The First "Rudolph" cartoon

[robcat2075]

At Live Answer Time today we watched the very first animation treatment of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

Produced and directed by Max Fleischer as "A Jam Handy Picture" in 1948. Of the four credited animators ...

Howard Kakudo	...	animator
Robinson McKee	...	animator
Fletcher Smith	...	animator
William Sturm	...	animator

... only Sturm has a substantial IMDb trail, having been a former Fleischer Studio animator.

The original Rudolph story was written by Robert May for an ad campaign for the Montgomery Ward Department stores in 1939, I recall.

All of this precedes the famous Johnny Marks song (1949) and, of course, the 1964 Rankin/Bass production.