Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

Christmas getting too commercial for you? You have no idea just how commercial it is unless you know the real story of Rudolph!

In 1939, Chicago-based Montgomery Ward, operators of a chain of department stores, asked one of their copywriters, 34-year-old Robert L. May, to design a Christmas story coloring book to give away as a promotional gimmick.  May had a knack for writing children’s stories, and the company had been buying and giving away coloring books for years at Christmas – why not create their own and save some money?  So the story of Rudolph began.

May's boss worried that a story featuring a red nose, an image associated with drinking and drunkards, wasn't the right image for a Christmas story. May decided to take Denver Gillen from Montgomery Ward's art department to the Lincoln Park Zoo to sketch some deer. Gillen's drawings of a red-nosed reindeer overcame the worry of May's bosses and the Rudolph story was approved.

Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph coloring book in 1939, and although wartime paper shortages curtailed printing for several years a total of 6 million copies had been given out by the end of 1946.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was printed commercially in 1947 and shown in theaters as a 9-minute cartoon the following year. The Rudolph phenomenon really took off, however, when May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and melody for a Rudolph song. Marks' musical version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies that year and went on to become one of the best-selling songs of all time, second only to "White Christmas."

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen,
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose,
And if you ever saw it,
You could even say it glows.
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names;
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games.
Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say:
Rudolph with your nose so bright,
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
You'll go down in history."

OLM would like to wish one and all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!