Alternate versions for
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) (TV) More at IMDbPro »

• The 1964 showing did not have Santa picking up toys from the Island of Misfit Toys at the end. A letter-writing campaign ensued and the new ending was added in 1965. Also in 1965, sponsor General Electric insisted on replacing the song "We're a Couple of Misfits" with "Fame and Fortune", a change that lasted until 1998, when "Misfits" was put back in.
  
  
• When remastered in High-Definition for the CBS airing in 2005, the special featured a highly-edited version of the song "We're a Couple of Misfits" synched to the animation of "Fame and Fortune," and the special also removed the musical interlude to the song "We Are Santa's Elves."
  
  
• In the original TV version of the show, Rudolph, Herbie the elf and Yukon Cornelius visit the Island of Misfit Toys and promise to help them, but the Misfits are never mentioned again. After it was shown, the producers were inundated with letters from children complaining that nothing had been done to help the Misfit Toys. In response, Rankin-Bass produced a new short scene at the end of the show in which Santa and his reindeer, led by Rudolph, land on the Island and pick up all the toys to find homes for them, which has ever since been the standard version of the show run during the holidays.
  
  
• The 1998 restored version contains a longer version of "We Are Santa's Elves", a duet reprise of "We're A Couple Of Misfits", plus additional narration by Burl Ives and two short scenes towards the end resolving Yukon Cornelius' quest for gold (he discovers that all he was really searching for was a peppermint mine) and Santa's lead reindeer Donner looking up at Rudolph in the air and proclaiming "That's my buck". The version that originally premiered on NBC in 1964 had these sequences minus the Island Of Misfit Toys ending (where Santa and company return to the Island to rescue the toys that had been left behind earlier in the story) -- that was animated, filmed, and used for the 1965 re-broadcast (and all subsequent telecasts and video releases through 1997) after viewer protests demanded a resolution of that storyline. The original version also had a different main title that does not mention "Rankin/Bass present" (as it had already been established it was originally a General Electric presentation -- GE had been the show's original sponsor), and an end credits sequence where the elves show the technical credits on gift boxes before dumping them on the ground to their destinations. The 1965-1997 re-edit has the "Rankin/Bass present" subtitle at the beginning, and an alternate end credits sequence with the elves putting their gifts under flying umbrellas to take them to their destinations (as the technical credits are superimposed on the screen), while omitting the instrumental bridge to "We Are Santa's Elves" and the "Peppermint Mine" & "That's my buck" dialog sequences, and finally replacing the "...Misfits" reprise with the song "Fame And Fortune" (which appears on the current DVD release as a separate supplement). The Island Of Misfit Toys ending was later incorporated into the 1998 restored version, which (as of 12/2002) continues to air annually on CBS.
  
  

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