For the past couple of years when it has gotten close enough to Christmas, I have given over the content of The Legionnaire to seasonally appropriate films.  I continue to review new releases, but the rest of the time it has been holiday fare.  Early on, I covered all the familiar ones, classics like Miracle on 34^th Street (1994) to more recent favorites like Home Alone (1990).  There are others, but they really are too numerous to count, particularly since there are so many bad ones.  This is not me saying they are awful as a practicing Catholic who wants some semblance of the true Christmas spirit in my cinematic material.  It is also because they are often poorly acted and formulaic, to put it kindly.  Then there is the 1964 television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  It is memorable for people who were alive when it debuted because it featured one of the earliest extensive uses of atop-motion animation.  I recall it still being a thing people got excited for when it appeared on television listings when I was a child.  Watching it now, it is one of the most bizarre stories ever filmed.  I believe you will see why as I go along.

Though it is called Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, it is narrated by Sam the Snowman (voiced by Burl Ives).  An opening series of sensationalized headlines about weather causing municipalities to ponder the possibility of cancelling Christmas reminds him of the story of the “most famous reindeer of all,” Rudolph (voiced by Billie Mae Richards).  He is born with the eponymous facial feature, much to the astonishment and apparent horror of his parents and Santa Claus (voiced by Stan Francis).  It is Rudolph’s father, Donner (voiced by Paul Kligman), who suggests the need to hide Rudolph’s so-called “deformity,” forcing his son to wear a sheath over the bright red nose when soot fails to do the trick.  With his secret kept for the moment, Rudolph is sent to play in the reindeer games, which basically means teaching the young bucks how to fly.  Because he catches the eye of a young doe, Clarice (voiced by Janis Orenstein), his excitement gets the better of him as he far exceeds his peers in flight.  His triumph is short lived, though, as his nose holster slips off and everyone sees his so-called shame.  It does not help that Santa happens to come by at this instant and tells Rudolph’s family that they should be ashamed of his nose.  There is a brief respite from Rudolph’s ostracism when Clarice says she does not care about the red glow, but her father quickly steps in to say that no daughter of his will be seen walking around with a freak.  Feeling a lack belonging, he decides to run away so as to no longer be a burden to his parents.  Before going far, he meets Hermey (voiced by Paul Soles), an elf from the workshop who dreams of being a dentist . . . as you do.  We have seen his struggles to this point, mainly as it pertains to his desire not to do what most elves do, which is making toys.  When he speaks up about wanting to work on teeth, he is roundly ridiculed.  Thus, he comes to the same conclusion as Rudolph.  Immediately identifying each other as misfits, they decide to wander off into the oblivion of the North Pole.  In their meanderings, they have to run away from Bumble (voiced by Bernard Cowan) the Abominable snow monster.  I am not sure this is an improvement, but the next person they encounter is Yukon Cornelius (voiced by Larry Mann).  He is a prospector who talks like a crazy person, carries a gun in his belt, and can recognize whether there is gold or silver in the area by tasting the end of pick-axe.  Ah, the 1960s. . . .  I suppose it is helpful that he aids in their escape from Bumble by building them a miniature ice-berg on which to float to safety.  Days of drifting at sea takes them to Misfit Island.  Given how I described Hermey and Rudolph, you might think this is the perfect place for them.  Yet, when they are brought before King Moonracer (voiced by Stan Francis), the winged lion that flies around the world retrieving the toys no kids want, he tells them they cannot stay because they are people.  King Moonracer says he will take them back to Christmas Town the next day, but Rudolph fears giving themselves away once more with his nose to Bumble and goes out on his own.  The ensuing montage is enough for him to grow a set of antlers and decide it is time to return to Christmas Town to face his detractors.  When he gets there, he learns that Clarice and his parents had gone looking for him.  Rudolph finds them in Bumble’s cave, with Clarice about to be eaten.  Rudolph is able to distract the beast, but takes a bump on the head for his effort.  They are all saved by the return of Hermey and Yukon, with the latter knocking out the monster with a boulder and the former extracting all its teeth.  This appears to have been the source of Bumble’s rage, and Yukon soon befriends the creature.  The day is saved, but Christmas Eve is the next day.  Santa gets reports indicating so much foul weather that it has him about to cancel Christmas when he remembers Rudolph’s shiny nose.  With the possibility of the good little boys and girls not getting their presents, Rudolph’s so-called defects now make him popular. He leads the sleigh, as the song goes, picking up the toys from Misfit Island before heading into the night.

If you are familiar with the holiday song of the same title, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you might have read that synopsis and had a few “Huh?” moments.  Forget any possibility of there being any sense of Christmas’ actual roots.  At the same time, there is King Moonracer, which bears some resemblance to Christian themes.  In Revelation 5:5, Jesus is portrayed as the Lion of Judah.  This works, too, in talking about the Island of Misfits because Jesus came into the world to gather the lost sheep.  The case can be made that the unwanted toys neatly fit as a metaphor.  At the same time, there is another way of looking at Jesus’ mission on earth.  Elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus talks about being a physician for the spiritually sick.  He tells His disciples that it is to people such as those in need of healing that he must go.  The misfit toys would make good candidates for Divine intervention, if you can countenance seeing the Savior as a flying, talking apex predator.  The people that really need His mercy are the people of Christmas Town, and that includes Santa.  The way they treat Rudolph in particular, and mock Hermey’s desire to be a dentist, is astonishing.  Admittedly, some of this is due to me having a more modern perspective on issues like bullying.  And, to their credit, everyone realizes that they had been too hard on a reindeer whose only crime is being different.  However, such realizations would be made easier if they allowed Jesus in their lives.

Of course, God is not mentioned in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  And who knows if they were trying to make a comparison between Jesus and King Moonracer.  I have never seen such a character in any other Christmas production, so this is purely speculation.  With such oddities, unless you grew up with this story, I see no reason to watch it now.