I know what you are thinking: your old buddy and old pal RD Reynolds has gone insane.
After all, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a bonafide classic for a lot of folks reading this. The show, which first hit airwaves all the way back in 1964, is something even those with only a vague interest in Christmas have likely seen. The songs in the show are largely good, led of course by the titular track. I’m sure the lyrics are carved into your noggin to a level that perhaps only the alphabet or the sum and total of Ed Leslie’s gimmicks are. It’s that well-known.
I get that.
But the truth of the matter is this isn’t a fun children’s story, and certainly not something your family should rejoice in watching year after year. Indeed, you should run as far away from it as possible, alerting the neighbors to do the same, and rallying everyone you’ve ever come into contact with to find and destroy any VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray or streaming device on which it resides. If network television station still airs it, go burn their corporate headquarters to the ground too. We must stop this plague that has corrupted so many lives in an irreparable manner.
For you see, Rudolph isn’t a holly jolly yuletide festival.
No. It is a tale of abuse.
Verbal abuse, mental abuse, and in some cases, physical abuse. The fact that the other reindeer “used to laugh and call him names” is just the start of the putrid vile on display here. There are no shortage of despicable characters, and in fact, the vast majority of the cast are completely wretched personalities with zero redeeming qualities. If you thought that Santa was cute in this, believe me, you haven’t been paying attention all these years.
Let’s get started.
We will start with this guy…a talking snowman who tells us to call him “Sam.” No last name you will note, just “Sam.” Sounds kinda sketchy, doesn’t? Also something that has me scratching my head – why is he shivering? Wouldn’t he be happy being cold? I think he’s less a snowman than a conman.
Anyway, this clown serves as our narrator, so as we go through this, I want you to keep in mind he knows every single solitary thing that is happening. He delights in telling us all the morbid details. But as he relays the atrocities on display, does he ever go to the authorities about any of this?
No.
No, he does not.
I guess we will leave that up to you to determine if that is acceptable.
Actually, we won’t. We will instead tell you his behavior is completely unacceptable.
But he’s nowhere near the lowest of the slimeballs on display. For instance, Sam isn’t even in the same universe as…
Holy crap, Santa. He has to be the worst Santa ever, and yes, I am including that sad sack Kris Kringle that nearly destroyed Pac-Land. This guy does nothing but complain about every single thing while simultaneously doing his best to emotionally throttle anyone who is in his path. We first meet him as his wife has brought him dinner, and he tells her he has zero time for that.
Or her for that matter.
Let me be clear though – Mrs. Claus is no prize herself. Think about it – she is literally trying to fatten Santa up to the size of a Macy’s Day balloon. I have no doubt this is to ensure he will wind up with hypertension and thus an early grave. Just look at her face – that’s not concern, that’s a smile. She’s a black widow all the way.
After the intro tune, we meet Rudolph himself, along with his parents, Donner and Mrs. Donner. Seriously, she doesn’t even get a name . Upon meeting his parents for the first time, his nose glows. While Mom is ok with it (“we’ll have to overlook it” she opines), Daddy Donner is totally appalled and bellows, “his beak blinks like a blinking beacon!”
But that’s just the beginning, as now Santa walks in and now it’s a two on one beat down. The following dialogue is said and I am just quoting it verbatim:
Donner: “I’m sure it will stop as soon as he grows up, Santa!”
Santa: “Well let’s hope so if he wants to make the sleigh team some day!!!”
To recap: the poor kid is barely out of the womb and these two are already talking about how his birth defect is completely unacceptable. Can you imagine this happening in real life? Well, it’s happening here and our society calls it family fun.
Donner comes up with a brilliant idea to hide his son’s malady – he literally digs mud off the ground and smears it all over Rudolph’s nose. While this covers up his shiny schnoz, it also changes his voice. So apparently according to Donner, a speech impediment is acceptable but a cute little red nose isn’t.
We go back to Sam, and he explains that for the first year the parents did a good job of hiding Rudolph’s “non-conformity”. Seriously, he called it that! Apparently Sam also did a good job of hiding something, namely Rudolph’s abusive parents.
And sadly, we soon discover it’s not just Rudolph that is being so poorly treated.
Now we meet Hermie, an elf who doesn’t want to make toys. When he politely explains to his supervisor his dissatisfaction with his current line of work, his supervisor screams at him…
…and convinces his co-workers to shame him as well. This is followed by the entire group mocking and laughing at his dream of being a dentist. While all the other elves are allowed to go on break, the supervisor explains that Hermie has to keep working. They all depart, leaving Herbie alone, which causes honest to goodness tears to fall from his eyes.
“Well, such is the life of an elf” chuckles Sam, who then shrugs his shoulders. What an uncaring a-hole.
Meanwhile over at the cave, Rudolph notes that he doesn’t want to try on the prosthetic black nose Donner has made for him, which leads to Rudolph woefully pleading, “I don’t want to wear it!”
Donner: “YOU’LL WEAR IT AND LIKE IT!”
Rudolph: “It’s not very comfortable!”
Donner: “THERE’S MORE IMPORTANT THINGS THAN COMFORT!!!”
So Rudolph leaves the cave, takes off his nose, and sings the same sad song that Hermie sang earlier. And yes, just like Hermie, he has an emotional break down and starts sobbing uncontrollably.
You’d hope someone would come along and help this poor thing, but instead…
…Sam comes back and notes, “Well, time moves on!”
If I never see this guy again it will be too soon.
So the elves decide to do something nice. I know, I know, no one has done anything nice for ANYONE so far on this show, but hang with me. See, they decide to perform a song for Santa, a song they’ve written specifically for the old guy. I don’t want to shock you but…
…Santa hates it and acts like four year old asked to eat brussel sprouts. Slumping down in your chair? That is terrible body language and speaks volumes about your character.
Or lack thereof.
Upon their completion of the song, Santa mutters, “Well, it needs work. I have to go!” Then he runs off as fast as stop motion will allow.
This cause a chain reaction, as the supervisor literally sticks his finger in a poor elf’s face and tells him how terrible he was. Pretty sure that’s called a shame cycle.
The supervisor then finds Hermie, who is back at the toy shop putting teeth into a doll’s mouth. “I was just trying to find a way to fit in,” Hermie says while looking on hopefully. This elicits the exact reaction you’d expect.
“YOU’LL NEVER FIT IN!!!!!!”
This causes Herbie to quite literally jump out a window.
No, I am not joking. The poor little guy looks at the camera, tells us how the boss is right, opens the window, and leaps.
I sure hope they work on the first floor or this is going to take a very grisly turn.
And now we get to meet up with another awful horrible morally bankrupt character, Coach Comet. He lines up the boys and tells them he wants to be their friend. I am pretty sure I don’t want to know what that means.
Anyway, he has the boys attempting to fly while giving them very little guidance as one deer after another falls flat on their face, with everyone laughing in the face of each successive failure.
But finally…FINALLY…someone finds a friend, namely Rudolph, who meets up with another little buck named Fireball. While it’s nice for someone to do something positive for once, Fireball is also a bit of a sleaze wad, as he tells Rudolph that these reindeer games are all about one thing – impressing the chicks.
I should note that according to the narrative, Rudolph is FOUR YEARS OLD. I think that’s a bit young to be hunting down some tang.
Regardless, Rudolph meets up with Clarise, who as fortune would have it continues our hero’s string of good luck. She gives him a peck on the cheek and tells him how she thinks he’s cute.
This causes him to leap into the air and start flying about, and even Santa and Coach are impressed with what they see. But then Rudolph’s phony nose falls off.
And all hell breaks loose.
Fireball is the first to have a conniption, literally telling Rudolph to “get away from me!”
Hey you little jerk, no one said anything about your eyes going all googly – maybe you should give your pal an equal break!
The other reindeer start calling Rudolph all kinds of horrible names (“neon nose” has to particularly hurt), but no one jumps in to help him, namely the coach who had just told them he was there to be their friend. In fact, he tells Rudolph to go home and never come back, as his congenital disorder is so appalling he never wants to see him again.
And then there’s Santa, who heads directly for Donner and tells him how ASHAMED he should be of his child. Does Donner stand up to Santa? What do you think?
All this is taking place RIGHT IN FRONT OF RUDOLPH, I should remind you. The poor kid is so humiliated he runs off for the hills.
Clarise goes after Rudolph, attempting to cheer him up with a song that tells us that there is always hope. There’s always another chance tomorrow. And that is good wisdom to live by.
But of course THAT can’t last, as her dad shows up and tells her to get the heck away from that red nosed freak show. So she takes off, leaving Rudolph to once more start crying in the snow.
Thankfully for Rudolph, Hermie pops his head out of a snow bank and the two decide that while the world hates them, they’ll just run off to…well, who knows where…but it’s gotta be better than this God-forsaken land they’re in now.
The two celebrate by building a snow man of Hermie’s old boss, then punching him right in the face. While I applaud such displaced agression, I do have to note they really owed it to themselves to also fashion and obliterate frosted versions of Santa, Donner, and Sam as well.
Anyway, they go out into the snow and soon enough run into another complete weirdo, namely…
…Yukon Cornelius, prospector of the north, who is always on the lookout for silver and gold. He attempts to find such precious metals by randomly throwing a pick axe into the air, then licking it after he plucks it out of the ground. Upon seeing this, my son and I had the following conversation:
RD Jr.: “Is that guy on drugs?”
RD Sr.: “I’m pretty sure he is.”
So the group winds up on the run from the Abominable, a snow creature who is apparently evil for no reason at all. My guess is no one likes him because he smiles. Seriously, look at that picture – dude looks pretty jovial to me!
That’s unacceptable by this bag of goons!
Next we wind up on the legendary Island of Misfit Toys, and they too are literally shedding tears over not being the same as everyone else and being rejected by Santa. For instance, there’s a train with square wheels and a boat that sinks. All of which begs the question: who made these toys?
And shouldn’t you be fashioning snow versions of them to punch in the face?
Rudolph, correctly noting that it was due to his bright nose the Abonimable keeps tracking them down, decides he must leave his friends. So he jumps on an ice block while they sleep and throws himself into the ocean.
Amazingly, Rudolph didn’t die.
Instead, he hit puberty and got horny.
Very horny.
Unspeakably horny.
And by that, I mean he grew up and his antlers came in. Thought I should clarify in case you thought I was referring to something else.
So Rudolph goes home, but his parents and Clarise have all gone out to look for him. Probably to yell at him some more. He runs into Santa, who is very worried – not about all the missing reindeer, but rather if Donner doesn’t show up he will have to come up with a plan B for his Christmas Eve fun.
In other words, typical Santa, always thinking about himself.
To that end, while Rudolph volunteers to go out and find everyone, Santa opts to just go back to his castle and do nothing. I don’t know how much more evidence I can provide that Santa is a complete tool.
Eventually, Rudolph finds Clarise and the rest, who are trapped by the Abominable. His rescue attempt fails, however, and it’s up to Hermie and Yukon to save the day, which they do by…
…removing all his teeth.
So in other words, they wanted him to become a freak too.
One who could no longer EAT.
Congrats Christmasland – you’ve made Hermie into a scumbag just like the rest of you.
And you know the rest. Rudolph gets back, there’s a big storm, and all of a sudden, when it becomes apparent he can use the poor deer’s nasal “nonconformity”, Santa flips the script and explains that he actually LOVES Rudolph and what he is now calling his BEAUTIFUL nose.
It all just turns my stomach.
This show is something no impressionable child should ever see again.
In fact, it’s something no one should ever see again.
We need to do something about it.
Seriously, gang – if we can get rid of Baby It’s Cold Outside, surely we can do the same to Rudolph, right?
Just in case you didn’t get the joke, that’s called a parody, kids. Let’s put our social justice pichforks down and just enjoy the Christmas holiday instead, shall we?
I wish all the best of Christmas to each and every one of you…and a very blessed 2019 as well!