classic

rudolph the red-nosed reindeer: a true classic. 1964 to today this story and its wonderful stop-motion animation is a joy to watch. its universal. its amazing.
this movie couldn't be made today. its true. it'd have to go through so many reconstructions it would be lose all of its quirks. yukon would likely be eliminated because he would "relate to kids today" and carries a gun which he never uses in the movie. hermey would likely have to fix the abominable snowman's tooth ache instead of pulling all his teeth to render him harmless. and god forbid you promote "misfits" and "independant" as good things. the seems on the characters and the camera shots would all need to be perfection. and ....well hell it should all be done CG anyways. there's not even product placement, sheesh! today we'd have to listen to the latest reality tv singer butchering xmas songs with pop crass and other "guest appearances".
and thats why we get to be thankful that it was made way back when and probably they never considered the impact it would have. it was a made for tv special, air it, and move on to the next project...done. i'm glad it lasted. it was made way before i was born but is one of my favorite of all time movies.
on this disk there are two (or three) special features. one is a scene that was changed after the first airing...and presumably changed back at some point. the song "we're a couple of misfits" was changed to "silver and gold". i remember both songs so i have no clue which was aired when. silver and gold wasn't original and isn't as good. i also have no clue why they decided to change it...perhaps for reasons suggested above. the second special is an intro by rankin, which is more or less a synopses. (and third if you want is a spanish language version.)
the one thing that did surprise me about watching the dvd version of the movie is that its surprisingly brief. i guess i've been accustomed to watching through commercials over decorating a xmas tree or making cookies. and without that its 47 minutes and then over...

10/10