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) the years. Animator Corky Quakenbush has produced parodies of "Rudolph" for several American television shows: In the sci-fi/comedy series "The Orville", in the episode "About a Girl", characters watch "Rudolph" to make the character Bortus consider his plans to arrange gender reassignment surgery for his newborn daughter (Bortus's species, the Moclans, are a single-gender species who statistically produce only one female every seventy-five years, with females thus having no clear place in their society) by demonstrating how unconventional people can accomplish great things, although Bortus humorously misinterprets the film to suggest that Rudolph's father might have considered euthanizing his child