Hello, its blogging time again and its Christmas again and for this blog entry today, Im taking a break from covering games to talk about a facinating story about a christmass icon.
When it comes to classic Christmas icons, Its hard not to mention Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. While most people know the character from classic Rakin Bass Christmas special from 1964, The character's origins go back much farther than that to a humble poem book handed out by one of the biggest retailers of the 20th century, and the creation of the character tells a tale of a man who was able to turn his struggles into fortune thanks to his employer deciding to a the right thing.
The story of Rudolph begins in the last place you would expect books to be written, Department store giant Montgomery Ward.
The Montgomery Ward Logo (1981-1993)
Montgomery Ward was founded in 1872 in Chicago Illinois as a mail order retailer by a local traveling salesman named Aaron Montgomery Ward.
Aaron Montgomery Ward
At the time, Ward was working selling dry goods for Wills, Greg & Co, and often had to go through a long tedious process to make sales. Each day, he had to make round trips by train from the midwest to the south, hiring rigs at local stables, taking carrages to the crossroads stores and listen to any complaints from back-country proprietors and their rural customers. He realized that if he could come up with a distribution system that could be done by mail, It could be far simplier and much more cost effective.
Unfortunatly, none of his friends or business acquaintances were sold on his idea. But Ward persisted, and after getting a hold of $1,600 dollars in total capital, He formed Montgomery Ward & Company on August 18th, 1872, with its first catalog featuring 163 products all availible via mail.
Montgomery Ward catalog number 2 (1872)
Although it the catalog wasn't an immediate success, as by the following year, both of Ward's partners left him and the catalogs stuck a bad cord with rural retailers who frequently burned them, Ward still hung on to the buisness and eventally hired more help, including his future brother-in-law George Robinson Thorne. The catalog eventually did catch on, and by 1883, the company's catalog had grown to 240 pages and 10,000 items.
Soon others sought to copy the success of the mail order catalog buisness such as Sears, Roebuck, and Co., also founded in Chicago., by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in 1892.
Sears fall catalog (1900)
Though Montgomery Ward mannaged to stay pretty competitive of Sears. and by 1904, the distribution of their catalogs had grown to $3 million dollars in sales riviling Sear's $8.7 million dollars in sales.
However soon tragedy would strike, Aaron Montgomery Ward passed away on December 7th, 1913 at 70 years old, leaving the company in the hands of his family. Luckily, they managed to keep the buisness afloat over the next few years, taking the company public in 1919, and opening their first physical retail store in Plymouth Indiana in 1926.
The first Montgomery Ward store (1929)
By 1929, they had 531 stores across the country, with their flagship store in Chicago located on Michigan Avenue. However, by the end of 1929, the great the Great Depression began, and sales started to slump.While Sears offered to merge with the company the following year, they turned them down in favor of slowing expansion in order to save money through the poor economic landscape. This actually worked very well even keeping them out of bankrupcy and allowing sales to rise back up.
However, limiting expansion wasnt the only thing they did to keep finaces afloat. In 1939, The company decided to do something different for the holiday season. Each year, the company had a tradition to give out free coloring books to kids for the christmas season, but they bought these coloring books in bulk from a third party instead of making their own. They realized that if they made their own books themselves, it could keep costs down and be more special.
To come up with the story, they assigned the task to their in-house advertising copywriter Robert L May in January, 1939.
Robert L May
While May was very experienced copywriter, having previously worked for other department store chains like Macy's and Gimbel Brothers, by the time he was asigned the book, he was going through a rough and dark time in his life. At the time, He was 34 years old, Struggling with debt, His wife Evelyn was dying of cancer, and he had to support their 4 year old daughter Barbra. Still he carried on with the task and got to work right away.
His bosses suggested that it be an animal story similar to the then new Walt Disney short Ferdinand the Bull. May took this suggestion and chose to make the animal of the story a reindeer, both because it was a christmas animal, and because it was Barbra's favorite animal. In coming up with the name, May considered naming the reindeer Rollo or Reginald, before deciding on choosing the name Rudolph.
Robert L May's list of character names (1939)
But soon May ran into a problem in comming up with the actual story. He wanted the character to be an underdog that would become triumphant in the end, but he wasnt sure how to do it. Then one day, as he starred out the window of his office, he noticed a thick a thick fog from Lake Michigan coming across the city. Suddenly he came up with an idea to give Rudolph a bright red nose that would shine through fog.
Taking further inspariation from The Ugly Duckling and his own experiences with shyness as a child, he wrote the story as a poem in anestic tetrometer, the same meter as The Night Before Christmas. The story tells the tale of Rudolph, a young reindeer buck with a luminous red nose, whose mocked by his peers because of it. After Santa Claus catches sight of Rudolph's nose, he asks Rudolph to lead his sleigh for guidence on the night of Christmas Eve due to poor weather, Rudolph agrees and finally earns respect from his peers for his heroism and accomplishment.
May finished writing the book in about 50 hours and as he finished drafting each part, he would read it to Barbara. After finishing he presented the book to his superiors in July, 1939
Unfortunatly, they weren't too keen at first. The problem was that at the time, bright red noses were often associated with alcoholism, so they didnt think it was a good idea to use it for a childrens book. but when May asked his friend and Montgomery Ward illustrator, Denver Gillen, to draw a cute reindeer using deer at Lincoln Park Zoo as models. The alert, bouncy character Gillen developed convinced management to support the idea
Though tragedy soon struck, Evelyn succumed to her cancer and died on July 28, 1939. May's boss offered to relieve him of the project and have someone else finish it, but May refused and finished the poem in late August. On the day of its completion, "I called Barbara and her grandparents into the living room and read it to them. In their eyes, I could see that the story accomplished what I had hoped.
Robert L May's original draft of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1939)
Though tragedy soon struck, Evelyn succumed to her cancer and died on July 28, 1939. May's boss offered to relieve him of the project and have someone else finish it, but May refused and continued working before finally finishing in late August. On the day of its completion, May said quote: "I called Barbara and her grandparents into the living room and read it to them. In their eyes, I could see that the story accomplished what I had hoped.".
Montgomery Ward published the Rudolph book right on schedule for Christmas of 1939 and it was an immediate success distributing 2.4 million copies by the end of the season. But there was a problem, May was a salaried employee, So he didn't get anything more than his regular salary, and because he created the book for the company, he didnt own the rights to the book, Montgomery Ward did. So he had no say in any liscence deals that came as a result of the books success.
This problem came to a head in 1946, when RCA approached him about doing a spoken word record of the poem. He couldent say yes since Montgomery Ward owned the character, so he called the hire ups. This got the attention of Vice President Wilbur H. Norton, who in turn relayed the message to Montgomery Ward's president, Sewell Avery.
Sewell Avery
With encouragement from Norton, Avery decided to give May the copyright to the poem on January 1st, 1947, Now allowing May to recieve roalties on every copy and liscened product sold. And after making a deal with Maxton Publishers, the first commercial edition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer just in time for Christmas 1947.
The first commercial release of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1947)
By the 1950's Rudolph had become a Christmas icon, with large amounts of merchandise beond books. There was a theatrical short by Max Fleshicier reelased in 1948, the upponomous song written by May's brother in law Johnny Marks and sung by Gene Audry released in 1949, View Master Reels, a DC comic anual series, and a rock and roll song Run Rudolph Run (AKA Run Run Rudolph) by Chuck Berry in 1958.
But the most well remebered peice of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer got its start in 1963 with a company called Videocraft International, Ltd.
The Videocraft International, Ltd. Logo (1960-1968)
They were founded in 1960 by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, and made animation for TV shows and commercials. But one day, they tasked screenwriter Romeo Muller to come up with a stop motion christmas special based on the poem for the 1964 holiday season.
Romeo Muller
Muller originally wanted the special to be based on the poem, but when he couldent find a copy, he based it on the song instead. While he did get the basic story of the poem, healso added introduced several new characters inspired by the song's lyrics. After the scrip was finished, concept designs and storyboards for Rudolph were done by Arthur Rankin Jr. and his staff of artists at Rankin/Bass in the US, while the stop motion was produced by MOM Productions in Tokyo Japan. Most of the characters were portrayed by Canadian actors recorded at RCA Studios in Toronto under the supervision of Bernard Cowan. The sessions lasted 2 days, before followed by a session in New York City to polish the songs.[12] Rankin and Bass chose Canadian voice actors for two reasons: A). Many radio dramas were still produced in Canada, giving the producers a large talent pool to choose from, and B). Rankin and Bass were taking loans from friends to bankroll and chose Toronto's Crawley Films to financially stretch out 130 short episodes of Tales of the Wizard of Oz, making the Canadian labor costs cheaper.
After getting a liscencing deal with General Electric, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer aired on NBC on December 6, 1964.
The Original release advertisement for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
The special was an immediate hit with critics for its voice acting, soundtrack, animation style, characters, and sets. Soon NBC would air the special each holiday season, and would continue to do so, until the special moved to CBS in 1972.
Videocraft International, Ltd. would soon change their name to Rakin Bass, and would go on to produce more holiday specials like Frosty The Snowman and , Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.
The first commercial release of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1947)
By the 1950's Rudolph had become a Christmas icon, with large amounts of merchandise beond books. There was a theatrical short by Max Fleshicier reelased in 1948, the upponomous song written by May's brother in law Johnny Marks and sung by Gene Audry released in 1949, View Master Reels, a DC comic anual series, and a rock and roll song Run Rudolph Run (AKA Run Run Rudolph) by Chuck Berry in 1958.
But the most well remebered peice of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer got its start in 1963 with a company called Videocraft International, Ltd.
The Rankin Bass Logo (1968-2001)
So what happened to everybody involved? Robert L May left Montgomery Ward in 1951 to form Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Enterprises. But after sales slowed in the late 1950's, he returned back to Montgomery Ward before retiring in 1970 and dieing in 1976. Sewell Avery continued to lead Montgomery Ward alongside various political endevors until his death in 1960, and Rankin Bass continued to produce specials until they closed in 1987, but the brand continued to be used untill 2001.
But what about Montgomery Ward? What ever happed to them? Well after World War II, Montgomery Ward decided to hoard cash and halt expansion again in case of another economic downturn. However this turned out to be a big mistake as they missed out on the rise of suburbia and shopping malls in the 1950s, with sears fully embracing it.
By the time Montgomery Ward decided to folow the trend it was too little too late, as they were already in finacial troble by the mid 70's leading them to selling half of the company to Mobil Oil. Mobil managed to get the company afloat by making drastic decisions like cancelling theit catalog in 1985, and by 1989 they managed to gain a foothold thanks to their Electric Avenue branch and establising a good relationship between them and Computer manufacturers.
However by the mid 90's retailers like Walmart, Kmart, and Target were growing in popularity and offering more variaty and better prices, making it harder and harder to compete. Combine thatwith some poor buisness decisions and Montgomery Ward filled for Chapter 11 Bankrupcy, and shut down in 2000, clossing all 250 stores and laying off 37,000 employees, making it the largest Americanretail bankruptcy in history at the time. But their legacy lives on, as the brand was purchased in 2004,
and now the name surrvives today as a online retailer.
But even if the website may disapear someday, at least the brand would live on in Rudolph, as the both his story, and the story behind him are unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon. His creation serves as a reminder that sometimes, even behind buisness giants, there is some heart behind company executives and that the christmas spirit can truelly make the most some of the most wonderful miricles hapen to those who need it. That wraps it up for this blog entry today, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and as always, Thanks for reading! see you next time!
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