25 June 2009

Rudolph Day, June 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

It's now six months until Christmas!

For our June edition, let's go back to the 1950s and some great black and white video from YouTube!

1950 movie theatre Christmas ads

More vintage movie theatre Christmas ads

Movie theatre Christmas films: Christmas 1955 and New Years 1952

Newsreel of London at Christmastime, 1953 (silent)

Santa Claus' Story, a tale about monkeys celebrating Christmas!

Santa Claus' quiz show, another odd movie short

"A Christmas Dream"

1950s Christmas photos done to "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (strange music choice!)

There are still those among us who were there Sunday afternoon, December 6, 1964, watching a new Christmas treat which we did not know would become a holiday classic. On that Sunday, in place of their weekly university competition, College Bowl, General Electric presented their "Fantasy Hour" featuring the stop-motion tale of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. If you are a Rudolph fan, Rick Goldschmidt's The Making of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a must, a slim volume chock-full of "Rudolphy" tidbits. Goldschmidt goes all the way back to the early days of the partnership of Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass and describes the production of the story, and the volume is filled with one-of-a-kind photos of the production staff, including the Japanese studio where the stop-motion animation was done. A big treat is the inclusion of Romeo Muller's original script, where you can see all sorts of things changed: Sam the snowman originally as a different type of character, a "maternity" seal, Donner being injured, and a different ending for the "Bumble" among them. Enjoy!

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