Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) – Rewatch

It’s not surprising that Rudolph is one of the earliest Rankin-Bass productions as it misses a lot of the notes that makes me love their later works. First off, its runtime feels way too long for an adaptation of a simple song. To pad it, a whole lot of characters and adventures get added unnecessarily. Secondly, some of the ‘good’ guys really come off as jerks. It’s hard to be an endearing Christmas special when your Santa is a grumpy bigot. The messaging as a whole is a bit suspect as the normies seem to only accept the misfits when they need something from them. As always, I do enjoy the stop-motion animation. It’s as appealing as any of their other specials. Also despite there being too many of them, I like a whole lot of the added characters from Hermie to Bumble to Yukon to the various Misfit Toys. Any of their adventures could have easily sustained an engaging 20 minute special on their own.