It is difficult to understand why all the elves should look alike. Other than the fat and tall elf, the only other different ones seem to be the Boss Elf, Santa, and Hermie. And as was pointed out earlier, Hermie doesn’t have elf ears, so it is possible that his father wasn’t an elf at all. One thought is that Yukon Cornelius could be Hermie’s father. That might explain his desire to bond with the wannabe dentist and Rudolph despite obviously being comfortable prospecting on his own. Yukon was even ready to share his gold and silver strikes with the misfits, which is mighty generous for a complete stranger.
All the girl elves seemed to be identical right down to their dress. I don’t think it is clear whether Mrs. Claus is an elf. Quite a conundrum.
I have really enjoyed reading this thread. I have loved this show ever since I was a little kid, despite the many plot holes and bizarrely hostile Santa and adult reindeer. It really is a strange show, not the least of which is disabling the Abominable by pulling out all his teeth. I, too, always wondered what the swinging gate toy was supposed to be and how/why the misfit toys were created (why weren’t they simply fixed?) and whether any of them ever got delivered to a child who could love them despite their flaws.
Maybe the misfit toys came about because Santa is such a cruel taskmaster that sometimes the elves just had to throw something together quickly to meet their unreasonably high production quotas. :rolleyes:
I always thought Fireball turned to a life of meth and got the street-name Scratcher after being traumatized by seeing his best friend’s nose during the Reindeer Games. It seems like you’re saying he made that choice because of the soul-crushing frustration fighting the glass (diamond?) ceiling to be on the sleigh team.
The way I see it, the reindeer in the 2nd row left is The Prancer. The one directly behind him is The Comet – it’s like they’re immortals. But when age, infirmity or assassination causes an opening in the ranks, somebody moves up from the practice squad and steps into the role of The Comet. So Fireball could someday become one The Elite Eight.
The North Pole Society in RTRNR is a very closed society. Change of any kind is abhorred. The elves almost all look alike. The reindeer are basically the same. All the elves dress in similar fashion right down to the feathers in the cap. New reindeer on the sleigh team may well be perceived as dangerous to the culture. Of course "some day” a change is promised…but that day can never come. Must never come.
It’s more than just a dictatorial Santa and a subservient class of elves and deer. The resistance to change is part of the essence of the entire place. Note what happens in that scene where Rudolph first meets Hermie. Rudolph says, “I’m whatever it was you said…In-de-pen-dent!” At that statement the Christmas trees themselves start shivering and dropping ornaments. Wow.
It’s easy to be critical of another culture by applying our standards of right and wrong. However, change in the North Pole way of life will undoubtedly destroy it in the end. Too much “ in-de-pen-dence” and this place is going to cease to be able to function. A dentist seems harmless enough, but such independence is not going to stop with one elf. The Bumble acted as a shared danger to keep everyone in line, but even that threat is now gone.
I am reminded of the movie Pleasantville, where tiny changes transform the world. Today it’s a red nose and a dentist’s office. Tomorrow it’s an “In-de-pen-dance” movement. Elves start demanding payment for services, female reindeer begin wanting more than to sit at home raising babies, and Santa has to actually work more than one night a year. One can appreciate why the dominant powers do not want to see a reindeer with a glowing nose.
This may explain why Santa and the others were so uninterested in the fact that Donner, Mrs. Donner and Clarise were missing for months (with Santa indirectly blaming the mutant Rudolph). With Rudolph and Hermie it was self-imposed exile in the Ancient Greek sense for being different but for the other three they were in effect exiled too in that no one cared to look for them just for being concerned for the “mutants”. In other words, it was not only being different but also being compassionate for the different that was frowned upon. Clarise’s father and Santa the prime examples.
Well, Santa’s a mythical being. For all we know, he only exists on this plane of existence for the month of December, retreating to Faerie the rest of the time.
King Moonracer, on the other hand, is a working monarch in a society where that actually means something other than cutting ribbons, shaking hands and rubberstamping what your parliament decides.
I saw a promo which hawked this year’s broadcast as being in HD. I don’t remember if it said this was the first time but I can’t imagine that HD would be good for this film.
I just read this thread for the first time. I can’t believe I’ve missed it before. But, I am not a long-time inhabitant here, so I suppose that is to be expected.
First, this show was a tradition in our family. We’d all sit down, the four of us to watch this. When I was 12, I realized after all the years of watching this was that Santa is a genuine jerk. I said so to my mother and she looked very sadly at me and said, “Yes, dear I think he is, too.”
Bit of a bonding moment there.
The surreal character of this show is very interesting and has made its way into the common parlance deeply enough that when the marketing director at an engineering firm I used to work for referred to the development team as ‘The Island of Misfit Engineers’, everyone knew the reference. We, of course, thought it was amusing and picked it up as the name of our team. He wanted it to be a put-down and we re-purposed it. Heh. Good times.
