Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 24, 2022

I’m not real fond of the Rudolph story, not to mention the song. Particularly at this time of year.

Rudolph isn’t real!! Unlike Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. And Santa.

It’s time for Frazz’s annual extra-extra-long “everyone-else-in-town-is-sound-asleep-and-I’m-running-in-the-dark-in-the-snow-on-Christmas-morning-so-ain’t-I-the-swellest-thing-ever!” jog, right?

Thought Gene Autry was responsible for that song.

Frazz spoke true. Like it or not, it’s a good song for the day just because of the lessons it teaches about being kind to others.

Won what?

Nice article about the creation of the song. The Real Story Behind Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer : How a young Jewish girl inspired the most loved Christmas song of all time. https://www.cbc.ca/documentarychannel/features/the-real-story-behind-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer

Montgomery Ward in the 1930’s would give out coloring books and crayons to kids shopping in their department stores. In 1939 they decided to go ‘in house’ and create a book instead of buying them elsewhere. Rudolph was the story line. It was 1949 before the song was written and Autry recorded it. Fun fact Rudolph was the B side of a 45 rpm disc. But became more popular than the traditional carol on the A side. PBS ran a special “Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas” explaining the origins of 7 of the most popular Christmas songs, all written by Jewish songwriters.

No, dude’s brother in law may have written the song, but it was Gene Autry (the singing cowboy) who recorded it and made it a hit.

Rudolph is Jewish!!

The story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer began in 1939 with a Jewish Chicago copywriter named Robert May. May worked in the ad department of Montgomery Ward, a department store chain second only to Sears as America’s largest retailer. Every year, they purchased and gave away free Christmas colouring books, but they decided that year to create their own. They gave the task of writing it to May with the instructions: make it about an animal.

snip

Marks had first become aware of the story of Rudolph when it was published in 1939 and had begun jotting notes in a notebook he kept for working on songs. The year after his marriage into the May family, he began adding music and quickly felt sure he had a hit. He asked Gene Autry to record it and although Autry did not like the song, his wife did and persuaded him to put it out as a “B” side. The “B” side became the second-biggest selling Christmas song of all time, behind only White Christmas.

https://www.cbc.ca/documentarychannel/features/the-real-story-behind-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer

“The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don’t often completely disagree with Edwin, but this time, just no. The world would be a better place without that song.

Do we really care about a song referring to a Russian weatherman anyway?

Sorry, Frazz, but we all lost big-time with that drivel.

(It’s even worse if your grade-school classmates find out your middle name is Rudolph……..)

What I want to know is which one ran over Grandma?

What I want to know is, who got the royalties?

Tsk! Frazz, the correct grammatical response is “we,” not “us.”

Merry Christmas to all who observe and happy holidays and best wish’s to those that observe something else!