Children do not need things to be logical to make total sense. A fat man with a beard flies around the entire globe in a single night and delivers presents to every kid in the world? Yes of course. And he travels via a sleigh led by flying reindeer? No problem there. Plus, the lead reindeer has a glowing red nose? Sure, it gets dark at night.
But looking back, it’s not silly that once upon a time we all naively accepted those things as obviously true, it’s far more absurd that we didn’t take issue with the classic stop-motion Christmas movie Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which is way, way weirder than you probably remember.
Fortunately the great team at Screen Junkies has a very special Honest Trailer for the super strange holiday staple, highlighted by an updated and far more accurate take on the famous Rudolph Christmas carol. That’s because the old lyrics we know so well bear little resemblance with the story of the 1964 film. There’s nothing in there about a a wannabe dentist slave employed by an angry old man, or of a hipster who likes to lick his tool, nor is there any mention of some creepy island of bizarre toys led by a lion.
Rudolph, supposedly a feel-good kid’s Christmas movie, is really a story of racism, oppression, and exploitation, all wrapped up in an LSD-induced fever dream experienced inside a hippie-owned toy store.
What the hell were they thinking? But more importantly, why were we okay with any of it, even as kids? Cause there’s no way this ever made sense.
What’s the weirdest part of Rudolph? Sing a carol of your thoughts in our comments section below.
Images: Rankin/Bass Productions
