What happened to the original snowman narrator?


Maybe he perished in a freak heat wave after the orginal movie aired.

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Funny you should say that! That's precisely what happened to most of the "cast": they were originally intended to be destroyed after filming was complete, but one executive snuck them home instead (not a difficult feat, as all the "Rudulph" models were actually very small; Rudolph is approximately 4" long). The executive's family displayed them at Christmastime for several years; eventually, the models fell into disuse and were stored in the family's attic for decades. Several years ago, other family members shought to retrieve the models from the attic to sell to a collector; sadly, it was discovered that the intense heat of dozens of summers spent in the stifling attic had melted all but two of the models beyond possible repair. The two "survivors" were restored, and are on display at the Rankin/Bass Studios. The lone survivors: Rudolph and Santa!

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Funny you should say that! That's precisely what happened to most of the "cast": they were originally intended to be destroyed after filming was complete, but one executive snuck them home instead (not a difficult feat, as all the "Rudulph" models were actually very small; Rudolph is approximately 4" long). The executive's family displayed them at Christmastime for several years; eventually, the models fell into disuse and were stored in the family's attic for decades. Several years ago, other family members shought to retrieve the models from the attic to sell to a collector; sadly, it was discovered that the intense heat of dozens of summers spent in the stifling attic had melted all but two of the models beyond possible repair. The two "survivors" were restored, and are on display at the Rankin/Bass Studios. The lone survivors: Rudolph and Santa!

That's pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing. I don't see what the point of destroying them would have been but I guess they had their reasons. What about the characters in the other Rankin/Bass movies? Similar fate I would imagine.

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They could have cast a voice for Sam the snowman and brought him back, but I'm glad they didn't. At least one original cast member avoided this trainwreck of a movie.

What probably happened was nobody on staff knew about Sam. From the pathetic outcome of this movie, I'm shocked they got anything right.

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