Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is famous for his eponymous Christmas tune and for using his luminous nose to heroically guide Santa Claus through the dense snow and fog on Christmas Eve. But originally, Rudolph was created as part of an ad campaign to guide Chicago area customers into department stores. Montgomery Ward was a retailer known for releasing Christmas-themed promotional coloring books in the 1930s to attract shoppers. After years of buying and distributing books made elsewhere, it opted to cut costs by designing a book of its own in 1939. The retailer enlisted the help of copywriter Robert L. May to conceive a new story, and thus, Rudolph was born.
According to the fact-checking site Snopes, May was inspired by the story of the “Ugly Duckling” and decided to create a
character that was similarly ostracized for his physical appearance. He was also influenced by the fact that reindeer had been associated with Christmas as far back as the early 19th century. May settled on a reindeer with a glowing red nose, and at first considered names such as Rollo (which he later said in a 1963 interview was “too happy”) and Reginald (“too sophisticated”); Rudolph, however, “rolled off the tongue nicely.”
May’s story was a hit with both his young daughter and his employer, which distributed 2.4 million copies of the book in 1939 and another 3.6 million in 1946. Rudolph became a national sensation in 1949, when May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, composed a song about the character. That tune was recorded by Gene Autry and went on to sell 1.75 million copies in its first year, becoming the first No. 1 song of the 1950s.
Media Release/InterestingFacts
