We all enjoyed watching Rudolph, although Emma, who primarily watched shows on commercial-free Playhouse Disney, did not seem to understand why the show went away every ten to fifteen minutes for commercials. She kept saying that she wanted the snowman, the narrator voiced by Burl Ives, back. In fact, I think the Sam the Snowman was her favorite character in the entire program as she kept asking where he was. Emma did not get scared by the Abominable Snow Monster of the North. She did say that he was not nice though and was a little concerned when he showed up at the very end when he helped to decorate the Christmas tree.
One thing about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer that really stuck out to me was the dialog was quite dated. One can tell, just from how the narrator speaks, that this program was made decades ago. People just do not talk like that anymore. Another aspect of the show that shows that this show was from a different time was the sexist nature of some of the dialog. A couple of examples from the show, both spoken by Donner, Rudolph's father, were when he was going to set out to search for Rudolph, Rudolph's mother and girlfriend wanted to come along, Donner told them that they could not come along because it was "man's work." Then later, after being rescued from the Abominable Snow Monster, Donner says that the women need to get back home. I wondered why. Did they have to get back to cook and clean before he got home himself?
Another thing that bothered me was how much of a jackass Donner and the other adults, including Santa, the jolly old elf himself, were toward Rudolph simply because he was born different from all of the other Reindeer. I can understand that the other reindeer children gave him problems, after all kids can be unkind like that. And besides, the song kind of requires the other kids to leave him out. But even his own father showed extreme disappointment in Rudolph, directly to him, because of his birth defect. Not only was Santa a ass to Rudolph, but he just mean in general. He did not seem to care for his elves, finding their song to be annoying and not good enough. And his wife wasn't much better, insisting on fattening him up. She apparently did not care about his health.
And what was wrong with the doll on the Island of Misfit Toys? She seemed fine to me. Also, so what, the elephant had polka dots on it? Did all toys in 1964 realistically depict whatever it was they were supposed to be? Today no one would think twice about a toy elephant that was not gray like real elephants are. Finally, do elves not care about their teeth? The very idea of an elf being a dentist was just ludicrous to Hermie's supervisor. But I guess that when you live at the North Pole and make toys year round, you don't need good teeth?
I seriously doubt that this show would be made in this way if it were made today, or even a decade ago in fact. Nevertheless, I look forward to many more Christmas seasons of enjoying Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with Emma and her little brother.
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