This old Rankin/Bass stop-motion animation special is supposed to come right after Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, chronologically. It doesn’t have quite the same tone, since Rudolph is now being treated as a competent hero instead of the outcast that he was in his original story. There’s a moral about being kind to others who are different, but it comes off more like “it’s okay if people make fun of you because you’re serving as their entertainment.” The music is fun and catchy, and the voice acting is pretty good. The animation is as good as ever for this company. It’s a cute, if somewhat awkward, story that visits other time periods and doesn’t really feel like a Christmas tale.
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