Robert L. May was a copy writer for Montgomery Ward Company in 1939. Montgomery Ward over the years had purchased small booklets that they would give out at Christmas. But in 1939 management decided they didn’t want to spend the money to buy a booklet, so they assigned Robert May to write a story in order to save money. His daughter loved the deer at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, so he decided to write a story about a reindeer. The story began as Rudolph had a red nose that looked different from the others. The other 8 reindeer made fun of Rudolph and didn’t include him in their activities. Robert had experienced that as a child himself. He was staring out the window one day, thinking about what the story should be, when a thick fog from Lake Michigan blew in blocking his view. That was the inspiration he needed for his story. “A nose! A bright red nose that would shine through the fog like a spotlight” (Wikipedia, Rudolph publication history) The idea was originally rejected because in the late 1930s, a red nose was associated with chronic alcoholism and drunkards. He asked his illustrator friend at Montgomery Ward, Denver Gillen to draw a cute reindeer using the deer at the zoo as models. The alert bouncy character Denver drew convinced Montgomery Ward management to use the idea.
In the first year of publication, 2.4 million copies of the story were published. The original story was written as a poem in anapestic tetrameter, the same meter as “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
“Robert May’s brother-inlaw, Johnny Marks adapted the story into a song.”
Marks introduced the song to Gene Autry by sending a demonstration record, and persuading him to perform it on his radio show. (Wikipedia, Rudolph publication history) Gene Autry didn’t want to record “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, viewing it as a silly song. But his wife Ina convinced him to do it by emphasizing the story’s Ugly Duckling theme. The song was eventually recorded on June 27, 1949 in a single take with the arrangement handled by Carl Cotner, Gene’s musical director. (geneautry.com) The original recording was intended as the B-side of a shellac 78 rpm record and despite its initial rejection by other artists, the song became a massive success. The final record became a children’s record with Rudolph as the “A” side and the “B' side was “He’s a Chubby Little Fellow.” It was released in September 1949. His recording eventually sold 25 million copies, making it the second best Christmas record after “White Christmas” until the 1980s.
Rudolph was such a hit that Autry decided to sing another seasonal song the next year. His search for another song lead him to sing, “Frosty the Snowman” the big hit in 1950. (Wikipedia, Frosty the Snowman)