Rudolph’s Shiny New Year

<p>It’s a special, post-Christmas bonus episode of the Advent Calendar House as we turn back the years to 1976 and tip our oversized hat hiding our oversized ears to Rankin/Bass’s first sequel special, “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year.”</p><hr /><h4>On This Episode</h4><ol><li><strong>Mike Westfall</strong> (<a href="https://twitter.com/fallwestmike">@fallwestmike</a>), the living embodiment of a friendly reminder that someday you’re going to die.</li><li><strong>Brandon Medley</strong> (<a href="https://twitter.com/brandmed">@brandmed</a>) from <a href="http://blessedarethegeek.tumblr.com">Blessed Are the Geek</a>.</li><li><strong>Joey O.</strong> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ImGonnaDJ24">@ImGonnaDJ24</a>) from <a href="http://ynotradio.net">Y-Not Radio</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Words_W_Nerds">Words With Nerds</a>.</li></ol><hr /><h4>Topics and Tangents</h4><ol><li>Rudolph devolves into a younger-looking reindeer, because the original model may have been lost. But also he seems to forget he can fly.</li><li>According to our narrator, Father Time <i>(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Skelton">Red Skelton</a>)</i>, this story begins “on that very same foggy night.” As in Christmas Eve. When Santa’s kind of busy.</li><li>I learned who Red Skelton was from a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xNWF96fFGY">joke in a Tex Avery cartoon</a>.</li><li>Rudolph has to cross a desert to see a man who lives under a star about a baby who must be found in order to save the world.</li><li>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJaNDQ-jkxs">The Phantom Tollbooth</a>,” in example.</li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI5rIjyqaIw">Tik-Tok from “Return to Oz,”</a> in example.</li><li>Creepier song about time: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYPdCfu0pM">The Moving Finger Writes</a>” from this, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdIRrmNN_CQ">“Older” by They Might Be Giants</a>?</li><li>Ralph Archibold, Philadelphia’s longtime <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obitu