A few years ago, when CBS aired Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, they made the mistake of deleting most of the Burl Ives Rudolph song at the end of the show.

People wrote in, and in recent years the song has been presented in it's entirety.

Imagine our surprise last night to arrive at the end of the show and find no Burl Ives song...rather a claymation rendering of a popular singing group (I can't remember their name) singing the song.

What was CBS thinking??? The reason for watching this show is because it's a classic. To "update" it in this manner is insulting to the memory of Burl Ives...In My Opinion.

I'm not surprised at anything from the company that continues to employ Dan Rather.

C.

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I thought I was wrong, once, but I was mistaken.

Can you enlighten an US-culture-challenged European what you're talking about? What's important about that song and what's the fuzz with Dan Rather?

Thanks.

Harald

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"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut

Turns out there were two different endings. The version that aired on CBC had Burl Ives singing Rudolph. This article lists some of the changes the special has seen. On another note, I'm trying to remember how long it has been since I've seen either Little Drummer Boy or Santa Claus is Coming to Town aired. Other minor nitpicks I've noticed scenes missing from Grinch and even Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean...I suspect these were due more to making room for commercials.

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" The universe is running away
I heard it on the news just the other day
There's this new stuff called dark energy
We can't measure and we can't see..." - from Jimmy Buffett's What if the hokey pokey is all it really is about?

It's not just the song per say.

Take one of your favorite childhood christmas classics from your side of the pond. You go to watch it with your children, having fond memorys of this show, and instead of having cute little animals singing away, you have an animatated Ozzi Ozborne singing the song instead and biting the heads off cute little animated animals. You get the idea.

There should be laws about changing old classics like that. From any country.

I've been "nose-in" around the net this morning and I haven't found a single person who thinks that the "up-dated ending" is an improvement...quite the contrary...

I've wrote to CBS, basically saying that whoever came up with this "idea" should be FIRED!

Ah man, I hate it when they do stuff like this! For goodness sakes, if one wants to "change" a classic then do an entire re-make! I wonder why CBS did this? One would think they have enough trouble without creating more!

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

They thought..."Well, no one's watching our network, no one will notice."

Kidding aside, It might have something to do with the 40th anniversary showing of Rudolph. :roll: Hopefully, (with the reaction I know they will be getting) CBS will decide that this will be the only time we'll have to view that particular ending.

who did they have singing, anyway?

It was the girl group Destiny's Child.

Now, make no mistake. I have absolutely nothing against these 3 girls. They have marvelous voices, and they sing wonderful harmonies, but...

...you know how pop artists sing the National Anthem?? How they just can't seem to "stick" to the actual melody...they have to "add notes" to demonstrate (I guess) what accomplished singers they are. That's exactly what happened with the "Rudolph" song.

Rudolph. Bah.

There are 8 reindeer. Thank you, Clement Moore, or Henry Livingston, or whoever really wrote it -- and whatever those last two reindeer are really named:

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!"

This Rudolph is a figment of the corporate mind of Montgomery-Ward department stores. Snopes nose.

Everyone knows magic reindeer do not have red noses.

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Regarding Dan Rather: CBS ran a story presented by Dan Rather that alleged certain things about Bush's National Guard days in the early '70s using "memos" as evidence. CBS made the mistake of putting the PDFs of the memos on their web site ... and it became quickly obvious that no typewriter available at that time could have created those memos, but they could be duplicated on a computer. There were also a number of content issues (terminology and so forth). For some time Rather and CBS continued to maintain they were real, that this was a political ploy (and with the election what it was, there was serious polarization on the subject) but the story unraveled as it became clear that CBS had done a terrible job at fact checking. They apparently ignored warnings by experts that had been brought in, and other news organizations that had seen the memos had rejected them. To this day, Rather has not admitted that the memos were fake, though he has admitted they did a poor job on that story. He has announced his retirement (which likely was a result of this mistake) but continues to work at CBS.

IIRC, the "seventh" reindeer was named Donner.

As I am learning, that's part of the authorship controversy. It seems the earliest anonymously published version had them as Dunder and Blixem, Dutch, not German, for Thunder and Lightning.

In some version along the way, it was Dunder and Blixen, probably for a better rhyme, and then Donder and Blixen. When Clement Moore, who spoke some German, and no Dutch, published a book with "his" poem, he used Donder and Blitzen.

Finally, Donner and Blitzen (German Thunder and Lightning) began to take hold.

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Don't know about old Dutch, but in Dutch as I know it, the words for "thunder" and "lightning" are "donder" and "bliksem"

pronounced in English somewhat like "donndurr" (really flat o, hollow u) and "blixum" (i stressed though soft, hollow u).

I have no idea concerning the reindeer's name, I only know Rudolph!

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Okay, I thought everybody knew that Santa's reindeer were:

Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, and
Comet and Cupid and Johnson and Nixon.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I think that there should be musical referees there to throw flags and assess penalties (and maybe even fines!) for inappropriate ornamentation of the Star Spangled Banner. One "liberty" that is very irritating is the addition of a passing-tone to the first syllable of "banner".

The Simpsons had an excellent commentary on this practice. A baseball game in Springfield was just getting started and you could see the clock above the scoreboard read 7:00. A few lines into the song you could see it registering later and later times, people nodding off asleep, etc., until finally at 7:26 this "soulful" rendition was mercifully over!

One of the worst bowdlerizations I've heard recently was some male country artist who departed quite wildly from the melody in places. If I could have my way, he would have been fined.
8)

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I agree with those pundits who label this sort of creative anthem singing as "vocal gymnastics" and "musical diarrhea." I think we're all supposed to be impressed with how much "control" those singers have, but to me, control is Kiri Tekanawa singing Mozart's Alleluia and every note is discreet and perfect.

And my idea of messing with the perfect Christmas program is doing anything to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. As if Jim Carrey could do a better job with it than Boris Karloff.

Don't forget "Olive, the other reindeer".

Runs and hides.........

Mary Mapes? :wink:

gethen wrote:

Hear, hear! Or Callas going for the high f in The Queen of the Night.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

Yeah... What's the frequency, Kenneth?

Someone very well could be fired for this. Though CBS news isn't big on accountability their entertainment side seems more to be. They did fire the producer who cut into CSI (or Law and Order?) to annouce Arafat's death.

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When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror, like his passengers.

Slightly off-topic here, but what you describe is my single biggest pet-peave. During sporting events, live or broadcast, I'm always muttering, "just sing the damn song, this is not a forum for artistic interpretation".

/rant off. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Rudolph-rant :P

Wow! I thought I was alone in being tired of the current trend of singing. As a vocalist myself, I always took pride in being able to hit clear notes and convey emotion without having to rewrite the melody.

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

Hey...no worries. I'm taking it "off-topic" myself. Wherever this thread takes itself is fine with me.

No, you're not alone!

Of course! I love to sing...and doing it right impresses me more than the "game" that pop artist play.

I've just been listening to a new CD - Charlotte Church singing Christmas Carols - and thought of this thread -

Her singing Little Drummer Boy is simply beautiful - brings tears to my eyes!

As does Silent Night, Oh Holy Night,.......

And no vocal gymnastics necessary.