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101-560: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a 1964 stop motion Christmas animated television special produced by Videocraft International, Ltd. It first aired December 6, 1964, on the NBC television network in the United States and was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour . The special was based on the 1949 Johnny Marks song " Rudolph

202-473: A Guinea for which Bryant & May would supply soldiers with sufficient matches. No archival records are known that could proof that the film was indeed created in 1899 during the beginning of the Second Boer War . Others place it at 1914, during the beginning of World War I . Cooper created more Animated Matches scenes in the same setting. These are believed to also have been produced in 1899, while

303-438: A compound modifier . Both orthographical variants, with and without the hyphen, are correct, but the hyphenated one has a second meaning that is unrelated to animation or cinema: "a device for automatically stopping a machine or engine when something has gone wrong". Before the advent of chronophotography in 1878, a small number of picture sequences were photographed with subjects in separate poses. These can now be regarded as

404-547: A dentist , and Yukon Cornelius, a prospector who has spent his life searching for silver and gold. After escaping the Abominable Snow Monster , all three land on the Island of Misfit Toys. It is a place where unloved or unwanted toys reside with their ruler, a winged lion named King Moonracer, who brings the toys to the island until he can find homes and children who would love them. The king allows them to stay one night on

505-416: A "Stéréoscope-fantascope ou Bïoscope" (or abbreviated as stéréofantascope) stroboscopic disc . The only known extant disc contains stereoscopic photograph pairs of different phases of the motion of a machine. Due to the long exposure times necessary to capture an image with the photographic emulsions of the period, the sequence could not be recorded live and must have been assembled from separate photographs of

606-473: A big impression in Paris, where it was released as L'hôtel hanté: fantasmagorie épouvantable . When Gaumont bought a copy to further distribute the film, it was carefully studied by some of their filmmakers to find out how it was made. Reportedly it was newcomer Émile Cohl who unraveled the mystery. Not long after, Cohl released his first film, Japon de fantaisie (June 1907), featuring his own imaginative use of

707-596: A feature animated film with a technique other than cel animation was produced in the US. The first was the stop motion adaptation of 19th century composer Engelbert Humperdinck 's opera Hänsel und Gretel as Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy . In 1955, Karel Zeman made his first feature film Journey to the Beginning of Time inspired by Jules Verne , featuring stop motion animation of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Art Clokey started his adventures in clay with

808-476: A form of stop motion or pixilation, but very few results were meant to be animated. Until celluloid film base was established in 1888 and set the standard for the moving image, animation could only be presented via mechanisms such as the zoetrope . In 1849, Joseph Plateau published a note about improvements for his Fantascope (a.k.a. phénakisticope ). A new translucent variation had improved picture quality and could be viewed with both eyes, by several people at

909-546: A freeform clay short film called Gumbasia (1955), which shortly thereafter propelled him into the production of his more structured TV series Gumby (1955–1989), with the iconic titular character. In partnership with the United Lutheran Church in America , he also produced Davey and Goliath (1960–2004). The theatrical feature Gumby: The Movie (1992, released in 1995) was a box-office bomb . On 22 November 1959,

1010-573: A large close-up view of a table being set by itself baffled viewers; there were no visible wires or other noticeable well-known tricks. This inspired other filmmakers, including French animator Émile Cohl and Segundo de Chomón. De Chomón would release the similar The House of Ghosts ( La maison ensorcelée ) and Hôtel électrique in 1908, with the latter also containing some very early pixelation. The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1908, considered lost) by Blackton and his British-American Vitagraph partner Albert E. Smith showed an animated performance of

1111-427: A model of the planet and a light source standing in for the sun. While actual recordings of the passage of Venus have not been located, some practice discs survived and the images of one were turned into a short animated film decades after the development of cinematography . In 1887, Étienne-Jules Marey created a large zoetrope with a series of plaster models based on his chronophotographs of birds in flight. It

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1212-767: A presentation of the complete dance with a home cinema projector. Later on, he bought a movie camera and between 1906 and 1909 he made many short films, including puppet animations. As a dancer and choreographer, Shiryaev had a special talent to create motion in his animated films. According to animator Peter Lord his work was decades ahead of its time. Part of Shiryaev's animation work is featured in Viktor Bocharov's documentary Alexander Shiryaev: A Belated Premiere (2003). Polish-Russian Ladislas Starevich (1882–1965), started his film career around 1909 in Kaunas filming live insects. He wanted to document rutting stag beetles , but

1313-452: A release date of 1908 has also been given. The 1908 Animated Matches film by Émile Cohl may have caused more confusion about the release dates of Cooper's matchstick animations. It also raises the question whether Cohl may have been inspired by Melbourne-Cooper or vice versa. Melbourne-Cooper's lost films Dolly’s Toys (1901) and The Enchanted Toymaker (1904) may have included stop-motion animation. Dreams of Toyland (1908) features

1414-623: A rendition of the legend of the German scholar . Švankmajer's work has been highly influential on other artists, such as Terry Gilliam and the Quay brothers (although the latter claim to have only discovered Švankmajer's films after having developed their own similar style). French animator Serge Danot created The Magic Roundabout (1965) which played for many years on the BBC . Romeo Muller Romeo Earl Muller, Jr. (August 7, 1928 – December 30, 1992)

1515-513: A scene in which the same characters sang "We're a Couple of Misfits". Viewers of the 1964 special complained that Santa was not shown fulfilling his promise to the Misfit Toys to include them in his annual toy delivery. In reaction, a new scene for subsequent rebroadcasts was produced with Santa making his first stop at the Island to pick up the toys. This is the ending that has been shown on all telecasts and video releases ever since. Until sometime in

1616-415: A scene with many animated toys that lasts approximately three and a half minutes. As a means to plan his performances, ballet dancer and choreographer Alexander Shiryaev started making approximately 20- to 25-centimeter-tall puppets out of papier-mâché on poseable wire frames. He then sketched all the sequential movements on paper. When he arranged these vertically on a long strip, it was possible to give

1717-408: A secret, not only to prevent use of such techniques by competitors, but also to keep audiences interested in the mystery of the magic tricks. Stop motion is closely related to the stop trick , in which the camera is temporarily stopped during the recording of a scene to create a change before filming is continued (or for which the cause of the change is edited out of the film). In the resulting film,

1818-519: A sitting old lady. American film pioneer Edwin S. Porter filmed a single-shot "lightning sculpting" film with a baker molding faces from a patch of dough in Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902), considered as foreshadowing of clay animation. In 1905, Porter showed animated letters and very simple cutout animation of two hands in the intertitles in How Jones Lost His Roll . Porter experimented with

1919-476: A small bit of crude stop-motion animation in his trick film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906). The "Teddy" Bears (2 March 1907), made in collaboration with Wallace McCutcheon Sr. , mainly shows people in bear costumes, but the short film also features a short stop-motion segment with small teddy bears. On 15 February 1908, Porter released the trick film A Sculptor's Welsh Rabbit Dream that featured clay molding itself into three complete busts. No copy of

2020-415: A solid object, for instance a statuette. Plateau concluded that for this purpose 16 plaster models could be made with 16 regular modifications. He believed such a project would take much time and careful effort, but would be well worth it because of the expected marvelous results. The plan was never executed, possibly because Plateau was almost completely blind by this time. In 1852, Jules Duboscq patented

2121-505: A stalactite. Hermey and Yukon eventually show up with a plan to help out Rudolph. Hermey lures the monster out of the cave by imitating the sound of a pig and pulls out the Abominable's teeth after Yukon knocks him out. Yukon drives the toothless monster back over a cliff and falls with it. Rudolph, Hermey, Clarice, and the Donners return home where everyone apologizes to them. Yukon returns with

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2222-667: A string of Academy Award for Best Animated Short Films , including Rhythm in the Ranks (1941), Tulips Shall Grow (1942), Jasper and the Haunted House (1942), the Dr. Seuss penned The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) and And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1944), Jasper and the Beanstalk (1945), John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946), Jasper in a Jam (1946), and Tubby

2323-402: A tamed Abominable, now trained to trim a Christmas tree, explaining that the monster's bouncing ability saved both of their lives. Christmas Eve comes and while everybody is celebrating, Santa announces that a big snowstorm is approaching, forcing him to cancel Christmas. Blinded by Rudolph's bright nose, he changes his mind and asks Rudolph to lead the sleigh. Rudolph accepts, and their first stop

2424-637: A year later. Although the films and her technique received much attention of the press, it seems she did not continue making films after she returned to New York from managing a YMCA in Paris around 1918. None of her films have yet surfaced, but the extant magazine articles have provided several stills and approximately 20 poorly printed frames from two film strips. By 1920 Starewicz had settled in Paris, and started making new stop motion films. Dans les Griffes de L'araignée (finished 1920, released 1924) featured detailed hand-made insect puppets that could convey facial expressions with moving lips and eyelids. One of

2525-548: Is Snip and Snap (1960-1961) by John Halas in collaboration with Danish paper sculptor Thok Søndergaard (Thoki Yenn), featuring dog Snap, cut from a sheet of paper by pair of scissors Snip. Apart from their cutout animation series, British studio Smallfilms ( Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate ) produced several stop motion series with puppets, beginning with Pingwings (1961-1965) featuring penguin-like birds knitted by Peter's wife Joan and filmed on their farm (where most of their productions were filmed in an unused barn). It

2626-449: Is also the version that had previously aired on CBS, albeit in edited form to accommodate more commercial time. On November 4, 2014, they re-released the special on a 50th anniversary edition on Blu-ray and DVD. The same 50th anniversary Blu-ray edition was released with an exclusive storybook; this was only sold at Walmart . Universal Pictures Home Entertainment re-released the special again on DVD and Blu-ray in 2018. Universal re-released

2727-416: Is easy to recreate with modern technology and the special's ambiguous copyright status, has lent itself to numerous parodies and homages over the years. Animator Corky Quakenbush has produced parodies of Rudolph for several American television shows: Stop motion The term "stop motion", relating to the animation technique, is often spelled with a hyphen as "stop-motion"—either standalone or as

2828-475: Is estimated that 80 to 90 percent of all silent films are lost. Extant contemporary movie catalogs, reviews and other documentation can provide some details on lost films, but this kind of written documentation is also incomplete and often insufficient to properly date all extant films or even identify them if original titles are missing. Possible stop motion in lost films is even harder to trace. The principles of animation and other special effects were mostly kept

2929-505: Is the Island of Misfit Toys, where Santa delivers the toys to children. The special, with the teleplay by Romeo Muller , introduced several new characters inspired by the song's lyrics. Muller told an interviewer shortly before his death that he would have preferred to base the teleplay on May's original book, but could not find a copy. Other than Burl Ives, all characters were portrayed by Canadian actors recorded at RCA studios in Toronto under

3030-570: The Christmas Classics Series label, the 1965 rebroadcast print described above was used. It got re-released in 1997 by Family Home Entertainment and Golden Books Family Entertainment . It used the same print, but with the GBFE logo at the end instead of the Broadway Video logo. All current video prints of Rudolph by Classic Media are a compendium of the two previous telecast versions of

3131-475: The Rankin-Bass off Broadway play A Month Of Sundays . Since Muller was a big man at 6'2", 300 pounds (1.88 m, 136 kg), he decided to stay away from acting and turn his attention towards writing. After writing material for comedian Jack Benny , Muller was discovered by CBS founder William S. Paley and selected to be a staff writer for the prestigious Studio One and Philco Theatre . He wrote one of

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3232-504: The "Peppermint Mine" scene, making it the first time that the latter scene has been seen on television since the original broadcast. NBC will broadcast the special again on December 6, 2024 in a 75-minute telecast. The network will continue its policy of blocking all streaming of the special for 2024, while allowing pay-per-view options. When Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was first released on VHS and LaserDisc by Family Home Entertainment and Broadway Video from 1989 to 1996 under

3333-603: The 10-minute The Beautiful Leukanida (Прекрасная Люканида, или Война усачей с рогачами) (March 1912), the two-minute Happy Scenes from Animal Life (Веселые сценки из жизни животных), the 12-minute The Cameraman's Revenge (Прекрасная Люканида, или Война усачей с рогачами, October 1912) and the 5-minute The Grasshopper and the Ant (Стрекоза и муравей, 1913). Reportedly many viewers were impressed with how much could be achieved with trained insects, or at least wondered what tricks could have been used, since few people were familiar with

3434-467: The 1970s, the special aired without additional cuts, but eventually more commercial time was required by the network. In 1978, several sequences were deleted to make room for more advertising: the instrumental bridge from "We Are Santa's Elves" featuring the elf orchestra, additional dialogue by Burl Ives, and the "Peppermint Mine" scene resolving the fate of Yukon Cornelius. The special's 1993 restoration saw "Misfits" returned to its original film context, and

3535-499: The Abominable Snow Monster, who has several interwoven themes; a primary motif, indicated by brass and an F minor key; a modulating chase theme led by tack piano; a tritonal attack theme combining the latter two; and finally the deleted song "The Abominable Snow Monster", which is alluded to melodically during a scene in the Abominable's cave. None of the film's original score has ever been released. In 1964, an LP record of

3636-537: The Christmas Tree " and " I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day ". Many of the songs are utilized in the score as musical themes for recurring characters and ideas, such as "Silver and Gold" (for Yukon Cornelius, sung by Burl Ives), "Jingle, Jingle, Jingle" (Santa, sung by Stan Francis) and "There's Always Tomorrow" (Clarice, sung by Janis Orenstein). Some of these themes are modified for dramatic purposes, particularly those of

3737-522: The Grinch Stole Christmas , Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer no longer airs merely once annually, but several times during the Christmas and holiday season . It has been telecast every year since 1964, making it the longest continuously running Christmas TV special in the United States. The 50th anniversary of the television special was marked in 2014, and a series of postage stamps featuring Rudolph

3838-520: The Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy (1915). Apart from the titular dinosaur and " missing link " ape, it featured several cavemen and an ostrich-like "desert quail", all relatively lifelike models made with clay. This led to a series of short animated comedies with a prehistoric theme for Edison Company, including Prehistoric Poultry (1916), R.F.D. 10,000 B.C. (1917), The Birth of a Flivver (1917) and Curious Pets of Our Ancestors (1917). O'Brien

3939-482: The Red-Nosed Reindeer " which was itself based on the poem of the same name written in 1939 by Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May . NBC will air the special annually starting in 2024, having previously done so until 1971. From 1972 to 2023, the special aired on CBS , which unveiled a high-definition, digitally remastered version of the program in 2005, re-scanned frame-by-frame from the original 35 mm film elements. As with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How

4040-447: The Red-Nosed Reindeer is a yule-tide gem that bursts with eye-popping iconography, a spirited soundtrack, and a heart-warming celebration of difference." Contemporary reports rated the special highly, with a 1970 survey from Clarke Williamson noting that viewers gave the special above-average reviews, only slightly lower than two other 1960s classics, A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Little Drummer Boy , and ahead of other specials of

4141-572: The Red-Nosed Reindeer", was released the following year on his 1965 album Have a Holly Jolly Christmas . Books and other items related to the show have in some cases misspelled "Hermey" as "Herbie". Rick Goldschmidt, who wrote Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Making of the Rankin/Bass Holiday Classic , says the scripts by Romeo Muller show the spelling to be "Hermey". A Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer video game

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4242-464: The Snowman , among many others. In 1965, several Theatre-Five radio productions featured Muller as writer and/or actor. He was also the voice of the narrator, a talking sun, in the first three Strawberry Shortcake TV specials from the 1980s, which he also wrote and co-produced. Muller read his favorite and first Christmas story every year on Christmas Eve on New York radio station WGHQ. This story

4343-486: The States", Soles recalled in 2014. He, Richards and the other main cast voices received only a thousand dollars over the three years after the special's original airing; it has in some years since made $ 100 million. While Richards said in 2000 that her compensation was a "sore subject" for her, she had no complaints about the work itself. "I feel so lucky to have something that has made such an impact on people, and it's because of

4444-669: The Tuba (1947). Many of his puppetoon films were selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry . Willis O' Brien's expressive and emotionally convincing animation of the big ape in King Kong (1933) is widely regarded as a milestone in stop-motion animation and a highlight of Hollywood cinema in general. A 1940 promotional film for Autolite , an automotive parts supplier, featured stop-motion animation of its products marching past Autolite factories to

4545-518: The animation was done. These puppets were displayed at the NBC headquarters in New York before eventually given back to Rankin-Bass, whose secretary Barbara Adams took them home for her children. Ives, and his estate since his 1995 death, received annual residuals from the show, the only actor in it to do so. "This business of residuals was new to our union , which was not quite as strong as SAG or others in

4646-469: The arts were evident very early on. At age 11, he became a puppeteer at his grade school and eventually he began writing his own plays. His career in theatre began when he joined an acting troupe called "Theater Go Round" in Virginia Beach, Virginia with producer/friend Lesley Savage. At this time Romeo wrote plays such as Angel With The Big, Big Ears and The Great Getaway , which eventually became

4747-503: The change will be sudden and a logical cause of the change will be mysteriously absent or replaced with a fake cause that is suggested in the scene. The oldest known example is used for the beheading in Edison Manufacturing Company 's 1895 film The Execution of Mary Stuart . The technique of stop motion can be interpreted as repeatedly applying the stop trick. In 1917, clay animation pioneer Helena Smith-Dayton referred to

4848-645: The creatures wouldn't cooperate or would even die under the bright lamps needed for filming. He solved the problem by using wire for the limbs of dried beetles and then animating them in stop motion. The resulting short film, presumably 1 minute long, was probably titled by the Latin name for the species: Lucanus Cervus (Жук-олень, 1910, considered lost). After moving to Moscow, Starevich continued animating dead insects, but now as characters in imaginative stories with much dramatic complexity. He garnered much attention and international acclaim with these short films, including

4949-1031: The earliest clay animation films was Modelling Extraordinary , which impressed audiences in 1912. The early Italian feature film Cabiria (1914) featured some stop motion techniques. Starewicz finished the first feature stop motion film Le Roman de Renard (The Tale of the Fox) in 1930, but problems with its soundtrack delayed its release. In 1937 it was released with a German soundtrack and in 1941 with its French soundtrack. Hungarian-American filmmaker George Pal developed his own stop motion technique of replacing wooden dolls (or parts of them) with similar figures displaying changed poses and/or expressions. He called it Pal-Doll and used it for his Puppetoons films since 1932. The particular replacement animation method itself also became better known as puppetoon . In Europe he mainly worked on promotional films for companies such as Philips . Later Pal gained much success in Hollywood with

5050-552: The episode aired in 2006 on PBS . At that time, their appraised value was between $ 8,000 and $ 10,000. The puppets had been damaged through years of rough handling by children and storage in an attic. Toy aficionado Kevin Kriess bought Santa and Rudolph in 2005; in 2007, he had both puppets restored by Screen Novelties , a Los Angeles-based collective of film directors specializing in stop-motion animation, with puppet fabricator Robin Walsh leading

5151-506: The era. In December 2018, a Hollywood Reporter / Morning Consult poll which surveyed 2,200 adults from Nov. 15–18, 2018, named Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer the most beloved holiday film, with 83 percent of respondents having a generally favorable response to the title. The Rankin/Bass special inspired numerous television sequels made by the same studio: The television special's familiarity to American audiences through its annual rebroadcasts, along with its stop-motion animation that

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5252-480: The figures from a popular wooden toy set. Smith would later claim that this was "the first stop-motion picture in America". The inspiration would have come from seeing how puffs of smoke behaved in the interrupted recordings for a stop trick film they were making. Smith would have suggested to get a patent for the technique, but Blackton thought it wasn't that important. Smith's recollections are not considered to be very reliable. Blackton's The Haunted Hotel made

5353-563: The film Mighty Joe Young (1949). Harryhausen would go on to create many memorable stop motion effects for a string of successful fantasy films over the next three decades. These included The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) and Clash of the Titans (1981). It wasn't until 1954 before

5454-453: The film has yet been located. It was soon followed by the similar extant film The Sculptor's Nightmare (6 May 1908) by Wallace McCutcheon Sr. J. Stuart Blackton 's The Haunted Hotel (23 February 1907) featured a combination of live-action with practical special effects and stop motion animation of several objects, a puppet and a model of the haunted hotel. It was the first stop motion film to receive wide scale appreciation. Especially

5555-484: The first episode of Unser Sandmänchen (Our Little Sandman) was broadcast on DFF (East German television) . The 10-minute daily bedtime show for young children features the title character as an animated puppet, and other puppets in different segments. A very similar Sandmänchen series, possibly conceived earlier, ran on West German television from 1 December 1959 until the German reunification in 1989. The East German show

5656-503: The following week's episodes of GE College Bowl and Meet the Press , which were presumably preempted that Sunday for the inaugural 5:30 p.m. (EST) telecast. The College Bowl quiz show was also sponsored by GE. The original does not include Santa traveling to the Island of Misfit Toys, but does include a scene near the end of the special in which Yukon Cornelius discovers a peppermint mine near Santa's workshop. He can be seen throughout

5757-423: The island and asks them to ask Santa to find homes for them. Rudolph leaves on his own that night, worried that his nose will endanger his friends. Time passes and Rudolph, now a young stag, returns home to find that his parents and Clarice have been searching for him. He then travels to the Abominable's cave, where they are being held captive. Rudolph attempts to rescue Clarice until the monster knocks him down with

5858-484: The later zoetrope). Desvignes' Mimoscope , received an Honourable Mention "for ingenuity of construction" at the 1862 International Exhibition in London. Desvignes "employed models, insects and other objects, instead of pictures, with perfect success". In 1874, Jules Janssen made several practice discs for the recording of the passage of Venus with his series Passage de Vénus with his photographic revolver . He used

5959-798: The lower labor costs in Canada. Ives' parts were recorded later. He and his character were added to the cast just before the end of production, after NBC and General Electric , the show's sponsor, asked Rankin and Bass to add a name familiar to audiences to the cast. Character designer Antony Peters intentionally made the Sam the Snowman character resemble Ives. After the script, concept designs and storyboards for Rudolph were done by Arthur Rankin Jr. and his staff of artists at Rankin/Bass in New York City . The company's trademark stop motion animation process, known as "Animagic",

6060-441: The more than 300 short films produced between 1896 and 1915 by British film pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper , an estimated 36 contained forms of animation. Based on later reports by Melbourne-Cooper and by his daughter Audrey Wadowska, some believe that Cooper's Matches: an Appeal was produced in 1899 and therefore the first stop-motion animation. The extant black-and-white film shows a matchstick figure writing an appeal to donate

6161-542: The most popular episodes for the Studio One series entitled "Love Me To Pieces, Baby". In 1963, Muller met with producer/directors Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass and began a relationship that would last for years. Rankin and Bass asked Romeo to write a screenplay for their first Network television special, entitled Return to Oz , which aired on NBC's the General Electric Fantasy Hour . The special

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6262-914: The official selection of the 1946 Cannes Film Festival . The first Belgian animated feature was an adaptation of the Tintin comic The Crab with the Golden Claws (1947) with animated puppets. The first Czech animated feature was the package film The Czech Year (1947) with animated puppets by Jiří Trnka . The film won several awards at the Venice Film Festival and other international festivals. Trnka would make several more award-winning stop motion features including The Emperor's Nightingale (1949), Prince Bayaya (1950), Old Czech Legends (1953) or A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959). He also directed many short films and experimented with other forms of animation. Ray Harryhausen learned under O'Brien on

6363-461: The original production, Billie Mae Richards, who voiced Rudolph, was credited as "Billy Richards" since Rankin and Bass did not want to disclose that a woman had done the part. Antony Peters' name was also misspelled, as was the year of the copyright notice (which used Roman numerals ), listing it as MCLXIV (year 1164) and not MCMLXIV, potentially weakening the copyright. The dolls for Rudolph and Santa cost $ 5,000 to make. Since those involved with

6464-623: The principle behind her work as "stop action", a synonym of "stop motion". French trick film pioneer Georges Méliès claimed to have invented the stop-trick and popularized it by using it in many of his short films. He reportedly used stop-motion animation in 1899 to produce moving letterforms. Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón (1871–1929) made many trick films in France for Pathé . He has often been compared to Georges Méliès as he also made many fantasy films with stop tricks and other illusions (helped by his wife, Julienne Mathieu ). By 1906 Chomón

6565-474: The production had no idea of the future value of the stop-motion puppet figures used in the production, many were not preserved. Rankin claimed in 2007 to be in possession of an original Rudolph figure. Nine other puppets—including Santa and young Rudolph—were given to a secretary, who gave them to family members, which were eventually damaged over time due to poor storage. In 2005, the remaining two puppets of Rudolph and Santa were appraised on Antiques Roadshow ;

6666-618: The project. The figures have been shown at conventions since then. They were sold at auction on November 13, 2020. netting a $ 368,000 sale price, doubling the expected return. On December 22, 2020, they were donated to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia . In May 2023, it was revealed by Rankin-Bass historian Rick Goldschmidt that the restored puppets of Santa and Rudolph were actually “publicity” copies, used for photography and other purposes rather than being screen used copies from Japan where

6767-428: The reindeer games, where the new fawns learn to fly and are scouted by Santa for future sleigh duty. Rudolph meets a doe named Clarice, who tells him he is cute, making Rudolph fly. While he celebrates with the other bucks, Rudolph's fake nose pops off, causing the other reindeer to mock him and Coach Comet to expel him. Rudolph meets and joins Hermey, a misfit elf who left Santa's workshop to follow his dream to become

6868-406: The same fashion as cable and satellite providers; CBS parent company Paramount claimed, copyright ambiguity notwithstanding, that it did not have streaming rights to the special. CBS still showed the version they have had since 2005, while Freeform's airings reinsert much of the material deleted or changed from CBS's broadcasts, such as the original version of "We're a Couple of Misfits" as well as

6969-582: The same songs performed by the Decca Concert Orchestra. The song "Fame and Fortune" is not contained on either release. On November 30, 2004, the soundtrack was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 500,000 copies. Ives re-recorded "A Holly Jolly Christmas", with different arrangements, for the song's 1964 single release . This version, along with a similarly newly recorded version of "Rudolph

7070-466: The same time. Plateau stated that the illusion could be advanced even further with an idea communicated to him by Charles Wheatstone : a combination of the fantascope and Wheatstone's stereoscope . Plateau thought the construction of a sequential set of stereoscopic image pairs would be the more difficult part of the plan than adapting two copies of his improved fantascope to be fitted with a stereoscope. Wheatstone had suggested using photographs on paper of

7171-407: The secrets of stop motion animation. The Insects' Christmas (Рождество обитателей леса, 1913) featured other animated puppets, including Father Christmas and a frog. Starevich made several other stop motion films in the next two years, but mainly went on to direct live-action short and feature films before he fled from Russia in 1918. Willis O' Brien 's first stop motion film was The Dinosaur and

7272-457: The soundtrack was released on Decca Records . It contained different mixes of the original songs performed as they are in the special, with the exception of Burl Ives' material, which has been re-recorded. MCA Special Products released the soundtrack on CD in June 1995. It is an exact duplication of the original LP released in 1964. Tracks 1-9 are the remixed soundtrack selections while tracks 10-19 are

7373-501: The special in HD format for the first time on broadcast television. The visuals from the 1965 edit were combined with the soundtrack of the original 1964 version. This version has been criticized for various issues, including a poorly truncated version of "We're a Couple of Misfits" played over the visuals of "Fame and Fortune", telltale signs of warping and distortion of the audio track, visual sync issues and audio mismatches. In May 2019, it

7474-427: The special on 4K UHD Blu-ray as part of The Classic Christmas Specials Collection (with Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town ) in 2022. The songs were written by Johnny Marks, with musical director Maury Laws composing the incidental score. In addition to songs written specifically for the film, several of Marks' other holiday standards populate the instrumental score, among them " Rockin' Around

7575-434: The special tossing his pickax into the air, sniffing, then licking the end that contacts the snow or ice. Deletion of the peppermint segment in 1965, to make room for Santa traveling to the Island of Misfit Toys, leaves the audience to assume that Cornelius was attempting to find either silver or gold by taste alone. The 1965 broadcast also included a new duet between Rudolph and Hermey called "Fame and Fortune", which replaced

7676-486: The special was released for the first time on DVD by the two companies. In 2010, the special was released for the first time on Blu-ray by Vivendi Entertainment. This edit has been made available in original color form by former rights holders Classic Media, (which in 2012 became the DreamWorks Classics division of DreamWorks Animation , and finally in 2016, part of Universal Pictures ) As previously mentioned, this

7777-438: The special. All the footage in the current versions follow the original 1964 NBC broadcast (without the original GE commercials) up until the "Peppermint Mine" scene, followed by the final act of the 1965 edit (with the Island of Misfit Toys finale and the 1965 alternate credits in place of the original end credit sequence). In 1998, the special was re-released on VHS by Sony Wonder and Golden Books Family Entertainment . In 1999,

7878-526: The stop-motion technique. It was followed by the revolutionary hand-drawn Fantasmagorie (17 August 1908) and many more animated films by Cohl. Other notable stop-motion films by Cohl include Les allumettes animées (Animated Matches) (1908), and Mobilier fidèle (1910, in collaboration with Romeo Bosetti ). Mobilier fidèle is often confused with Bosetti's object animation tour de force Le garde-meubles automatique (The Automatic Moving Company) (1912). Both films feature furniture moving by itself. Of

7979-432: The story first and foremost." This version has the NBC "living color" peacock at the introduction. It includes the original end credits, in which an elf drops presents that list all the technical credits. It also includes commercials that were exclusively for GE small appliances, with some of the same animated elves from the main program introducing each of the products, and closing NBC network bumpers, including promos for

8080-433: The subsequent DVD releases showcase "Fame and Fortune" as a separate musical number. Most of the 1965 deletions were restored in 1998, and "Fame and Fortune" was replaced with the original "We're a Couple of Misfits" reprise. A short slide reading "Rankin/Bass Present" was inserted at the beginning of the special to reflect the company's name change. Another edited version premiered on CBS in 2005. This edit aimed to present

8181-501: The supervision of Bernard Cowan . Rankin and Bass chose Canadian voice actors for two reasons. First, while the last radio dramas in the U.S. had ended production a few years previously, many were still being produced in Canada, giving the producers a large talent pool to choose from. Second, Rankin and Bass, financially stretched while making Tales of the Wizard of Oz a few years earlier, had been able to complete that series only due to

8282-457: The syndicated television series The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1960-1961). The Christmas TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been telecasted annually since 1964 and has become one of the most beloved holiday specials in the United States. They made three theatrical feature films Willy McBean and His Magic Machine (1965), The Daydreamer (1966, stop motion / live-action) and Mad Monster Party? (1966, released in 1967), and

8383-446: The television special Ballad of Smokey the Bear (1966) before the collaboration ended. Rankin/Bass worked with other animators for more TV specials, with titles such as The Little Drummer Boy (1968), Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) and Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971). British television has shown many stop motion series for young children since the 1960s. An early example

8484-493: The tune of Franz Schubert 's Military March . An abbreviated version of this sequence was later used in television ads for Autolite, especially those on the 1950s CBS program Suspense , which Autolite sponsored. The first British animated feature was the stop motion instruction film Handling Ships (1945) by Halas and Batchelor for the British Admiralty . It was not meant for general cinemas, but did become part of

8585-521: The various positions of the machinery. In 1855, Johann Nepomuk Czermak published an article about his Stereophoroskop and other experiments aimed at stereoscopic moving images. He mentioned a method of sticking needles in a stroboscopic disc so that it looked like one needle was being pushed in and out of the cardboard when animated. He realized that this method provided basically endless possibilities to make different 3D animations. He then introduced two methods to animate stereoscopic pairs of images, one

8686-456: The voice acting, soundtrack, animation style, characters, and sets. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is often regarded as one of the best Christmas films ever made, being featured on numerous "top ten" lists. It has become widely popular among both young children and adults familiar with the Christmas season, and has garnered a large cult following since its initial debut. On November 1, 2024, it

8787-584: The war and stayed in China afterwards. Due to the scarcity of paint and film stock shortly after the war, Mochinaga decided to work with puppets and stop motion. His work helped popularize puppet animation in China, before he returned to Japan around 1953 where he continued working as animation director. In the 1960s, Mochinaga supervised the "Animagic" puppet animation for productions by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass ' Videocraft International, Ltd. (later called Rankin/Bass Productions , Inc.) and Dentsu , starting with

8888-411: Was a success and set the stage for the most popular holiday television special of all time Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer . Muller embellished the short story into an hour-long broadcast and added a variety of characters into the story. He is also known for his screenplays in other such films as Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town , The Little Drummer Boy , Here Comes Peter Cottontail , and Frosty

8989-512: Was an American screenwriter and actor most remembered for his screenplays for the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer , The Little Drummer Boy , Frosty the Snowman , and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town . Muller was born in the Bronx, New York , the son of Mildred (Kuhlmann) and Romeo Earl Muller. He was raised on Long Island. His talents in

9090-526: Was announced that Freeform would air the special as part of their annual 25 Days of Christmas line-up for the first time, alongside Frosty the Snowman . The agreement was later revealed to be an exclusive rights agreement, as CBS continues to broadcast the special over-the-air each November and December, but not on Paramount+ nor, in an unusual case of blackout , virtual mutichannel video program distributors such as YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV , which have traditionally carried all network programming in

9191-457: Was announced that the special will return to NBC beginning with its airing on December 6, 2024, its 60th anniversary. Donner, the lead reindeer for Santa Claus , and his wife have a new fawn named Rudolph. They are surprised to find out he was born with a glowing red nose. Donner attempts to first cover Rudolph's nose with mud, and later uses a fake nose, so Rudolph will fit in with the other reindeer. The following spring, Rudolph goes out for

9292-441: Was basically a stereo viewer using two stroboscopic discs and the other was more or less similar to the later zoetrope . Czermak explained how suitable stereoscopic photographs could be made by recording a series of models, for instance to animate a growing pyramid. On 27 February 1860, Peter Hubert Desvignes received British patent no. 537 for 28 monocular and stereoscopic variations of cylindrical stroboscopic devices (much like

9393-446: Was continued on other German networks when DFF ended in 1991, and is one of the longest running animated series in the world. The theatrical feature Das Sandmännchen – Abenteuer im Traumland (2010) was fully animated with stop motion puppets. Japanese puppet animator Tadahito Mochinaga started out as assistant animator in short anime (propaganda) films Arichan (1941) and Momotarō no Umiwashi (1943). He fled to Manchukuo during

9494-561: Was filmed at MOM Productions in Tokyo with supervision by Tadahito Mochinaga and associate direction by Kizo Nagashima. Besides Rudolph , Mochinaga and the rest of the Japanese puppet animation staff are also known for their partnership with Rankin/Bass on their other Animagic productions almost throughout the 1960s, from The New Adventures of Pinocchio , to Willy McBean and his Magic Machine , to The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party? In

9595-650: Was followed by Pogles' Wood (1965-1967), Clangers (1969-1972, 1974, revived in 2015), Bagpuss (1974) and Tottie: The Story of a Doll's House (1984). Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer 's released his short artistic films since 1964, which usually contain much experimental stop motion. He started to gain much international recognition in the 1980s. Since 1988 he has mostly been directing feature films which feature much more live action than stop motion. These include Alice , an adaptation of Lewis Carroll 's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , and Faust ,

9696-581: Was issued by the United States Postal Service on November 6, 2014. A special exhibit was also mounted at the Masterworks Museum in Bermuda, where the original puppets are held. Since 2019, Freeform has aired the special as a part of its 25 Days of Christmas holiday programming block. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was initially met with a positive reception among critics , who praised

9797-559: Was recognized as a technique to create lifelike creatures for adventure films. O' Brien further pioneered the technique with animated dinosaur sequences for the live-action feature The Lost World (1925). New York artist Helena Smith Dayton , possibly the first female animator, had much success with her "Caricatypes" clay statuettes before she began experimenting with clay animation. Some of her first resulting short films were screened on 25 March 1917. She released an adaptation of William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet approximately half

9898-592: Was released on November 9, 2010. The adaptation was published by Red Wagon Games for the Wii and Nintendo DS , and was developed by High Voltage Software and Glyphic Entertainment respectively. The Wii version was received poorly, and garnered extremely negative reviews from sites such as IGN giving it a 1.5/10. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer received an approval rating of 95% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , based on thirteen reviews, with an average rating of 9.37/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Rudolph

9999-467: Was reworked with a different ending for an animated film in 1992 and aired days before Muller died. In 2002 the book Jill Chill & the Baron of Glacier Mountain by Ed McCray featured a character named Romeo after Muller. The book is written in the style of the old Christmas specials that Muller had written. Muller died of a heart attack in his sleep on Wednesday, 30 December 1992, shortly after receiving

10100-491: Was then hired by producer Herbert M. Dawley to direct, create effects, co-write and co-star with him for The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918). The collaborative film combined live-action with animated dinosaur models in a 45-minute film, but after the premiere it was cut down to approximately 12 minutes. Dawley did not give O'Brien credits for the visual effects, and instead claimed the animation process as his own invention and even applied for patents. O'Brien's stop motion work

10201-609: Was using stop motion animation. Le théâtre de Bob (April 1906) features over three minutes of stop motion animation with dolls and objects to represent a fictional automated theatre owned by Bob, played by a live-action child actor. It is the oldest extant film with proper stop motion and a definite release date. Segundo de Chomón 's Sculpteur moderne was released on 31 January 1908 and features heaps of clay molding itself into detailed sculptures that are capable of minor movements. The final sculpture depicts an old woman and walks around before it's picked up, squashed and molded back into

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