I was wondering what her name was, so last night I paid attention. Her name is Mrs. Donner. :rolleyes:
Which brings me to my main realization this year (I haven’t watched it in quite some time) — how SEXIST the whole thing is! Only the boy reindeer get to pull the sleigh and have “reindeer games” where they learn to fly. The poor does with their footlong eyelashes just stand there and tell the boys they’re cute. :rolleyes:
After the Abominable Snowman goes over the crevasse with Yukon Cornelius, Burl intones that, while the group was all sad about their friend, they realized the most important thing was to get the does back home. :rolleyes:
Other than that, I enjoyed the whole show immensely!
Don’t forget when Mrs. Donner wanted to help find Rudolph and Donner glared at her and said, “NO, this is MAN’S work.”
Also, since Rudolph is gone long enough to mature into a grown (or at least mostly grown) reindeer, just how long were his parents and Clarice off looking for him? And how much of that time was spent in the Bumble’s cave before Rudolph conveniently found him? And why did everyone just decide to hang out at the Bumble’s cave anyway?
After 10 years I’m not sure If I am repeating myself… but I find the advent of DVD has hurt this holiday tradition (That and missing all the Dolly Madison Commercials during the Charlie Brown Christmas) of mine. I used to wait for it to come on the air… now I can pop it in any time I want… even, heaven forbid, the middle of summer.
Sigh… as a kid I really looked forward to the future but now I live in it… there is nothing left to wait for.
Oh and I still hold that Santa is a big assed Jerk in this special. I boo him whenever he comes on the screen.
When that thing was first released ('65, wasn’t it? I recall catching it at the time), nobody thought to question extant sex roles, except folk-singers and people with beards and such…
“The past is a different country . . .”
My two year old saw it for the first time this year. She didn’t understand why the elves and reindeer were mean to the “Misfits”. She was of course scared of the Bumble but after he returned from his fall she she burst into tears about his missing teeth. We had to mollify her with the thought that Herbie would fix his teeth. But she brought up a good point. What the heck does a carnivore do without teeth? Is Herbie going to make monster dentures?
I was hoping for this, too. Seriously, one airing and it’s in NOVEMBER? We forgot about it on the 30th due to various activities and couldn’t believe there were no other changes to see it before Christmas.
Vixen may well be female, but I didn’t see any female reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh on this program. They’re a different color too, so you can tell 'em apart.
When I was a kid, I figured that the original reindeer, from when whatsisname wrote the poem with the reindeer’s names in it, were the ones named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, etc. I don’t know what a reindeer’s lifespan is, let alone magical flying reindeer, but you figure the lineup has changed many times in the years since. Plus you would have to have backup, understudies if you will, in case of reindeer illness or injury. (I figure reindeer, at least the magical flying kind, are sorta like horses: very strong but also prone to injury.)
That’s actually what did it for me in the end: where are these magical flying reindeer? How come no zoo anywhere in the world has one? Why is there no videotape of flying reindeer? Somebody would be willing to go to the North Pole with a camera crew just for that, let alone Santa’s workshop (a grand castle in the snow, surrounded by pine trees, and run by elves??).
So Vixen was just off that year. Probably an ankle injury, maybe a pregnancy.
“Hermey”, if you want to nitpick. See here (particularly the B&W promotional image).
Actually, I was listening for this, after reading the discussion from ten years ago. I’m pretty sure the other elves are calling him Herbie when they’re tittering about him wanting to be a dentist. The head elf, it’s hard to be sure, due to his nasally voice.
Later, the narrator and Rudolph both say Hermey (although Rudolph always sound like he has a cold, so if he said Herbie, it would probably sound like Hermey anyway).
