Burl Ives Disney's "Summer Magic" with Hayley Mills, Dorothy McGuire, and Eddie Hodges, and a score by Robert and Richard Sherman. In 1964, he played the genie in the movie "The Brass Bottle" with Tony Randall and Barbara Eden. Ives' "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Silver and Gold" became Christmas standards after they were first featured in the 1964 NBC-TV presentation of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated family special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Johnny Marks had composed the title song (originally an enormous hit for singing cowboy Gene Autry) in 1949, and producers Rankin and Bass retained him to compose the TV special's
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie budget from its theatrical release. One night, the Sprites of the Northern Lights - a group of singing sprites who fly around the North Pole - witness the birth of a baby reindeer named Rudolph, who has an unusual red, shiny nose. Later in the morning, Rudolph and his parents, Blitzen and Mitzi, meet up with Rudolph's three uncles - Dasher, Comet, and Cupid. Cupid tickles Rudolph and inadvertently triggers his glowing nose, which draws attention and causes Rudolph to become the center of scorn and mockery. Meanwhile, two of Santa Claus's elves, Doggle and Boone, cross the ice bridge