TO festive season lovers all over the world, the character of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, immortalised in song and popular holiday movies, has always been an exciting part of our Christmas folklore.
But, Rudolph is, in fact, a mid-twentieth-century invention whose creation can be traced to a specific time and person, as described in an article on snopes.com, a fact-checking website.
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During the holiday season of 1938 in 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.
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 goodwill, the head of the department store returned all rights to May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.
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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, who eventually decided to record the song.
Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song, and since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, colouring books and greeting cards.
Sing along to the lyrics:
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen
Comet and Cupid and Donner 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 would 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”
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would 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”
Source: LyricFind
Songwriter: Johnny Marks
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