Things you didn't know about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer! Behind the Christmas Hits

The role of the reindeer who saved Christmas was played by a young Canadian woman! 

This is the story Behind the Christmas Hit…Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

The song Rudolph was written by Johnny Marks and first recorded by Gene Autry in 1949…but one of the reasons the song endures is because of the television special produced by Rankin Bass Productions in 1964. It has been broadcast on network television every year since, making it the longest continuously-running Christmas special of all time.  

The animation for the story of Santa’s newest reindeer was done in Tokyo and most of the voice work was produced in Canada…at the RCA studios in Toronto. And the cast was virtually all-Canadian too. 

Hermy was voiced by Paul Soles, who would go on to be the voice of Spider-Man in the 1967 cartoon series.

Yukon Cornelius was voiced by Larry Man – you might remember him as “the boss” in a series of TV commercials in the 80’s & 90’s for Bell.

And…much like Bart Simpson…the voice of Rudolph was performed by a female actor.  Her name: Billie Mae Richards.Billie Mae sadly passed away in 2010  but we have some archive interview footage with our own Drew Savage!

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