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Santa Claus's reindeer

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Santa Claus and seven of his reindeer in a parade in Toronto 2007.

Santa Claus's reindeer is a team of flying reindeer traditionally held to pull the sleigh of Santa Claus and help him deliver Christmas gifts. The commonly cited names of the reindeer are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. They are based on those used in the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, arguably the basis of reindeer's popularity as Christmas symbols, where Donner and Blitzen were originally called Dunder and Blixem respectively.[1][2]

The subsequent popularity of the Christmas song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has led to Rudolph often joining the list.

List of reindeer

Commonly known names

In common parlance, Santa Claus's sleigh is led by eight reindeer, as follows:

  • Dasher
  • Dancer
  • Prancer
  • Vixen
  • Comet
  • Cupid
  • Donner (variously spelled Dunder and Donder)
  • Blitzen (variously spelled Blixem and Blixen)

The names of Donner and Blitzen derive from Germanic words for thunder and lightning. Rudolph is a loser and not one of the 8 like Jess.

Origins

The original eight reindeer

The poem by Clement C. Moore "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "The Night Before Christmas" or "Twas the Night Before Christmas") is largely credited for the contemporary Christmas lore that includes the eight flying reindeer and their names.[3]

The relevant segment of the poem reads:

when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
with a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer, and Vixen!
"On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!

"To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
"Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

In An American Anthology, 1787–1900, Edmund Clarence Stedman reprints the 1844 Clement Clarke Moore version of the poem, including the German spelling of "Donder and Blitzen," rather than the original 1823 version using the Dutch spelling, "Dunder and Blixem." [4] Both phrases translate as "Thunder and Lightning" in English, though German for thunder is now spelled Donner, and the Dutch words would nowadays be spelled Donder and Bliksem.

The Christmas Mountains of New Brunswick, Canada are named after the original eight reindeer.

Rudolph (the red-nosed reindeer)

Main article: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Rudolph's story was originally written in verse by Robert L. May for the Montgomery Ward chain of department stores in 1939, and published as a book to be given to children in the store at Christmas time.

According to this story, Rudolph's glowing red nose made him a social outcast among the other reindeer. However, one Christmas Eve Santa Claus was having a lot of difficulty making his flight around the world because it was too foggy. When Santa went to Rudolph's house to deliver his presents he noticed the glowing red nose in the darkened bedroom and decided it could be a makeshift lamp to guide his sleigh. He asked Rudolph to lead the sleigh for the rest of the night, Rudolph accepted and returned home a hero for having helped Santa Claus.

Rudolph's story is a popular Christmas story that has been retold in numerous forms, most notably a popular song, a television special, which departed significantly from Robert L. May's original story, in having Rudolph being Donner's son and living amongst Santa Claus' reindeer from birth, and a feature film.

Portrayals

"A Visit from Saint Nicholas" mentions only that Santa's reindeer are "tiny."[5] As such, most depictions (particularly animated ones) portray the reindeer with features more common to other species of deer or bovid, such as narrower, pointier antlers and more slender frames. (Full-size reindeer, also known as caribou in the United States, are used for most live-action depictions.) The reindeer are usually depicted as being reined double-file in front of the sleigh, with Rudolph alone in the lead.

Since the original poem, other books, movies, and music have contributed to the Christmas reindeer lore. The 1994 version of the film Miracle on 34th Street, for example, asserts that reindeer can only fly on Christmas Eve. Similarly, the famous 1964 Rankin-Bass stop-motion special on Rudolph asserts that Rudolph is the son of Donner (the 1998 movie has him instead as Blitzen's son).

Additional reindeer

Several literature, television, film and music pieces have made references to other reindeer. In many cases, these are explicitly related to other reindeer already in the fleet.

Film and television

  • The 1964 Rudolph special features Fireball as one of several reindeer trying out for the sleigh team. With fire-red hair, Fireball is the son of Blitzen and his mind is often preoccupied with does; another reindeer is said to be the son of Dasher and struggles at flying, along with two other reindeer fawns of the same age. Comet's (or, at least, a similarly voiced reindeer's) daughter, a young fawn named Clarice, is also featured, although she does not try out for the team; Clarice eventually becomes Rudolph's love interest in the special. Donner is portrayed as Rudolph's father/sire.
    • The sketch comedy series, MADtv, commissioned a trilogy of Rudolph parodies from Corky Quakenbush beginning in 1995, using the characters from the 1964 Rudolph special in Mafia settings. The first, "Raging Rudolph", identifies the two fawns seen with Fireball during the original special (Fireball does not appear in the trilogy) as Jimmy the Antler and Franky Two Times.
  • "Lightning", from a 1996 Sesame Street Christmas special, "Elmo Saves Christmas", is a reindeer-in-training. Lightning helps Santa by taking Elmo, who wished for Christmas 24/7, to the future to see what Sesame Street would look like with Christmas every day.
  • The 1998 feature film, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie, introduces Mitzi as Rudolph's mother and Blitzen's wife (as opposed to the Rankin-Bass version, wherein Donner is Rudolph's father). It also features two other reindeer named Zoey and Arrow, who fill similar roles to the ones Clarice and Fireball hold in the Rankin-Bass special.
  • In the 1999 movie Blizzard, other reindeer are shown to live at the North Pole: Blizzard, who has the ability to become invisible and to see the whereabouts of people, DJ, Blizzard's best friend, and Aphrodite, a female reindeer who reports to an elder called Archimedes.
  • In the 1999 TV special Robbie the Reindeer, the eponymous Robbie is obstensibly assumed to be the son of Rudolph. His special feature is his nose, which has supernatural powers that allow him to jump and fly farther and faster than most reindeer; in addition, this leads to Robbie's literally having a "nose" for geography, as it can lead Robbie to just about any location in the world.
  • Chet is a young reindeer in training who is introduced in the 2002 feature film, The Santa Clause 2. Because of his age, he has a tendency to be clumsy and awkward; however, he is able to help Santa save Christmas.
  • The 2002 South Park Christmas special, "Red Sleigh Down", introduces an entirely new fleet of reindeer after the traditional reindeer are killed, when the sleigh is shot down as Santa tries to bring Christmas to Iraq. The main characters rescue him by using the alternative reindeer named: Steven, Fluffy, Horace, Chantel, Skippy, Rainbow, Patches and Montel. Their names are sung in a similar fashion in order to make them fly. Their future fate beyond this one incident is unknown; either the replacements take over permanently, or the originals are resurrected without explanation (see Kenny's deaths for an explanation of this phenomenon in the South Park universe).
  • The 2008 television special, The Flight Before Christmas, features Nico. Nico is Prancer's love child from a one-night stand with a regular reindeer, and the young Nico goes to the North Pole to seek his father (whom he believes, but is not sure, is one of Santa's reindeer, and he doesn't know which one). Through Nico's courage, he is able to learn to fly, proving his ancestry in the process, and saves the reindeer from a pack of ravenous wolves. (Rudolph is absent from the sleigh team in this special, presumably for copyright purposes.)
  • Thrasher is a top-secret, oversized reindeer introduced in the 2009 Disney special Prep and Landing. He leads the titular "prep and landing" team of elves in a sleigh ahead of Santa Claus' main sled. He is significantly larger and tougher than the main reindeer, and he is said to be Dasher's cousin. (Rudolph is again absent from this special, with lighting instead provided by the prep and landing team.)

Literature and publications

  • L. Frank Baum's 1902 story The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus includes a list of ten reindeer, none of whom match the names of the versions found in "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Flossie and Glossie are Santa's principal reindeer in Baum's story. Claus gathers eight more reindeer, named in rhyming pairs: Racer, Pacer, Fearless, Peerless, Ready, Steady, Feckless, and Speckless. When the story was remade into a television special in 1985, the television producers scrapped Baum's reindeer and replaced them with those found in "A Visit from St. Nicholas."
  • Olive, from a 1997 children's book and 1999 television special entitled Olive, the Other Reindeer, is not a reindeer but a dog. She mistook a news report regarding the plight of one of Santa's reindeer as a "help wanted" ad and heads to the North Pole, where she fills in for the ill reindeer for the year. The title of the story references a mondegreen derived from misinterpreting the words "all of the other reindeer" in the Rudolph story and song.
  • The comic strip, Over the Hedge (which was made into a 2006 film), added a character named Ralph, the Infrared Nosed Reindeer, who is Rudolph's brother and has a nose that emits infrared heat (useful for heating food and defrosting Santa's sleigh). He is often envious of his more famous brother and, possibly because of an inferiority complex, is depressed and overweight.

Music

  • In the song "¿Dónde Está Santa Claus?", recorded by Augie Rios in 1958, two other reindeer are named in the verse that goes: "I hope he won't forget to crack his castanet, and to his reindeer say: On Pancho, on Vixen, on Pedro, on Blitzen, Ole, Ole, Ole!"
  • The Ray Stevens song Santa Claus is Watching You, features Clyde, a camel borrowed from Stevens' previous song "Ahab the Arab", who replaces Rudolph for the year. According to the original 1965 version of the song, Rudolph "dislocated his hip in a Twist contest", so Clyde is his replacement. In a later version of the song, in which the singer is talking to his lover, Rudolph is "on a stakeout" at the lover's house (making sure the lover remains true to the singer). The song also lists the original fleet of reindeer plus two other reindeer named Bruce and Marvin. Later editions of the songs add a longer more rambling list: Leon, Cletus, George, Bill, Slick, Do-Right, Ace, Blackie, Queenie, Prince, Spot, and Rover.
  • In Cheech & Chong's 1971 record "Santa Claus and His Old Lady", Cheech's character mentions reindeer named Donner, Blitzen, Chuy, Tavo, and Beto. The last three are typical Mexican nicknames; for Jesus, Gustavo/Octavio, and Roberto/Alberto.
  • Loretta Lynn's 1974 single "Shadrack, the Black Reindeer" introduced the speedy Shadrack. In the song, Rudolph has gotten older and slower. An already late Santa threatens to leave him behind, but the other reindeer suggest that they will complete their rounds on time if Shadrack and Rudolph lead the team side by side, and they succeed in doing so.
  • Joe Diffie's 1995 single "Leroy the Redneck Reindeer" features Leroy, who is Rudolph's cousin. Leroy, as stated in the title, is a redneck who wears a John Deere tractor hat and has a knack for dancing the two-step. Leroy replaces his ill cousin Rudolph as the leader of the sleigh team for the year.
  • Parokya ni Edgar's christmas single "Olops" features Olops, who is Rudolph's cousin. Olops, as stated in the title, is a bad reindeer always calling Rudolph gay which died in the end of the song."

Radio

Stage productions

  • Adolph, The Racially Pure Reindeer was the brother of Rudolph in a Christmas stage show by Big Nazo puppets in 1993. In their large-scale puppet rock and roll show, Adolph (an obvious parody of German dictator Adolf Hitler) goes insane and must be put down by one of Santa's elves.

See also

References

  1. ^ "First published text"
  2. ^ "Timeline"
  3. ^ Siefker, Phyllis (1997) Santa Claus , McFarland & Company pp 4 ISBN 0786402466
  4. ^ "A Visit from St. Nicholas By Clement Clarke Moore", accessed 12 December 2008
  5. ^ A Visit from St. Nicholas
  6. ^ Edison's blog at WLIT.com. Retrieved 2010-11-15.

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