Why the 50th Anniversary Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Merchandise Is a Minefield
The 50th Anniversary Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer merchandise wave hit in 2014, and honestly, it was a mess. Coca-Cola, Hasbro, and several licensing outfits all had overlapping rights deals, which meant the market got flooded with low-quality collectibles. I was in a record store in Columbus when a guy came in looking for a specific vinyl pressing of the original 1964 soundtrack, and we ended up talking for an hour about why the anniversary pressings sounded noticeably compressed. That was the most honest conversation about the whole thing I've had since then. The original Rudolph special was produced by Rankin/Bass and animated using their stop-motion "animagic" technique. The 50th anniversary didn't bring any new animation work. It brought reissues, blu-ray remasters (some of which were better than others), and a flood of novelty items. If you're looking to get into this properly, you need to know which releases are worth your money and which ones are just cash grabs riding on nostalgia.
50th Anniversary Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer: What Actually Exists
The main releases that came out for the 50th anniversary include the blu-ray combo pack from Universal, various vinyl represses of the Maurice Jarre soundtrack, and a bunch of plush and novelty items from different manufacturers. The blu-ray transfer is the one people actually care about. It's a 1080p upscale from the original film elements, and while it's not a ground-up restoration, it's the best version most people will ever see it in. I've compared it to the standard definition DVDs from the early 2000s, and the difference is significant enough that upgrading is worth it if you watch this more than once, which you probably will because it's short and there's not a ton of competition for holiday viewing time in December. The soundtrack situation is more complicated. The original 1964 recording was done by the London Symphony Orchestra under Maurice Jarre's direction. For years, the only commercially available version was the Decca pressing, which had a somewhat thin sound. The 50th anniversary brought a few different reissues. The La-La Land Records release is the one audiophiles actually recommend. It's a proper transfer from the master tapes with booklet notes that include actual research rather than just press release copy. I bought three copies of that one because I was sharing them around with people who'd been asking about it for years.
What to Look For and What to Skip
Here's the thing nobody tells you about collecting anniversary Rudolph stuff: the licensing landscape makes it nearly impossible to know what's officially licensed and what isn't without doing actual research. I learned this the hard way. I bought a limited edition vinyl from a boutique record shop that looked gorgeous in the packaging, complete with numbered certificates and everything. Turns out the seller had fabricated the certificate. The pressing wasn't authorized by anyone. I took it back, but the shop had already moved on to other inventory. This happens more often than you'd think with anniversary releases because the secondary market demand outpaces what the official distributors can verify. The blu-ray combo packs from Universal are safe. They're the legitimate releases. The vinyl reissues from La-La Land are also safe because they're specialty collectors labels that operate transparently about their licensing. The plush toys, ornaments, and novelty items from random retailers are where you'll run into problems. Some of those were officially licensed, some weren't, and there's no reliable way to tell the difference without checking the manufacturer against current rights holder records, which change frequently.
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The Restoration Quality Question
The 50th anniversary blu-ray is fine, but don't expect miracles. Rankin/Bass never filmed anything in high definition. The original animation cels were photographed frame by frame onto film stock that was never going to yield a true 1080p image. What Universal did was scan the best surviving elements they could find and run them through digital upscaling. The result is clean enough. Dust and scratches are mostly gone. The color balance is reasonable, though some viewers find it slightly cooler than the original television broadcasts. If you have a projector or a large screen, the details in the stop-motion backgrounds are actually quite nice. The fur textures on the characters show up better than they ever have in home video before. I've heard complaints that the audio remaster sounds harsh at high volumes. This is real. The original mono mix was compressed a bit during the initial television broadcast years ago, and the blu-ray transfer preserves some of that character. If you're watching through a stereo system, try lowering the volume slightly rather than turning it up. It makes a noticeable difference in how the singing comes across, especially the finale.
Where to Actually Find These Things
The anniversary merchandise itself is mostly out of print now, so you're looking at secondary markets. Amazon, eBay, and Discogs are the main places. On Discogs, the Maurice Jarre soundtrack reissues are well catalogued with pressing variations listed. That's the place to go if you want the right version. On eBay, you need to be careful about sellers listing unauthorized items as "official." Check the seller's feedback history and look for photos of the actual product, not just the box art. I once almost bought what turned out to be a bootleg blu-ray that was a DVD rippred and burned onto a disc. The listing said "Region Free" which is always a red flag for older catalogue titles because official Universal releases of that era were region-locked. For the plush items and novelty goods, the original authorized manufacturers included companies like Applause and various toy divisions that have since been acquired or dissolved. If a seller claims something is "limited edition" without naming the manufacturer, that's another yellow flag. The legitimate 50th anniversary plush items came with specific certification labels that are fairly distinctive if you know what to look for.
A Note on the Original versus the Reimaginings
The 1964 special is based on the 1939 poem by Robert L. May and the 1949 song by Johnny Marks. May worked at Montgomery Ward and created Rudolph as a promotional character. The story has been retold and reinterpreted so many times that some newer versions actually obscure what the original was trying to do. The Rankin/Bass version has its own quirks. The pacing is different from modern standards. The humor is period-specific. But it's the version most people grew up with, and the 50th anniversary pushed it back into the conversation repeatedly throughout 2014. I noticed my own viewing habits change that year. I found myself watching it more often than usual, not because it was new, but because everything around it was reminding me that it was supposed to be old news now, which made me want to pay more attention to what was actually on screen. The special runs about 49 minutes. That's short by most feature standards, but it holds together. The animation, even by today's standards, has a warmth that computer animation struggles to replicate. Each frame was physically manipulated. The lighting was set up for each shot. There's a tangible quality to the surfaces that comes from dealing with actual materials. You can see the texture of the fur, the grain in the wood, the frost on the ground. It's not as smooth as modern animation, and that's exactly why it still looks good.
