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The Daydreamer - The Little Mermaid, 1966

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The animated tv movie Return of the King first aired on May 11, 1980. Rankin/Bass who made this also made the Hobbit. Between the two movies was Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, which covered the first two books - The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Rankin/Bass carried over from the Hobbit Orson Bean as Bilbo (also taking on the role of Frodo), John Huston as Gandalf, and Theodore Gottlieb as Gollum. Due to his death, Paul Frees replaced Cyril Richard as Elrond. Glenn Yarbrough provided the singing narration as the Minstrel. The cast also included Hollywood actors William Conrad (Lord Denathor) and Roddy McDowall (Samwise Gamgee) as well as established voice actors Don Messick, John Stephenson, Casey Kasem, and Sonny Melendrez, and new voice actress Nellie Bellflower.

Volume 2 of my Rudolph History series of posts will be a VERY long deep dive into the queer and disabled coding of characters in the Rankin/Bass version of the story.

Yep. You heard me. The story and characters are meant to represent overcoming bigotry and teaching acceptance to others. I would know...I've studied this movie my whole life. And perhaps overcoming bigotry and fascism is also the true moral of some of Muller's other works from his time at Rankin/Bass!

I really think Romeo Muller intended his version of Rudolph to be an allegory about minorities, particular Queer and Disabled people. Like for real. Not just a headcanon.

I am working on providing tons of evidence of this in my post, which will be released when I am done researching and writing it. Might even make a video someday. I'm currently looking into various sources that claim Romeo Muller was gay/queer. The earliest claims are from 2011 and 2012 on two blogs. Muller never confirmed nor denied this, since he sadly passed away in 1992, so the speculation is there because he never married and also because of his writing on Rudolph and other Rankin/Bass specials.

I mean, seriously. For the 1960s, queer coded characters getting to be happy and not just used for laughs in the story was INCREDIBLY rare. I think I see what Romeo was trying to do by writing the story and characters the way he did, and it's revolutionary and beautiful for its time.

The whole special is essentially a story where several queer/disabled characters and their allies come together and create a better world where they are accepted as who they are...if you choose to interpret it that way. I absolutely do. I'll explain more why I believe this in the final post! It's so obvious once you start to really pay attention to the writing, considering the writer himself was most likely part of multiple marginalized groups.

Romeo Muller was a theater kid before he went into writing. He even wrote plays! He eventually quit theater to become a writer. If he wasn't himself a closeted queer man behind the scenes, he was almost certainly an ally. He deserves way more recognition for his clever writing. I even saw an article speculate that "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" is about overcoming antisemitism. It's very easy to see that intention if you've seen that special more than once! Romeo was writing extremely progressive stories for the time while keeping his career afloat by using clever writing and coding with his characters and stories.

I feel the need to make this common knowledge. I wish I could tell him how much his stories mean to people like me, a queer autistic person. The story of Rudolph means the world to me, especially in 2025, now that I am having to hide myself more than ever for my own safety.

RTRNR was made for people like me. RTRNR was made for all of us to feel seen.

The Rankin/Bass version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has NEVER been a story made to appeal to conservative bigots and fascists. It's a story for people who didn't have a voice back then, or even now. I think if Romeo Muller was still alive today, he'd likely tell us that himself.

#rudolph the red nosed reindeer #romeo muller #rankin bass #santa claus is comin' to town #MY MIND WAS BLOWN WHEN I SAW THE ARTICLES I MENTIONED HERE BECAUSE THEYRE SO RIGHT #dude was writing some of the best progressive stories of his time and he deserves recognition for it!!

We don't talk about Romeo Muller and Robert May enough. Christmas and the folklore of Christmas owes a lot to these two. Robert May created a short rhyming story in 1939 that created Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. And Romeo Muller wrote most of the big rankin-bass holiday specials. I'm amazed that we had actual 20th century writers becoming the modern storytellers and folklorists we need. Christmas was associated with Santa to some extent before the 20th century. But I think the 20th century is really when the religion got a bit less important than the actual made up mythos of Santa and Rudolph and Frosty.

I really think it'd be neat to explore this concept. Are there people who specifically study the birth of holidays? And holiday legends? Because I think that would be interesting to learn about. I really think it would be. Because I always feel baffled when I remember that most of these iconic Christmas stories were all invented in the 20th century. Well, the 19th and 20th. But still. It's at least mildly interesting to me. We don't remember most of these guy's names, but a lot of people remember their stories now.