Christmas in the post-war United States with Montgomery Ward. The song tells the story of a reindeer whose shiny red nose guides Santa's sleigh through the fog on Christmas Eve. Gene Autry's 1949 recording remained at #1 for a week and brought the song widespread fame. Only "White Christmas" has sold more copies. Autry had another hit in 1950 with "Frosty the Snowman", written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson as a direct attempt to create a success in the vein of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer". The song tells the story of a magical snowman who has playful adventures with children. In 1963, "Frosty" hit its
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?"