Animation that Enhanced my Life

We have an assignment that asked us to write about an animation that enhanced my life. This took some thought, as I never considered whether an animation had enhanced my life. But after some consideration, this is what cane to mind: The 1964 claymation animation “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”.

This movie added considerably more than simply an animation. I think, to start with, the timeline is important. This was released in 1964, and that would put my first exposure of it in my early grades school years, which is perfect for a Christmas movie. In addition, these are impressionable years, and anything that I associated with family, innocence, holidays, happiness, etc, would really hit home with me.

The characters are unforgettable: Rudolph, Yukon Cornelius, Hermey the Dentist, the Abominable Snowman, etc. There were also some very advanced themes for the time, in particular bullying, and the desire to be accepted for who and what you are. There are even concepts that edge on the injustices of racism, and societal rejection of the handicapped.

I think that although we consider claymation, or stop-motion animation as a bit old school, and certainly eclipsed by digital animation techniques such as those put out by Pixar, this technique has actually hung around quite successfully, notably in some masterpieces such as Tim Burton’s a Nightmare before Christmas, and the Wallace and Gromit movies.

There is another big aspect of this movie: The soundtrack. The songs that were a part of this film, all written by the great Johnny Marks,  are timeless. Songs like “Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer”, and “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas”, are standards today and will be for decades. A surprising fact about Johnny Marks is that he was Jewish, but specialized in writing Christmas Music.

So, in light of the exercise, I can definitely state that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has enhanced my life emotionally, and left a professional legacy as well.