Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (song) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (song) "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is a song by songwriter Johnny Marks based on the 1939 story "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" published by the Montgomery Ward Company. Gene Autry's recording hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts the week of Christmas 1949. In 1939 Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May, created the character Rudolph as an assignment for Montgomery Ward and Marks decided to adapt the story of Rudolph into a song. The song had an added introduction, paraphrasing the poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" (public domain by the time the song was written), stating the
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Fleischer cartoon short, is no longer in print, but a revised Little Golden Books version of the storybook was reissued in 1972. Perhaps the most well-known version of all the Rudolph adaptations is the Rankin/Bass version of 1964. Filmed in Tokyo, Japan, with all sound recordings done in Toronto, Canada, the show premiered on NBC. As the producers of the special only had the song as source material and did not have a copy of the original book, they interpolated an original story around the central narrative of the song, one that differed from the book. This re-telling chronicles Rudolph's