He tested it on his 4-year-old daughter, Barbara, who was enthralled. His bosses were a little less thrilled, worrying that a red nose might be associated with drunkards.
A friend accompanied May to Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, drew some deer with red noses, and the bosses' concerns were allayed. That Christmas, the company distributed 2.4 million copies of the new Rudolph story.
The tale was hugely popular, but it didn't translate to financial success for May because Montgomery Ward, not the author, held the copyright for "Rudolph." May's wife was dying and he was deeply in debt because of her medical bills. But in 1947, the then-widowed May asked Montgomery Ward President Sewell Avery to turn over the copyright. Not being a Grinch, Avery did so, and thus assured May financial security.
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" also was printed commercially as a book and became a nine-minute cartoon. But the little reindeer didn't fly into history until songwriter Marks, who happened to be May's brother-in-law, developed the lyrics and melody.
The "Rudolph" song was a little different from the original story. When he first appeared, Rudolph was not one of Santa's reindeer and did not live at the North Pole. Instead, he lived in a reindeer village with loving parents who brought him up to be a responsible young fellow.
In the poem, it seems that Santa was having trouble negotiating his way through heavy fog one Christmas night when he noticed a red light emanating from Rudolph's room. Santa recruited the little guy to help on the night's journey, and the incandescent underdog (so to speak) became the leader.
By 1949, when, at the urging of his wife, cowboy-actor-singer Gene Autry recorded Marks's song, the story had changed a little. That version became one of the best-selling holiday songs ever, second only to Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."
It changed a little more when Rankin and Bass turned the song into a television special. They added elements such as the Misfit Toys and various elves. And they hired folksinger Burl Ives to narrate and to sing songs Marks wrote for the special, such as "Silver and Gold" and "Holly Jolly Christmas."
"We used a star to be our voice and our image, and that was Burl Ives," Rankin said. "Then we went on to the others -- James Cagney, Greer Garson, Danny Kaye, Mickey Rooney, Fred Astaire. We said, we just need you for a few days or a week. We had to explain to them what we were doing, and they often agreed to do it because they realized their children or grandchildren would be seeing the production."
Viewers in 1964 may have been surprised to find the elves in the story also were in the sponsor's commercials, selling General Electric products. "I took the property to General Electric," said Rankin. "When the picture was in production, we took photographs and placed the elves in positions to be used in GE ads. There was an elf working a hair curler, for example. I don't think I could get away with that today."
In the days before computer animation, each of the Rankin-Bass television specials was particularly labor-intensive.
"It was a tedious process," he said. " 'Rudolph' took a year to make. . . . But the show is not just the technique -- it's the story, the characters, the music. We knew what we needed: warmth. 'Rudolph' showed us that."
As May earlier had run his original "Rudolph" story by his young daughter, Rankin and Bass showed their work to their own children, who approved.
"I think most kids are afraid of growing up and being adults," Rankin said. "When you have these characters who really don't fit in, the Misfit Toys, that's a great lesson for children. You learn that just because you have red hair doesn't mean you can't achieve. That was one of our goals: As the film ends, the bad guy usually becomes the good guy."
Rankin said he and Bass eventually sold their company to Warner Bros. and the copyright for the television special of "Rudolph" to GE.
Most of the people who gave life to "Rudolph" are gone now. May, who quit his job at Montgomery Ward in 1951 to manage his creation, returned to the company and worked until his retirement in 1971; he died in 1976. Marks died in 1985. Gene Autry and Burl Ives, who also enjoyed the financial advantages of having been associated with the song and the television special, died in 1995 and 1998 respectively.
But both television producers survive -- Bass lives in France, and Rankin lives in Bermuda -- and on American television, their evergreen holiday specials roll on each year. "ABC Family network wouldn't be able to go on the air at Christmas without us," Rankin joked. "They air our specials back to back all day."
RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER
Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBS
