The Story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Montgomery Ward, a retail and mail order enterprise founded in America in 1872, each year at Christmas time purchase coloring books decided in 1939 to get Robert L. May to create for the company it's own coloring book to save money.  The coloring book story was written as a poem to "Twas the Night Before Christmas".  Robert May asked Denver Gillen at Montgomery Ward to draw a bouncy "cute reindeer" because a red nose was associated  with a social disease.  Robert May got his brother-in-law Johnny Marks to adapt the story to a song and in 1949 Gene Autry recorded that song.  That recording eventually sold 25 million copies and remained the second best-selling record of all time until the 1980's.

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