Max Fleischer’s Original 1947 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Animation

How Santa’s ninth reindeer made his on-screen debut.

In 1939, Robert L. May conceived of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in a poem, published in a booklet by iconic department store Montgomery Ward. But “Santa’s 9th Reindeer” didn’t become etched into the nation’s collective imagination until May’s brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, adapted Rudolph into a song in 1949. (What makes the story all the more curious and poetic is that Marks was Jewish, yet he created some of the most popular Christmas songs we know today.)

But Rudolph made his first screen appearance two years earlier, in 1947, in a cartoon short produced by animation pioneer Max Fleischer. The film was later reissued by the Handy (Jam) Organization — who also brought us such gems as a manifesto for makers (1960), cinematic homage to mid-century design (1958), and an animated explanation of how radio broadcasting works (1937) — with the song added in. The 8-minute animation, now in the public domain, is a vintage treat of the most delicious variety:

Fleischer’s film was eventually adapted into a lovely children’s storybook in 1951, illustrated by Richard Scarry.

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The Hare and the Tortoise: 1947 Dramatization with Live Animals

Slow and steady wins the race… or does it?

From Encyclopedia Britannica Films — the same folks who brought us this fantastic manifesto for the spirit of journalism (1940), a vintage lesson in democracy and despotism (1945), and a drug addiction PSA explaining how different drugs work (1951) — comes this 1947 dramatization of Aesop’s iconic fable, The Hare and the Tortoise, featuring live animals. A menagerie cast, including an owl, a fox, a goose, a rooster, a raccoon, and a rabbit, reenacts the famously ambiguous moral story in a narrative that’s so boring and redundant it quickly becomes comic, a piece of inadvertent, almost Seinfeld-like vintage comedy. But what makes the film curious is that while the Aesop classic leaves the question of how the tortoise beat the hare unanswered, inviting centuries of interpretation, here a very specific, seemingly plausible answer for what happened is given.

The film is in the public domain and available for free, legal download courtesy of the Prelinger Archives.

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Vintage Halloween: Haunted Postcards from the Early 1900s

Visual snark from the early 20th century, or what haunted mirrors have to do with the lover of your dreams.

In the olden days, Hallowe’en provided another reason to send friends and family celebratory postcards. (These days, it provides another reason to don a slutty outfit and make out with strangers.) Culled from the New York Public Library digital gallery of vintage ephemera, here are some wonderful public domain archival images of haunted postcards from the 1910s.

One thing yesteryear’s Halloween festivities had in common with today’s were the popular parties for young adults to celebrate the occasion. A common superstition from the era held that if a young woman looked in a mirror on that night, she’d see the face of the man she was meant to marry. True to the period’s typical snark, many of the postcards poked fun at the hooey.

And in another wink at the past’s visions for the future of technology, here’s a card that depicts a high-tech witch with her “charms new and all up do date,” flying an “Aeroplane” instead of broom.

An NYPL digital librarian notes:

The playful style and breezy content of the postcards vividly evoke an era of frequent correspondence on every possible occasion, in which postcards served as the ’email’ of their time.”

(Cue in omnibus of vintage versions of modern social media.)

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