One of the most popular songs and holiday television specials associated with childhood is the perineal classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. This song about a lovable reindeer, once ostracized for his red nose, worked its way into the hearts of millions. However, Rudolph did not get his start in a song or a Christmas special; he debuted in a book.
In 1939 creator Robert May was assigned to Chicago based department store Montgomery Ward. The shop, which previously bought and handed out coloring books, decided to create their book in order to save money. The story idea of Rudolph, initially rejected by the management due to the significance of a red nose being associated with alcoholism, needed the help of illustrator Denver Gillen to prove its innocence. Gillen, using zoo deer as models to draw the cute characters to the story. The management supported the idea after seeing his illustrations. In its first year of publication, Montgomery Ward distributed 2.5 million copies of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Since its first publication, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer produced two sequels, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Shines Again in 1954 and Rudolph's Second Christmas in 1991. It also became a cartoon movie in 1944, a song in 1949 written by May's brother in law Johnny Marks and made famous by Gene Autry. In 1964, the production company Rankin/Bass produced the well known stop-motion Christmas special.
One of the most beloved Christmas songs of all time is White Christmas. The tune, written by composer Irving Berlin, tells of a reminiscent tale of the magic of a snowy Christmas day and the beauty it gives the outdoors. Even though the song talks about a wintery cold day, White Christmas was composed when Berlin when he was staying at the La Quinta Hotel in warm, sunny La Quinta, California in 1940. However, it took someone who was familiar with white Christmases to hurl it into a big hit that it was. Bing Crosby, who grew up in Spokane, Washington, debuted the song on Christmas day in 1941 on the NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall. On May 29, 1942, Crosby recorded the White Christmas with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers for Decca Records. The song, released on July 30th of that year was a part of an album of songs from the film Holiday Inn. By the end of October of 1942, White Christmas topped the "Your Hit Parade" chart and maintained its position the following year. During the holiday seasons of 1945 and 1946, it was re-released by Decca and was once again at the top of the charts. In 1954, White Christmas was used in the movie, "White Christmas" starring Crosby. The song became the biggest-selling single worldwide of all time and used as a secret, pre-arranged signal launching the U.S. evacuation from Saigon on April 30, 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War.
A Christmas Carol is my favorite Christmas story of all time. I remember watching it every Christmas Eve with all the lights turned off with the exception of the glow of our tree and the C7 lights hanging right outside our window. Not only do I have the book, I also have 4 different versions of the beloved tale by Charles Dickens. This is one of the best versions. The classic 1951 version that I watched growing up staring Alastair Sim. :)
If you want to own this wonderful movie, click on the ad below.
I know it has been awhile since I worked on this blog. I have been out
of commission due to medical reasons for some time as well as a few
other distractions. It is great to be back and I am looking forward to
doing more posts for you! :)
By the middle of the decade, audiences yearned for a lighter side to television programming. Television shows such as Happy Days which followed the lives of a group of fifties-era teenagers, and Laverne and Shirley, which followed the lives of two single women living in an apartment in the fifties, gave viewers the feel of nostalgia. Little House On The Prairie was a show that was based on a set of children's books that told the life of their author, Laura Ingals Wilder. The Walton's was also a show about a close knit family; unlike Little House, which was set in the 19th century, the Walton's were about a large family living in Virginia during the Great Depression of the 1930's. The middle and later part of the 1970's also brought about new genres. A genre called Jiggle television centered around sexual gratification and bawdy humor and situations featured shows such as Charlie's Angels and Three's Company. The other was an escapist "fantasy" genre, which started in 1977 with the Love Boat and in 1978 with Fantasy Island. The variety show genre, which were popular in the 1950's and 1960's, had it's last run in the 1970''s with shows such as The Carol Burnett Show, The Flip Wilson Show, Sonny and Cher, Tony Orlando and Dawn and Donny and Marie.
Be sure to check out our selection of television shows from the 1970's here.
The face of the sitcom also changed with the end of sitcoms such as Ozzie and Harriet and the start of The Brady Bunch; which ran for five seasons. Even though the Brady Bunch was regarded as the quintessential family of the decade, a new kind of programming emerged to portray a less than perfect life of other families. Producer Norman Lear observed how American life was like in the 70s and the problems that people were facing. With his observations, Lear spearheaded a genre that called "social consciousness" programming. With his adaptation of the British television series Till Death Us Do Part, All In The Family broke down television barriers. Showing a disclaimer when it first aired, the season premiered in 1971 and Americans heard ethnic slurs for the first time on television. All In The Family also had many controversial issues in it's plots such as race, politics, women's rights and homosexuality. Just as Archie Bunker was bigoted, ultra conservative, urban blue collar character, Maude, Archie's wife's (Edith) cousin was the exact opposite. Maude was a "flawed liberal" who was married to her fourth husband living in upstate New York with her divorced daughter. The tall "tell-it-like-it-is", "take-no-crap-from-the system" character Maude, broke the mold of the small-and-sweet situation comedy mother and therefore brought about more controversy than her rival, Archie. The show Good Times, was a spin off of Maude that remade the character of Maude's maid Florida Evans. Instead of the show being set in New York, it was set in a very poor Chicago inner city neighborhood. Florida and her husband, James, try raise their three kids in the midst of poverty. Issues such as poverty, gangs, guns, bullies, busing, black on black crime and prejudice and even the death of James (in the middle of the shows's run), were addressed in the episodes. It showed how a close, strong African American family, such as the Evans, were able to face those tough issues. The family's interaction with each other often provided the humor in the episodes. Norman Lear also produced a couple more shows in 1975; One was a spin off of All In The Family called the Jeffersons. The Jeffersons were about Archie's African American neighbors who became a success with their business and moved to a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Another show, One Day At A Time, was about a about a divorced mother raising her two teenage daughters in Indianapolis.
At the start of the 1970s, television programming changed dramatically with the first airing of topics that were considered taboo in earlier decades. Mary Tyler Moore, which premiered in 1970, was a breakthrough for leading female characters in television. It's main character was a single woman that was over 30 years old who was not widowed, divorced or even looking for a man to support her. News on television showed the horrors of the war in Vietnam to American homes thus intensifying anti war sentiments. Television news also showed live broadcasts of the Senate Watergate hearings which resulted in the downfall of President Richard Nixon.
