You know the song. You've definitely seen the 1964 stop-motion special with the misfit toys and the Abominable Snow Monster. But honestly, the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer wasn't a TV star or even a song lyric. He was a marketing gimmick. A really, really successful one born out of a coloring book assignment in 1939.
It started at Montgomery Ward.
Robert L. May was a copywriter there, and his boss wanted a freebie to give away to kids during the holiday rush. Usually, they just bought coloring books from outside vendors, but that year, they decided to save some cash and make their own. May was the guy for the job. He sat in his office in Chicago, staring at the fog rolling off Lake Michigan, and started thinking about how his daughter loved the deer at the Lincoln Park Zoo. He wanted a story about an underdog—or an under-deer.
The dark origins of a bright nose
It wasn't all Christmas cheer behind the scenes. May’s wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer while he was writing the story. He was broke, grieving, and struggling as a single father. You can kind of feel that sadness in the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer manuscript. It isn’t just a cute story; it’s a story about being an outcast.
Actually, the name almost wasn't Rudolph.
May toyed with "Rollo" and "Reginald." Rollo felt too happy, and Reginald felt too British. Rudolph just stuck. But there was a bigger problem: the management at Montgomery Ward hated the red nose. In the late 1930s, a red nose was shorthand for being a drunkard. They were terrified that parents would think their new mascot was a tiny, four-legged alcoholic. To save his idea, May took an illustrator friend, Denver Gillen, to the zoo to sketch deer with "cute" red noses. Once the bosses saw the sketches, they finally caved.
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How the 1939 booklet differs from the movie
If you go back and read the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer poem—the one published in that first softcover booklet—it’s pretty different from the Rankin/Bass version we watch every December.
For one, there’s no Hermey the Elf. No Yukon Cornelius. No Island of Misfit Toys. In fact, Rudolph doesn't even live at the North Pole. He lives in a "normal" reindeer village with a loving family. His dad isn't a jerk who hides his nose with mud (sorry, 1964 Donner). In May's version, Rudolph is just a kid who gets teased by the other reindeer in his neighborhood.
The way Santa finds him is also way more "real-world" than magical. Santa is delivering presents to Rudolph's house on an incredibly foggy night. He’s tripping over rugs and bumping into furniture because he can’t see a thing. When he walks into Rudolph’s bedroom, he notices a glow coming from the bed. It’s the nose. Santa doesn't ask Rudolph to "guide his sleigh" in some grand ceremony; he basically asks for a favor because he's having a terrible shift and needs a headlight.
- The 1939 booklet was a massive hit.
- Montgomery Ward gave away 2.4 million copies in the first year alone.
- By 1946, despite the paper shortages of WWII, they had distributed six million copies.
The struggle for the rights
Here’s the part of the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer saga that feels most like a miracle. Usually, when you create something for a big corporation, they own it. Forever. Montgomery Ward owned the copyright to Rudolph. Robert L. May was just an employee.
But in 1947, May was struggling with medical bills and the costs of raising his kids. He went to the president of Montgomery Ward, Sewell Avery, and asked for the rights to the character. In an act of corporate generosity that basically never happens today, Avery gave him the rights for free.
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May was suddenly the owner of a gold mine. He didn't waste time. He got his brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, to write a song. Marks was a professional songwriter (and, interestingly, Jewish—he didn't even celebrate Christmas). He wrote the tune we all know, but it wasn't an immediate hit. Bing Crosby turned it down. Several other big names said no. Eventually, Gene Autry, the "Singing Cowboy," recorded it in 1949. It sold two million copies that first year and became the second best-selling Christmas song of all time, right behind "White Christmas."
Why the original version still hits home
There's a reason this character survived the death of the department store that birthed him. The original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer tapped into a very specific kind of American empathy. It was the tail end of the Great Depression. People felt used up. They felt like they didn't fit into the "efficient" machine of society.
Rudolph’s "defect" becoming his greatest asset is the ultimate validation. It’s not just about being "special"; it’s about utility. In the original poem, Rudolph is happy because he's useful. That’s a very 1930s/40s way of looking at the world.
The story has undergone dozens of face-lifts since then. The 1948 Max Fleischer cartoon gave him a more "Disney-fied" look. The 1964 special gave us the catchy Burl Ives songs and the lore of the North Pole. But the core remains May’s simple rhyming couplets.
What to look for if you’re a collector
If you’re hunting for a piece of this history, you need to know what you’re looking at. The first edition 1939 booklets are out there, but they’re fragile. They were printed on cheap paper because they were freebies.
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- The Cover: It should show a very youthful, almost fawn-like Rudolph.
- The Text: It's written in an internal rhyme scheme similar to "The Night Before Christmas."
- The Attribution: It will list Montgomery Ward as the publisher.
Prices for these vary wildly. A beat-up copy might go for $50, but a mint-condition 1939 first printing can fetch over $1,000 at auction. There were also "commercial" versions released in the late 40s once May got the rights, but the 1939 "Ward's" edition is the holy grail.
Taking the Rudolph legacy forward
Understanding the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer changes how you view the holiday. It wasn't born from ancient folklore or a monk's poem in the 1800s. It was a dad trying to make sense of a hard life, working a 9-to-5, trying to give his daughter something to smile about.
If you want to experience the "real" story, skip the TV today. Find a reprint of the 1939 Robert L. May poem. Read it out loud. You'll notice the rhythm is different. You'll notice the stakes feel a bit more grounded. It's a reminder that sometimes the things that make us "weird" are just the things the rest of the world hasn't found a use for yet.
Next Steps for Enthusiasts:
Track down a facsimile of the 1939 Robert L. May manuscript. Most modern "storybook" versions of Rudolph use the song lyrics as the plot, which strips away all the nuance of the original poem. Reading the 1939 version provides a much deeper look into the character's psychology and the specific Chicago-based atmosphere that inspired his creation. You can often find digital archives of the original through the Library of Congress or university museum sites. Also, check out the 1948 Max Fleischer short film; it’s the closest visual representation of May’s original vision before the 1964 stop-motion version redefined the character’s look for the modern era.