Nearly sixty years ago, this is the one that began it all for Rankin-Bass.

Years ago nobody thought anything of this film other than an hour-long entertainment for the family. Today it’s been scrutinized up and down and all around. If you truly think about it, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is a lesson for humankind: treat others as you would like to be treated, accept others for who they are, what they look like, what they believe, etc. Because if we all would live with kindness and acceptance, the world would start to be a better place.

You know the story: Rudolph is born with a red nose instead of a “normal” nose. Because of his nose he is treated differently by not only his peers and Santa himself, but his own family. Can you blame him for wanting to leave? Then there’s Hermey, the elf who wants to be a dentist. Again, he’s different. He isn’t “normal”.

As an aside here, let’s discuss the word “normal” for a moment. I once had a teacher who discussed this with the class and said “define ‘normal'”. The fact is, you can’t. Because “normal” to you is different than “normal” to me. For Rudolph, having a red nose is all he’s experienced. He was born with it. To him, it is “normal” whereas to someone born without a red nose wouldn’t know what it’s like. It’s the same thing with any kind of human difference you can dream of. You never know what someone is experiencing in life unless you are able to walk in their shoes. And you never know. All may be well for you now but someday you may be walking in those very shoes.

Okay, back to the movie. So Rudolph and Hermey meet and discover they’re both “misfits”. They both decide to leave the North Pole and in their travels they encounter Yukon Cornelius, a prospector searching for silver and gold. They don’t really seem to have any destination but when the Abominable Snow Monster discovers them, they escape on an iceberg and end up on the Island of Misfit Toys.

There they meet all the imperfect toys of the world: A Charlie in the Box (why don’t you just change your name to Jack?), a doll that doesn’t appear to have anything wrong with it, and other various toys which, when you look at them as an adult, you say “shit, they can be fixed so that they work properly”. Like the train with square wheels. Just put round wheels on it and it’s a simple fix. Yeah, I know. But it’s part of the movie.

So while Hermey, Rudy and Corny are there on the Island of Misfit Toys, Rudy feels his nose is going to be an issue in regard to Abominable so he takes off. We don’t really know how long Rudy is roaming around, but he grows up and eventually makes his way back to the North Pole. Santa tells him that his whole family has gone out to find him (Rudolph has been gone for months). So Rudolph goes to find them and discovers them in the Abominable’s cave. Enter Hermey and Corny just in time. Hermey removes Abominable’s teeth and Corny knocks himself and Abominable over the cliff. Sadly, everyone thinks Corny is gone.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve and the storm of all storms has hit. Santa decides he has to cancel Christmas because he cannot see through the dense fog. Until Rudy’s nose lights up and it hits Santa that he can use him to lead his sleigh. Corny shows up with Abominable who proves to everyone he’s a great asset when he can put the star on top of the tree. Yeah!

Everyone sings “Holly Jolly Christmas” and Santa takes off, rescues the toys from the Island of Misfit Toys (what the hell is King Moonracer going to do now with no toys? Find new ones to keep as captives?) and delivers them to children around the world (probably the ones on the not-so-nice list).

As a final note, I want to share a story as to how special this movie is and that no matter what, you must watch it every year. Of course now you can find this movie on DVD. Back in the day, it was aired once on TV every December and if you missed it, you missed it until the following Christmas. So it’s 1980-something and my husband, in his 20’s at the time, was at college in Lowell. He and two friends had been downtown when they realized that Rudolph was on that night. By the time they realized it, it was about 20 minutes to eight. And they’re two miles from the dorm. One of the guys had run track in high school, my husband was a good runner at the time (this was before he was diagnosed with MS) and the other guy was a chubby little Italian guy that probably couldn’t run to save his life. Well, they all ran. Two miles. To get back to the dorm to watch Rudolph. My husband and his running friend got back before the chubby little Italian guy but he made it too. All just so they wouldn’t miss the yearly showing of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.