Original photo by Yuganov Konstantin/ Shutterstock
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is famous for his eponymous Christmas tune and for using his luminous nose to heroically guide Santa Claus through the dense snow and fog on Christmas Eve. But originally, Rudolph was created as part of an ad campaign to guide Chicago area customers into department stores. Montgomery Ward was a retailer known for releasing Christmas-themed promotional coloring books in the 1930s to attract shoppers. After years of buying and distributing books made elsewhere, it opted to cut costs by designing a book of its own in 1939. The retailer enlisted the help of copywriter Robert L. May to conceive a new story, and thus, Rudolph was born.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factIn winter, a reindeer’s eyes change from gold to more of a deep blue. It’s believed that the pressure in their eyes builds until fluid squeezes out from a layer behind the retina, which causes the color change. This release of fluid makes reindeers’ eyes more sensitive to light during the winter.
According to the fact-checking site Snopes, May was inspired by the story of the “Ugly Duckling” and decided to create a character that was similarly ostracized for his physical appearance. He was also influenced by the fact that reindeer had been associated with Christmas as far back as the early 19th century. May settled on a reindeer with a glowing red nose, and at first considered names such as Rollo (which he later said in a 1963 interview was “too happy”) and Reginald (“too sophisticated”); Rudolph, however, “rolled off the tongue nicely.”
May’s story was a hit with both his young daughter and his employer, which distributed 2.4 million copies of the book in 1939 and another 3.6 million in 1946. Rudolph became a national sensation in 1949, when May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, composed a song about the character. That tune was recorded by Gene Autry and went on to sell 1.75 million copies in its first year, becoming the first No. 1 song of the 1950s.
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Frosty the Snowman’s “official” hometown is ______.
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Frosty the Snowman’s “official” hometown is Armonk, New York.
Eating KFC is a Japanese Christmastime tradition.
Christmas has always been celebrated as a secular holiday in Japan, where only 1% of the country’s approximately 125 million residents identify as Christian. Instead of attending mass or singing carols, Japanese people prefer to celebrate by eating KFC every year around Christmas. The very first Japanese KFC opened in Nagoya in 1970, and the chain quickly expanded across the nation.
In 1974, KFC launched a “Kentucky for Christmas” ad campaign to target expats overseas. But the campaign inadvertently became popular among Japanese folks, who lacked any sort of long-standing Christmas traditions of their own. Today, many Japanese people reserve their buckets of chicken far in advance, and those who don’t plan ahead end up waiting in line for hours. KFCs in Japan say their busiest day is December 24, when they sell five to 10 times as much chicken compared to a normal day.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism Media, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
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