Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
12-12-2017, 07:14 PM
http://www.history.com/news/rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-turns-75
History Stories
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
By Christopher Klein // December 19, 2014
Although firmly entrenched as a Christmas icon, the tale of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is a piece of relatively modern folklore penned in 1939 by a department store adman enduring a time of great personal tragedy. As Rudolph turns 75, learn the story behind the creation of the most famous reindeer of all.
Balsam wreaths and visions of sugarplums had barely faded in the first weeks of 1939, but thoughts inside the Chicago headquarters of retail giant Montgomery Ward had already turned to the next Christmas 11 months away. The retailer had traditionally purchased and distributed coloring books to children as a holiday promotion, but the advertising department decided it would be cheaper and more effective instead to develop its own Christmas-themed book in-house.
The assignment fell to Robert May, a copywriter with a knack for turning a limerick at the company’s holiday party. The adman, however, had difficulty summoning up holiday cheer, and not just because of the date on the calendar. Not only was the United States still trying to shake the decade-long Great Depression while the rumblings of war grew once again Europe, but May’s wife was suffering with cancer and the medical bills had thrown the family into debt. Sure, he was pursuing his passion to write, but churning out mail order catalog copy about men’s shirts instead of penning the Great American Novel was not what he had envisioned himself doing at age 33 with a degree from Dartmouth College.
Given the assignment to develop an animal story, May thought a reindeer was a natural for the leading role (not to mention that his 4-year-old daughter, Barbara, loved the reindeers every time she visited the zoo). As he peered out at the thick fog that had drifted off Lake Michigan, May came up with the idea of a misfit reindeer ostracized because of his luminescent nose who used his physical abnormality to guide Santa’s sleigh and save Christmas. Seeking an alliterative name, May scribbled possibilities on a scrap of paper—Rollo, Reginald, Rodney and Romeo were among the choices—before circling his favorite. Rudolph.
Rudolph creator Robert May
Rudolph creator Robert May
As May worked on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” through the summer, his wife’s health worsened. She passed away in July 1939. Now a widower and a single father, May refused the offer of his boss to give the assignment to someone else. “I needed Rudolph now more than ever,” he later wrote. Burying his grief, May finished the story in August.
The 89 rhyming couplets in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” borrow from Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” right from the story’s opening line: “Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the hills/The reindeer were playing…enjoying the spills.” Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling” also inspired the storyline as did May’s own childhood when he endured taunts from schoolmates for being small and shy. “Rudolph and I were something alike,” the copywriter told Guideposts magazine in January 1975. “As a child I’d always been the smallest in the class. Frail, poorly coordinated, I was never asked to join the school teams.”
Those familiar with only the 1964 animated television version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which remains the longest-running Christmas special in television history a half-century after its debut on NBC, might not recognize the original tale. There is no Hermey the elf, no Abominable Snow Monster, not even the Land of Misfit Toys. While Rudolph was taunted for his glowing red nose and disinvited from reindeer games in May’s story, he did not live at the North Pole and was asleep in his house when Santa Claus, struggling mightily with the fog, arrived with presents and realized how the reindeer’s radiant snout could help him complete his Christmas Eve rounds.
Montgomery Ward had high hopes for its new 32-page, illustrated booklet, which would be given as a free gift to children visiting any of the department store’s 620 locations. “We believe that an exclusive story like this aggressively advertised in our newspaper ads and circulars,” the advertising department stated in a September 1939 memo, “can bring every store an incalculable amount of publicity…and, far more important a tremendous amount of Christmas traffic.”
rudolf cover
The retailer’s holiday advertisements touted “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as “the rollicking new Christmas verse that’s sweeping the country!” That wasn’t just hype. Children snapped up nearly 2.4 million copies of the paper-bound book in 1939. Plans to print another 1.6 million copies the following year were shelved by paper shortages due to World War II, and Rudolph remained on hiatus until the conflict’s conclusion. When the reindeer story returned in 1946, it was more popular than ever as Montgomery Ward handed out 3.6 million copies of the book.
In the interim, May married a fellow Montgomery Ward employee and became a father again, but he still struggled financially. In 1947, the retailer’s board of directors, stirred either by the holiday spirit or belief that the story lacked revenue-making potential, signed the copyright for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” over to May. In short order, May licensed a commercial version of the book along with a full range of Rudolph-themed merchandise including puzzles, View-Master reels, snow globes, mugs and slippers with sheep wool lining and leather soles.
In 1949, songwriter Johnny Marks, who happened to be May’s brother-in-law, set Rudolph’s story to music. After Bing Crosby reportedly turned down the chance, singing cowboy Gene Autry recorded the song, which sold 2 million copies in the first year and remains one of the best-selling tunes of all time.
The song and merchandise sales made May financially comfortable, but hardly rich. After leaving Montgomery Ward in 1951 to manage the Rudolph commercial empire, May returned to his former employer seven years later. He continued to work as a copywriter until his 1971 retirement. By the time he died five years later, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” had become a piece of modern folklore and a metaphor for overcoming obstacles, embracing differences and recognizing everyone’s unique potential.
Truth oft stranger than fiction..-Tyr
http://performingsongwriter.com/rudolph-rednosed-reindeer/
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Lydia Hutchinson | December 2, 2016 | 10 Comments
Share
As the holiday season of 1938 came to Chicago, Bob May wasn’t feeling much comfort or joy. A 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward, May was exhausted and nearly broke. His wife, Evelyn, was bedridden, on the losing end of a two-year battle with cancer. This left Bob to look after their four-year old-daughter, Barbara.
One night, Barbara asked her father, “Why isn’t my mommy like everybody else’s mommy?” As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. But he wanted to give his daughter hope, and show her that being different was nothing to be ashamed of. More than that, he wanted her to know that he loved her and would always take care of her. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her father tell it every night before bedtime. As he did, it grew more elaborate. Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story into a homemade picture book.
In early December, Bob’s wife died. Though he was heartbroken, he kept working on the book for his daughter. A few days before Christmas, he reluctantly attended a company party at Montgomery Ward. His co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. After he read it, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted copies of their own. Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house in the country was making offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of good will, the head of the department store returned all rights to Bob May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.
Now remarried with a growing family, May felt blessed by his good fortune. But there was more to come. His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter named Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music. The song was pitched to artists from Bing Crosby on down. They all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with “Here Comes Santa Claus” a few years before. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Marks begged him to give it a second listen. Autry played it for his wife, Ina. She was so touched by the line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” that she insisted her husband record the tune.
Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, right behind “White Christmas.” Since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The little red-nosed reindeer dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and presents. As the last line of the song says, “He’ll go down in history.”
History Stories
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
By Christopher Klein // December 19, 2014
Although firmly entrenched as a Christmas icon, the tale of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is a piece of relatively modern folklore penned in 1939 by a department store adman enduring a time of great personal tragedy. As Rudolph turns 75, learn the story behind the creation of the most famous reindeer of all.
Balsam wreaths and visions of sugarplums had barely faded in the first weeks of 1939, but thoughts inside the Chicago headquarters of retail giant Montgomery Ward had already turned to the next Christmas 11 months away. The retailer had traditionally purchased and distributed coloring books to children as a holiday promotion, but the advertising department decided it would be cheaper and more effective instead to develop its own Christmas-themed book in-house.
The assignment fell to Robert May, a copywriter with a knack for turning a limerick at the company’s holiday party. The adman, however, had difficulty summoning up holiday cheer, and not just because of the date on the calendar. Not only was the United States still trying to shake the decade-long Great Depression while the rumblings of war grew once again Europe, but May’s wife was suffering with cancer and the medical bills had thrown the family into debt. Sure, he was pursuing his passion to write, but churning out mail order catalog copy about men’s shirts instead of penning the Great American Novel was not what he had envisioned himself doing at age 33 with a degree from Dartmouth College.
Given the assignment to develop an animal story, May thought a reindeer was a natural for the leading role (not to mention that his 4-year-old daughter, Barbara, loved the reindeers every time she visited the zoo). As he peered out at the thick fog that had drifted off Lake Michigan, May came up with the idea of a misfit reindeer ostracized because of his luminescent nose who used his physical abnormality to guide Santa’s sleigh and save Christmas. Seeking an alliterative name, May scribbled possibilities on a scrap of paper—Rollo, Reginald, Rodney and Romeo were among the choices—before circling his favorite. Rudolph.
Rudolph creator Robert May
Rudolph creator Robert May
As May worked on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” through the summer, his wife’s health worsened. She passed away in July 1939. Now a widower and a single father, May refused the offer of his boss to give the assignment to someone else. “I needed Rudolph now more than ever,” he later wrote. Burying his grief, May finished the story in August.
The 89 rhyming couplets in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” borrow from Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” right from the story’s opening line: “Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the hills/The reindeer were playing…enjoying the spills.” Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling” also inspired the storyline as did May’s own childhood when he endured taunts from schoolmates for being small and shy. “Rudolph and I were something alike,” the copywriter told Guideposts magazine in January 1975. “As a child I’d always been the smallest in the class. Frail, poorly coordinated, I was never asked to join the school teams.”
Those familiar with only the 1964 animated television version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which remains the longest-running Christmas special in television history a half-century after its debut on NBC, might not recognize the original tale. There is no Hermey the elf, no Abominable Snow Monster, not even the Land of Misfit Toys. While Rudolph was taunted for his glowing red nose and disinvited from reindeer games in May’s story, he did not live at the North Pole and was asleep in his house when Santa Claus, struggling mightily with the fog, arrived with presents and realized how the reindeer’s radiant snout could help him complete his Christmas Eve rounds.
Montgomery Ward had high hopes for its new 32-page, illustrated booklet, which would be given as a free gift to children visiting any of the department store’s 620 locations. “We believe that an exclusive story like this aggressively advertised in our newspaper ads and circulars,” the advertising department stated in a September 1939 memo, “can bring every store an incalculable amount of publicity…and, far more important a tremendous amount of Christmas traffic.”
rudolf cover
The retailer’s holiday advertisements touted “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as “the rollicking new Christmas verse that’s sweeping the country!” That wasn’t just hype. Children snapped up nearly 2.4 million copies of the paper-bound book in 1939. Plans to print another 1.6 million copies the following year were shelved by paper shortages due to World War II, and Rudolph remained on hiatus until the conflict’s conclusion. When the reindeer story returned in 1946, it was more popular than ever as Montgomery Ward handed out 3.6 million copies of the book.
In the interim, May married a fellow Montgomery Ward employee and became a father again, but he still struggled financially. In 1947, the retailer’s board of directors, stirred either by the holiday spirit or belief that the story lacked revenue-making potential, signed the copyright for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” over to May. In short order, May licensed a commercial version of the book along with a full range of Rudolph-themed merchandise including puzzles, View-Master reels, snow globes, mugs and slippers with sheep wool lining and leather soles.
In 1949, songwriter Johnny Marks, who happened to be May’s brother-in-law, set Rudolph’s story to music. After Bing Crosby reportedly turned down the chance, singing cowboy Gene Autry recorded the song, which sold 2 million copies in the first year and remains one of the best-selling tunes of all time.
The song and merchandise sales made May financially comfortable, but hardly rich. After leaving Montgomery Ward in 1951 to manage the Rudolph commercial empire, May returned to his former employer seven years later. He continued to work as a copywriter until his 1971 retirement. By the time he died five years later, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” had become a piece of modern folklore and a metaphor for overcoming obstacles, embracing differences and recognizing everyone’s unique potential.
Truth oft stranger than fiction..-Tyr
http://performingsongwriter.com/rudolph-rednosed-reindeer/
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Lydia Hutchinson | December 2, 2016 | 10 Comments
Share
As the holiday season of 1938 came to Chicago, Bob May wasn’t feeling much comfort or joy. A 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward, May was exhausted and nearly broke. His wife, Evelyn, was bedridden, on the losing end of a two-year battle with cancer. This left Bob to look after their four-year old-daughter, Barbara.
One night, Barbara asked her father, “Why isn’t my mommy like everybody else’s mommy?” As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. But he wanted to give his daughter hope, and show her that being different was nothing to be ashamed of. More than that, he wanted her to know that he loved her and would always take care of her. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her father tell it every night before bedtime. As he did, it grew more elaborate. Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story into a homemade picture book.
In early December, Bob’s wife died. Though he was heartbroken, he kept working on the book for his daughter. A few days before Christmas, he reluctantly attended a company party at Montgomery Ward. His co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. After he read it, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted copies of their own. Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house in the country was making offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of good will, the head of the department store returned all rights to Bob May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.
Now remarried with a growing family, May felt blessed by his good fortune. But there was more to come. His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter named Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music. The song was pitched to artists from Bing Crosby on down. They all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with “Here Comes Santa Claus” a few years before. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Marks begged him to give it a second listen. Autry played it for his wife, Ina. She was so touched by the line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” that she insisted her husband record the tune.
Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, right behind “White Christmas.” Since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The little red-nosed reindeer dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and presents. As the last line of the song says, “He’ll go down in history.”