Singing cowboy Sandy's elaborate costumes. While other western actors, such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, only dabbled in singing roles, some actors became known mainly for their parts as singing cowboys. The most famous of them was Gene Autry, and the moniker "the singing cowboy" usually refers to him in particular. When Wayne declined further singing cowboy roles, Republic looked for a replacement. Former rodeo rider Autry was chosen because he was the one candidate who could both sing and ride a horse, namely Champion the Wonder Horse. The choice was so successful that, at the time of his death in
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV special) concept designs and storyboards for "Rudolph" were done by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and his staff of artists at Rankin/Bass in New York City. The company's trademark stop motion animation process, known as "Animagic", was filmed at MOM Productions in Tokyo with supervision by Tadahito Mochinaga and associate direction by Kizo Nagashima. Besides "Rudolph", Mochinaga and the rest of the Japanese puppet animation staff are also known for their partnership with Rankin/Bass on their other Animagic productions almost throughout the 1960s, from "The New Adventures of Pinocchio", to "Willy McBean and his Magic Machine", to "The Daydreamer" and "Mad Monster Party?"