I dunno, there are many hypotheses available in this thread.
Here’s SNL on Rudolph’s big night: Rudolph's Big Night - SNL - YouTube
And another thing: Sam the snowman’s song. He sings, “I don’t know if there’ll be snow.” Look all around you, Sam. You’re surrounded by it. You’re even made out of the stuff, for cryin’ out loud!
He means more snow than they already have up there.
Wasn’t that song (“Holly Jolly Christmas”) recorded before “Rudolph”? In any case, that line didn’t bother me because he’s either referring to there being new snow falling on Christmas day or projecting himself into the perspective of the listener who might be someplace where the chance of there being snow on Christmas is either iffy or non-existent.
Yes, two years earlier: A Holly Jolly Christmas - Wikipedia
55 years ago it premiered.
19 years for this thread.
Monday, December 2 on CBS.
raises a glass to the memory of Poohpah Chalupa
Came in to say the same thing. I’ve largely stopped caring about the Rudolph show, but it’s always worth making a toast to absent friends.
Is it bad that I’m now visualizing a Rudolph/RHPS mashup?
They’re not absent, they’re under the table! (or Mistletoe?)
Just don’t go nailing it to its perch…
Huzzah!
I was thinking more Roy Orbison:
And I’m up while the dawn is breaking
Even though my heart is aching
I should be drinking a toast
To absent friends
Instead of these comedians
I think you were thinking of Elvis Costello. 
Quite right - I had thought that Costello had covered Orbison, but it was indeed Orbison who covered Costello here. I stand corrected. And drink a toast to Orbison while I’m at it.
I don’t have much to add, except I am trying to figure out where in this masterpiece of claymation should the “Little Drummer Boy” song be inserted to spice up the Christmas spirit. I’m thinking that to add a little amped up tension to the production, having Hermey start playing the song while before Rudolph’s nose gives away his location to the Bumble?
Would it be the Bowie version?
A couple of months ago in what turned out to be an incredibly effective attempt to shirk my work, I reread this entire thread. It’s long, but just so brilliant. I especially enjoyed the theories, which I had forgotten, about the elf not giving an umbrella/parachute to the misfit toy bird, even though we knew that it was misfit because it could only swim not fly. Did the elf also know that and just intentionally murder the bird? Or was he actually dumping the misfit toys into the sea anyway, so it didn’t matter? (*)
So, this year I watched the special again to see what I would see. One thing I hadn’t keyed into before is there are only two characters with yellow hair: Hermey, the elf with dentistry ambitions, and Fireball, the reindeer who initially befriends Rudolph, but then seems to undergo a psychotic break at sight of his red nose. Is there an implication of some dirty elf-on-reindeer action in the recent past? Maybe after 222 days (), the poor deceived cow () delivered her product of sin and named him after the social lubricant that fueled that fateful evening (***). And Hermey was all like, “Ah, baby, don’t cry. I’m going to make this right. When I start bringing in that sweet dentistry cash, I’m going to buy us a castle and we’ll all live there together.” … is the way it’s playing out in my head.
(*) I watched carefully this time, and you can just make out the elf mumbling, “Eat chimney, ya freak!”
(**) Yes, I looked up the gestation period of reindeer. It’s important to be accurate.
(***) Not meant to be insulting. Cow is apparently the correct term for a female reindeer. cf. note 2, sentence 2
(****) Fireball Whisky’s actually slogan (I swear): “Tastes like heaven, burns like hell. What happens next is up to you.”
I’ve just started watching a 10 year old series (available on Hulu) called Justified, about the adventures of a U.S. Marshal from Kentucky. In Season 1, Episode 4 our hero has tracked down a fugitive and his girlfriend; fugitive was an accountant for a drug cartel who became a dentist. They have this conversation (paraphrased from memory):
Marshal: Why’d you become a dentist?
Fugitive: Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer…the TV special. You’ve seen it?
Marshal: (vaguely) Yeah…
Fugitive: It was Hermey.
Marshal: Hermey?
Girlfriend: He’s the elf who doesn’t want to make toys, but wants to be a dentist.
Marshal (brightly): Oh! The little gay dude!
That was so random I busted out laughing, and knew I needed to share it here.