The Story about the Story, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer

[Jim Koepke]

A friend shared this on Facebook.

jtk

Wow, I had no idea about the origin story of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer! If you aren't familiar with it either, read below:

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.”


Time has a slightly different take on the story, though it is pretty much the same > https://time.com/5479322/rudolph-the...story-origins/

[Doug Garson]

Thanks for sharing.

[Mel Fulks]

Good stuff there ! I’m old and I remember watching Roy Rogers and Gene Autry on black and white TV. Both loved herding steers , and
singing. Met Roy at a Roy Rogers restaurant. Roy’s voice was on the stentorian side while Gene’s was folksy and warblee I had the Autry
record and would often get a little choked up when Rudolf got the “ guiding light “ job. Always wondered why Roy’s wife used the Evans name,
not Rogers. Now I understand that she started the Women’s Liberation thing.

[Ron Citerone]

That is an amazing heartfelt story. Thanks for sharing it!

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Gene Autry passed on the song. His wife and he got into a rather heated argument over recording the song. It was intended as the "B" side, but we all know the rest.

BTW: Walking in a Winter Wonderland Lyrics written by Richard B. Smith, born in Honesdale PA. The song was written in 1934, while Smith was a terminally ill tuberculosis patient at the West Mountain Sanitarium out side Scranton, PA. Smith saw the young people playing in the snow with their boy friends and girlfriends and wrote a poem imagining about having such a day in the snow with a girlfriend. (he was married) "Frolic and play the Eskimo way " But there are some hints of the fate awaiting him. "Gone away it the Bluebird" "And face unafraid the plans that we made" He obviously was facing the reality that his plans for the future would never come to pass. Later in 1934, he showed the poem to an acquaintance.< Felix Bernard who composed music for the lyrics. It was recorded for RCA Victor in late 1934. Guy Lombardo also recorded the song and it became a huge hit for the Lombardo Orchestra in 1934. Richard Smith died on his 34th birthday in September 1935. It is said by some locals that Richard Smith became too ill, and never heard the song or music that was composed. Smith's child hood home is now an office, but every year a lighted Christmas tree is placed in the window of what was his childhood bedroom.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

The Irony surrounding the song, Jingle Bells

The song is credited by most to James Lord Pierpont (1822 – 1893)

He was from a family of ministers, but ran away to sea at age 14 and served in the navy until he was 21.

He married Millicent Crowe and had 2 children. In 1849, he dropped his wife and children off with his parents and traveled to California to seek his fortune selling supplies to the gold rush miners. The business failed when it burned, leaving him deep in debt and hounded by creditors. After returning east, he wrote a song about skipping town and not paying his creditors and it actually had some success making a modest amount of money.

Despite coming from a family of abolitionists and being an abolitionist himself, he wrote songs for minstrel shows.

His brother became minister of a church in Savannah Ga, and James was hired on as organist and music director. As a widower, in 1857, he married Eliza Purse, daughter of the mayor of Savannah. His first wife died in New England in 1856, however, his oldest daughter with second wife Eliza was born in 1854.

When the civil war broke out, the church, being an abolitionist congregation, disbanded and his brother went back north. James not only stayed in Savannah, he enlisted in the Confederate Cavalry AND wrote songs for the Confederacy.

The song Jingle Bells is said to have been written in three different places.

• 1850 at a tavern in Medford Mass intended as a drinking song.
• September 1857 in Massachusetts. It was copyrighted and published on September 16, 1857.
• Fall of 1857 In Savannah Ga as a song for children to sing in Church at a Thanksgiving service.

According to at least one music historian, the words and music were all copied from other popular sleigh riding songs of the 1840’s and 1850’s. Further the song was performed in minstrel shows before Pierpont had it copyrighted and published in September 1857.

The words of the song hardly indicate that it was a childrens’ song to be sung in church. The horse getting into a drifted bank and the singer and Ms. Fanny Bright getting “upsot” is a period reference to unchaperoned shenanigans by an unmarried couple. Further, snow and sleigh rides in Savannah GA for Thanksgiving? Really?

I couldn't find a version of Jingle Bells with the original lyrics, so I copied them here for you:

Dashing thro' the snow,
In a one-horse open sleigh,
O'er the hills we go,
Laughing all the way;
Bells on bob tail ring,
Making spirits bright,
Oh what sport to ride and sing
A sleighing song to night.

Jingle bells, Jingle bells,
Jingle all the way;
Oh! what joy it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh.
Jingle bells, Jingle bells,
Jingle all the way;
Oh! what joy it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh.

A day or two ago,
I thought I'd take a ride,
And soon Miss Fannie Bright
Was seated by my side,
The horse was lean and lank;
Misfortune seemed his lot,
He got into a drifted bank,
And we, we got upsot.

A day or two ago,
The story I must tell
I went out on the snow
And on my back I fell;
A gent was riding by
In a one-horse open sleigh,
He laughed as there I sprawling lie,
But quickly drove away.

Now the ground is white
Go it while you're young,
Take the girls to night
And sing this sleighing song;
Just get a bob tailed bay
Two forty as his speed.
Hitch him to an open sleigh
And crack, you'll take the lead.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

If you are not old enough to remember Mele Kalikamaka, you probably heard it in the movie: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Mele Kalikamaka, was as close as traditional Hawaiians could say Merry Christmas. Their alphabet only has 14 letters and no r or s. Because they had trouble forming their tongues to make an "R" sound, it came out as an "L" hence Merry became "Mele" They also could not say "s" their tongues would not hit the roof of their mouth behind the teeth to make the s sound, but the back of their tongues would hit the roof of their mouth to make a "K" sound. In addition in Hawaiian, there must be a vowel sound after every consonant. So Ch of Christmas became Ka, the r became a n "L" add a vowel sound then the "s" becomes a K, another vowel sound and mas becomes maka. therefore saying Merry Christmas for traditional Hawaiians became Mele Kalikamaka. The term was first used in a Hawaiian newspaper in the very early 1900's. Shortly after WW2 a composer, R. Alex Anderson, who lived in Hawaii was asked by his secretary why there are no Hawaiian Christmas songs, so he wrote one. It was recorded by Bing Crosby.

[Frederick Skelly]

All interesting stuff. Thanks Jim and Perry.

[Mel Fulks]

Perry, thanks for good info. Must say I see nothing wrong with minstrel shows. No one in show business today disdains playing an Indian or
cowboy or anything else. I’m sure there was some mocking ,but that was in burlesque and continues now. Presidents get mocked in cartoons,
and by campy TV comedians. Some notables have complained about NOT being mocked on TV. “ There is no such thing as bad publicity “.

[Jim Koepke]

There are also stories about popular Christmas songs being written during heat waves. The stories seem to be the same, working on a hot day and trying to think of things to make it feel a little cooler.

The Christmas Song by Bob Wells and Mel Tormè July 1945

Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson July 1946

There are likely a few more.

jtk

[Mel Fulks]

Mel Torme’ , AKA The Velvet Fog . Even on the radio his voice was unmistakable.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Irving Berlin, who wrote many holiday songs included introductions to many of his songs. The intro to White Christmas that is usually skipped over:

[Intro]
The sun is shining, the grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway
There's never been such a day
In Beverly Hills, L.A
But it's December the twenty-fourth
And I am longing to be up North



When he composed the song White Christmas, he couldn't write music, so he stayed up all night playing it. In the morning, when he finally reached his secretary to have her write the music, he said, "this is the best song I have ever written,, No,,,,it is the best song anyone has ever written."

Irving Berlin also wrote "God Bless America" But he didn't feel right accepting royalties for such a patriotic song, so he assigned the royalties to a foundation that gives the money to the US Boy Scouts and US Girl scouts so they can train future Americans.

[Jim Koepke]

Thought this one could be bumped up again this year.

jtk

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Good old Gene Autry! I have to love a Cowboy who champions an under dog. Especially when said Cowboy can Ride, Shoot, and Play Guitar!

It is odd that I can't find the "ride, shoot, and play guitar" quote referenced on the web except as a Bruce Cockburn lyric.

[Mel Fulks]

That is an amazing heartfelt story. Thanks for sharing it!

Ron , Thanks for listening !