make about the culture and how it has changed. --Jcbutler (talk) 04:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. In context, the fact that Donner had said "this is man's work" (which is related by the Snowman's narration) is presented as a silly statement typical of Donner's thickheadedness, and is undercut by the women immediately proving him wrong by going out themselves. It is true to Donner's character and is presented as wrong in context. This would make Donner sexist, but not the show.

Dubious Statements

About the following... (The part in question is bold, what follows is something I added and is italicized):

"Her presence on the island is never explained. however, an early script for the show had her singing the verse, "Who would want to play with this toy, "cause underneath this dress I'm a boy" [1]. A more commonly accepted reason is that the problem is somewhat psychological."

When I went to the website cited, I couldn't find anything to confirm the bolded part. Any resolution? WAVY 10 17:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, it was removed as vandalism. WAVY 10 19:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time with some of the voice castings noted in this article. They don't make a lot of sense. Unless anyone has citations, I'd have to presume that there's vandalism involved. Claude 19:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Also removed as vandalism. Thanks! Claude (talk) 16:15, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the voice of Donner was done by Paul Kligman, as he sounds a lot like J. Jonah Jameson from the early Spider-man cartoons. Also, Kligman, like Paul Soles and Bernard Cowan, were part of the Wayne and Shuster CBC TV show. Actually, I don't think Paul Frees was at all involved in this special. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.57.249.250 (talk) 13:46, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I just watched the Blu-ray, and Paul Frees' name appears nowhere in the credits. Nor do any of the characters' voices sound remotely like Frees. (Most of his voices are recognizable.) The statement that he voices Donner and several other characters is almost certainly wrong. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 21:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

No images

There are no images on this page. Anyone wanna upload one? 67.160.87.2 (talk) 04:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Hermey

Not sure if I should place this in the article. But, it's possible Hermey was not an Elf. His ears were not pointed (like the others). GoodDay (talk) 23:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I note however, his round ears may symbolise his mis-fit status. GoodDay (talk) 23:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

His nose also differs from all the other elves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.8.48.157 (talk) 16:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

12/02/09 CBS broadcast

The audio of the "Misfits" reprise accompanied edited footage of the "Fame and Fortune" song, with very awkward results.

If thats so there should be some source out there that could be used to reference it Ottawa4ever (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A christmas merge?

What are thoughts out there on merging the article Clarice into this one? My thoughts are the article Clarice seems to be nothing more than a plot summary and could just be placed in this article itself. Any thoughts out there??Ottawa4ever (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea. It is hard to imagine how the Clarice article has been missed by the wikiP deletionistas. Unless you hear from more editors in the next week or so, saying no, I would say go ahead and do the merge. MarnetteD | Talk 17:08, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Glaring omission in the advertising section

I find a fairly major omission in the advertising section. As I remember it, during the 1960's (and perhaps into the early 70's), the showing of this special were sponsered by Norelco. There were at least two characters - the very tall elf and a shorter elf (maybe the one with the goatee but I am not sure about this) - from this special that were featured in Norelco's ads. Most notably they were seen riding a Norelco three head shaver through the woods as though it were a sleigh. There were other ads but I can't remember the details. These ads were shown during the breaks in various programs not just this one. Unfortunately, I don't have any sources for this other then my memory. If any of you wikieditors can confirm these memories with an outside source it would be much appreciated if you could add the info to this article. My thanks ahead of time to anyone who can help with this. Cheers and happy editing. MarnetteD | Talk 20:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Didnt have much luck myself, but on youtube there are some stop motion ads featuring santa going through the woods on a shaver from the time period [2]. Any other luck out there?Ottawa4ever (talk) 11:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, so much, Ottawa4ever for taking the time to research this - and on Christmas too!! Santa on the shaver rings a bell. First off let me say that the wikieditor that invents a time machine and goes back and videos everything from our past will be worth their weight in gold in their ability to cite sources! :-) Now, the info you found brings a couple of other memories up. First, it is possible that Santa replaced an earlier commercial wth the elves but I think that is iffy. Second, the Norelco ad might have always used Santa and the elves were in another companies ad. For some reason General Electric ads are coming to mind - as in the tall elf is able to change light bulbs - but this could be my memory playing tricks. In any event is the Santa in the ad that you found on youtube the one from this special? If so wouldn't we be able to ad that info to this article with a link to youtube as a reference? Let me know what you think and thanks again. MarnetteD | Talk 17:05, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Im not aware if Norelco actually sponsored the show. Or if the commericals were perhaps done by the company that made rudulph. Any source that could link those two facts (commerical with the special) would be worthy (in my own opinion) of inclusion in the article considering they were both stop motion. But i think its still a stretch to include at that point depending on the companies involvement. Also their are other ads going back to the early 1960s and even 1990s from Norelco using the santa on the shaver. More likely general electric probably did do a comercial, but im not aware of one as of yet, but the tall elf rings a bell too. They were a sponsor so to me it would make sense. My best suggestion if you have a time and want to look into commercials would be to expand [[Christmas_in_the_media]} which as of now says nothing about chritsmas in the media relating to commercials. and could be expanded there. Probably requires a bit more thought and thats just off the top of my head. At any rate happy holidays. Ottawa4ever (talk) 18:13, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Subliminal gay messages?

I don't know about this, but this article (http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/12/25/is-rudolph-gay/) seems to shine a light on Rudolph. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 00:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC) (but I wrote the comment earlier than I signed it. At 21:22 of December 25, 2009 according to the history of this page.)

Note: the response is in part responding to an adminhelp left on the above IP's talk page) Hello. I agree with you that your comment was improperly removed from this page and was restoring it but another user already did so. I also agree with MarnetteD that the material in the link has no place in the article. The EW article is an opinion piece. Generally, we write articles based first on hard facts, and only include opinion when the opinion is so prevalent that its absence would make the treatment of the subject incomplete for broad coverage. For opinion material such as this to be included we look for multiple, disparate, reliable sources, all reaching the same conclusion. But the piece is not from a reliable source as to the material it speaks about. We don't just ask whether the publishing source is reliable, but whether the material in the source is reliable as to the topic even when the imprimatur of the publisher is reliable. Here we have rank speculation. Additionally, though the article appears on EW's website, it is from a blog from that site. If the author of the piece was a noted authority on such matters that would go some way toward meeting the reliability aspect, which is absent here, but even then we would need more for such conjecture to warrant inclusion. All this is to say that to my mind inclusion of such material would patently be undue weight in the article. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Alright, see, I have no problem with someone telling me it can't go in an article and specifically why. That's all I wanted, someone saying if this was a good idea or not. Apparently it's not. I could have worded my comment better to make my intentions clearer, then maybe this would've been avoided in the first place, but it's all kosher now. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 03:59, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

It's hardly worth the trouble to point out that whenever a character is portrayed as "misfit" or different in some way, this difference can be interpreted as a metaphor for being black, a Jew, homosexual, etc. One might have an article discussing the use of such metaphors in the context of TV, literature, movies, etc, but there would be no point in bringing it up, except as a cross-reference to that article. Note, however, that nothing is said about Yukon Cornelius being sexually "misfit" -- hinted at by the fact that one of his sled dogs is a French poodle. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 21:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Sex vs Gender

The proper term for this article in the section "Additional Characters" referring to Clarice is "...of both sexes" not "...of both genders". Sex refers to the physiological makeup of animals based on their gonads; gender refers to one's perception of self as male or female. Since we are talking about a physiological trait of the animals (antler growth), sex, as opposed to gender, is the correct term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.180.141.101 (talk) 17:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Reception

Would be good to include this into the article some ratings per [3] and [4]. Apparently even the the show is decades old it still registered 12 million+ viewers this year and over 10 million last year. I think a section highlighting the longevity of the show would fit nicely in the article and help incorporate some of the trivia throughout (if someone beats me to it) ;) Ottawa4ever (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

additionally ill post notes here, no time to add though with holiday stuff in the way; The New york times December 7th 1964 posted a review titled "Red-Nosed Rudolph A Figure of Charm"; in the review it notes particular praise for the characters of Sam and Clarice; For Sam the voice of Burl Ives "was a host who made the adventure seem warm and real", for Clarice "the doe who does not mind if a buck does have a red nose" was "an enchanting ingenue up near the North Pole, particularly as her offscreen voice, Janet Orenstein, put into song her words of encouragement, "There's Always Tomorrow." " Excellent additions if someone has the time to piece together a reception section and is in the Rudolphy christmas spirit. Any thoughts out there what this reception section could include? Ottawa4ever (talk) 17:21, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems that you have some good thoughts regarding a reception section. The high numbers this year are interesting especially when you consider the fact that VHS and DVD means that a viewer does not have to watch the CBS transmission. Are DVR recordings a part of the viewing figures? A few sections of the NYT could certainly be included. When you have time, after the holidays, why don't you work on something and we will see how others view it. cheers and have a very Happy Holidays. MarnetteD | Talk 18:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

13 million this year. [5] Man i really need to get on this reception section. If im tardy anyone who builds one up (with included references) will receive a nice barnstar for their christmasy efforts.Ottawa4ever (talk) 15:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Live-action blizzard newsreels

Nothing on the opening sequence of live-action footage of blizzards and newspaper headlines in this article?(http://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=58536) Why is this? ----DanTD (talk) 14:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)