It has been twenty years since the release of my Rudolph book! I wanted to re-clarify some things about the Rudolph and Santa Animagic figures!

 My book has been out for twenty years now!   All of my updates on Rudolph have either been in my other 5 Rankin/Bass hardcover books or in my articles in RetroFan magazine (Big Rudolph article last Christmas and a Mad Monster Party article in October 2021 with Rudolph update).   I assisted with both the auction of the Rudolph and Santa Animagic figures in November of 2020 and the display of the figures at the Center for Puppetry arts November 2021.   I have seen some clips from Antiques Roadshow and their Podcast which are very misleading.   They interviewed me for both, but failed to disclose that these figures are NOT the ones used in the actual animation of the TV Special.    They are the publicity used Animagic figures for photos and the NBC Display at the Rockefeller Plaza in NY.   Tad Mochinaga and his staff hung onto the puppets used in the actual animation and you can see pictures in both my book on The Making of Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town and The Daydreamer, and also Rankin/Bass' Frosty the Snowman 50th Anniversary scrapbook.   You can clearly see Santa's beard is shorter and decaying in the lines in the beard where Santa's mouth moved in the special, unlike the Santa beard on the one in the Center for Puppetry arts (Which is larger and rounder as in the publicity photos).   I made this discovery last Christmas and wrote about it and also did interviews about it, but apparently "Production used" or "Screen used" sounds better to some producers, so they mislead a bit.