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rudolph on repeat

I'm going to have take a pass on any lengthy morning blogging until it warms up around these parts. We still haven't replaced the windows in our home office - that home improvement money sure does run out fast. Maybe we should have waited on fixing the bathroom. I mean, what's more important, a decent toilet bowl and shower or a warm office? Anyhow, it's about ten below in here (give or take a few for the wind chill factor) and the space heater isn't really helping. So I offer you a timely repeat until I can get to the cozy confines of work. Update: Wind Rider, having seen my home office up close and personal, has taken pity on me and is trying to collect $345,273.47 (Lawn Guyland rates) for my new windows. The $273.47 cents is for parts. The rest is for labor. ---- rudgun.jpgBefore you all go grab your latest issue of TV Guide and start circling the various holiday specials you intend to watch (A Kid Rock Christmas, anyone?), I'd like to talk to you about something. Rudolph. Is there a creature so beloved as that red-nosed reindeer? Is there any stop-motion animated movie that tugs at your heart more? No, of course not. You will gather - and by you I mean everyone, Christians, Jews, Atheists, Satanists - in front of the tv with your children at some point in the next month to watch this time-honored tale. Well, I'm here to put a stop to that. Rudolph is not a cuddly, warm, fuzzy story. Rudolph, in fact, is a tale of pacifism and appeasement and mental abuse. When Rudolph is first discovered to have the light bulb nose, his father is appalled. Ashamed, he tries to cover up his son's nose. What kind of father is that? He is telling his kid right off the bat, kid, you're ugly and you embarass me. Diguise yourself in public. Right then and there someone should have called social services to tell them that there was a brute of a stag emotionally damaging his child. I mean, the poor kid has a disfigurement. They should have been helping him, not making him feel even worse about it. So everyone eventually finds out about Rudie's nose anyhow. The kids torment him and pick on him and turn him into an outcast. He's not allowed to join in their games because he is, gasp!, different! So what happens? Rudolph goes off on an adventure (where he comes upon the Island of Misfit Toys, but that's a whole other dissertation), where it is discovered that his nose can actually come in handy. Hey, the kid is a freak, but he's a useful freak. The rest of the reindeer gang find out that Rudolph is going to lead Santa's sleigh through the snowstorm. You know what happens. They suddenly love him. He's a hero. Even though he's been scorned and ridiculed and isolated, the other reindeer discover that they can use Rudolph's disfigurement to their advantage, so now they'll let him in their little club. And what does Rudolph do? He leads the damn sleigh and saves the day. Now everyone in this movie, from Rudolph's parents to his girlfriend to Santa, the other reindeer and the Yukon guy mock him throughout or at least make him feel like crap. Apparently, Rudolph has no balls. This is all his father's fault. Dad turned Rudolph into the reindeer equivalant of a nerd when he taught Rudie to just take the abuse from his neighbors and classmates because he deserved it. After all, he was hideously deformed. In essence, he taught his son not to stand up for himself. If Rudolph learned anything at all on his great adventure, he would have turned around and said fuck off and die you miserable bastards. Find some other sucker to save Christmas for you. And then he would take out his AK-47 and turn the whole crowd of miserable reindeer into a carnivore's dream. Then he would go back to the Island of Misfit Toys, become their ruler and plot to take over all of Rankin-Bass land. So parents, don't let your babies grow up to be Rudolphs. Don't watch the show. Or it could be your kid standing in the middle of the forest one day, gunning down all the kids who wouldn't let him play their reindeer games. This has been a public service announcement.

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» More Holiday Cheer! from Silent Running
In a followup to the item on fruitcakes, how about Rudolph, the gone postal years? Which just absolutely tugs at your heartstrings. No, not to save the animatronic character with the light bulb for a nose - to show our... [Read More]

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Only Michele of A Small Victory could come up with something like this: If Rudolph learned anything at all on his great adventure, he would have turned around and said fuck off and die you miserable bastards. Find some other sucker to save Christmas... [Read More]

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Comments

The Rudolph story always depressed me. Yay! Christmas depression!

The moral of this tale is - send Michele money to buy windows!

Bah! Back in our day, we blogged when it was so cold yer hands would turn blue and yer fingers would snap off reaching for the enter key. And we LIKED it! We LOVED it!

Kids these days...

I always preferred the flick with the "Heat Miser."

Confession:

I don't know why but I have to turn the channel when the females sing in the old Rankin-Bass specials. I can't explain it, it's primal. It literally hurts me to hear Clairese sing "There's always tomorrow", or the song Jessica sings during "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (the title eludes me now, thank goodness).

I SWEAR it's NOT misogyny! I also have to avert my eyes when Yukon Cornelius licks his pick. I mean, what's more gross than a "pick licker"?

The female songs aside, those old specials did have some great songs. I love "Put One Foot in Front of the Other" so much, I'm working up a version to sing in church.

I hate those stop-motion animation movies. It goes further than rudolph too. Frosty, Gumby, Nightmare Before Christmas; they actually make me scowl.

Sounds as though the story was really a metaphor for a gay kid who, in the end, won the lottery and saved the Boon Docks for all his shitty friends so that wealthy land developers couldn't build a golf course there.

Or am I getting my movies confused?

For those intersted this site has everything you ever wanted to know about the original TV special. One of the interesting tidbits is that the misfit girl doll (who had no appearent deformity) had psychological problems. Maybe in michele's Basketball Diaries Rudolf fantasy, she could be his sidekick on the killing spree ?

Of course, you could take that 350 grand in the window fund and buy a nice big house down south, where it doesn't get so cold. With the 150 grand you'd have left over, you could almost pay off a nice condo down on the Redneck Riviera.

As an added bonus, we don't talk funny down here. Ma'am.

Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be Rudolphs,

Don't let 'em get picked on, and still drive that sleigh,

Let 'em stand up to the forces of hate...

Quoted on my blog :
Rudolph sat uncomfortably in his chair on his side of the large desk. It was a padded chair, no better or worse than most chairs. Unfortunately, it was built for humans (and elves), not for four-legged reindeer. But when the big man told you to "have a seat," that's exactly what you did.

The "big man" was, of course, Santa Claus. The jolly man was seated across from him, his plump hands resting on his ample belly. When he moved, his stomach rolled like a bowl of jam. No, that wasn't quite right. What was the word he was looking for? Well, it didn't really matter. Santa looked very business-like in a crisp tie and suit jacket. The red suit was only worn on "THE DAY." On normal work days he could be seen on the grounds of North Pole Recreational Development dressed like any other director of an enterprise agency.

However, Rudolph was confident that his Strategic Planning and Performance Review would be a good one this year. Hadn't he stepped in at the last minute and averted near disaster? He'd shown leadership and execution. Of course, it was poor contingency planning by Santa himself that had led to the problem, but he didn't see any advantage in bringing that up. No, he'd just stand by his own record and bask in the rewards.

"Rudolph, glad you could make it. You know how I look forward to these chats," he said with an expansive smile. Santa then shuffled a few papers in front of him and looked gravely at them. "Quite a year we had, eh? Well, let's get down to business."

"There are a few key indicators, as you know, that I use to evaluate all of my employees." He raised one sheet from the rest and held it before him.

"Let's start with management skills. I'm afraid the results from your team's survey aren't very good."

Rudolph was caught off guard. He hadn't expected any problem in this area. He had replaced Dancer on Christmas Eve as head of the distribution team. Without him, deliveries would have failed the world over. What was the problem?

"Most of your staff said that you didn't interact with them enough and that you skipped recreational activities." Here, he looked at Rudolph over the edge of the paper, with a slight frown.

"But, but, Santa, they wouldn't let me play in any of their reindeer games." Rudolph sputtered. He was in danger of losing his composure already.

"Son, you have to be a leader if you're going to guide my sleigh at night. You can't wait for them to invite you in, like you're some kind of intern. You've got to be proactive. I'm afraid you're getting a negative there."

"Oh no," thought Rudolph. What was happening? How could Santa be criticizing him because the other reindeers had always ostracized him because of his red nose? I mean, it's not like Santa's red nose, which was caused by drinking too much wine all year. Rudolph had been born with it. He realized Santa was talking.

"Let's move on to your Presents Distributed measure. I see that you reached your goal of 100 percent. I expected no less of you."

Santa wasn't exactly smiling, and Rudolph couldn't tell if he had been complimented for his achievement or not.

"However, I see that you achieved that entirely in the second quarter. Now, does that seem like the most efficient way?"

What in the world was Santa talking about?

"Don't you think we'd be better off spacing out the deliveries over all four quarters, putting less of a burden on production, and reducing the stress on your team? I'm sure we could find ways to decrease costs with a new distribution schedule? For three quarters distribution is zero. I'm afraid that doesn't meet my expectations."...
There's a lot more.

My favourite Xmas film is Nightmare Before Christmas it just sums up my attitude towards this time of year. Not a bad film either.

Just tell WR to give you the $200 I owe him and you'll be most of the way there.

I thought his girlfriend liked his nose. I thought she said he looked better without the uncomfortable prosthetic.

To make your point, my son said Rudolph should have kept the black fake nose on. I made sure he knew the dad was wrong to make him wear it, it was uncomfortable and there's nothing wrong with a red nose. My son (8 yrs old) insisted he would have wore the uncomfortable black nose instead of being different.

Nice.

I think you need to consider that that Rudolph special was made in 1964, a time when people had different notions of how to raise kids and deal with differences. But Rudolph respresents a more classical hero in that he overcomes great odds and ends up saving the day. He proves himself to all the cloddish folks around him and rises above their limitations. Telling people to f--- off because they weren't nice to you isn't the answer.

With two kids under three, we've been watching a continuous loop of Rudolph, Frosty, SCICTT and Mickeys twice upon a xmas. I'm ready for that AK-47. Big Time.

And don't get me started on that selfish, simple-minded glutton Winnie the Pooh.

The real reason,little known, for Rudolph's red nose was that both his parents were alcholic! In fact Rudolph was born addicted to drink with mental deffects including bad physical performance due to neural disorders. That was why Rudolph's father insisted that he wear that stupid fake nose and his poor physical coordination was why the other Reindeer would not allow him in their games. It was only through many long hard hours excising in the cold brisk arctic air that Rudolph was able to purge himself of his alcholism and to acquire proper physical skills and stamina to keep up with the other reindeer. Fortunately this happened in time for him to save Christmas. Equally fortunate Rudolph still had his red nose to guide the other reindeer that dark and stormy Christmas Eve! Only now can the true story of Rudolph's desparate struggle to overcome the defects he was born with can be told!

Coming post-Christmas: Why the movie "Bambi" is a mortal threat to American Families!

My favorite portrayal of Rudolph is that cartoon of him seated in a chair reading a book, while the heads of Dasher, Dancer, etc. are mounted on a wall, with the caption, "All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names.":) A rifle he used as his instrument of revenge is leaning against the wall.

I liked how rudolph responded to Lobo in the Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special ('91, DC Comics) and then got killed for his trouble.

Then there was the East German meteorologist discussing precipitation with his wife.

"Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear."

I think Bloodthirsty Warmonger is referring to this cartoon.