Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was created by Robert L. May for the Montgomery Ward department store chain in 1939. The story was published in a coloring book and the rest is history.

Or is it?

Yes it is.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought.

May's brother in law, Johnny Marks, is probably THE key person in the success of the famous reindeer. Marks took the story and made a hit song out of it.

Let's take a look at that song:

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.

You know, maybe Rudolph is a superhero. Maybe he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Of course, a super-villain could easily take out a super-reindeer with a poisoned salt lick.

All of the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer games.

Oh yeah, Rudolph has ENOUGH enemies without a super-villain. Yup, everyone around Rudolph is a jerk. You know, when I was a kid I HATED Dancer and Prancer and Comet and the rest of them.
THEY were the ones that wouldn't let him play the games!
SPOILER ALERT:
He gets to guide the sleigh later.
I don't think that's good enough. He should win a class action lawsuit for a stressful work environment.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say:
"Rudolph with your nose so bright,
won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

This is odd. Foggy? ALL OVER THE WORLD? Santa delivers to the whole world. How could the night be foggy. Maybe in a small section, but the whole world? Even if it was, we must assume that Santa had plans in place to deal with such problems.
The bottom line is that Santa was woefully unprepared and got lucky.

Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
you'll go down in history!

See? I was correct at the top of the page.! The rest IS history.


When I was a kid we all sung a parody of Rudolph. It went like this:
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny gun
and if you ever saw it
you would have to cut and run
all of the other reindeer
used to laugh
and call him names
they never let poor Rudolph
play in any reindeer games
then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
Rudolph with your gun so bright
won’t you shoot my wife tonight
then all the reindeer loved him
and they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
You’ll go down in history