First of all, the burning question:
Did the original Rudolph live at the North Pole?
I always thought that, didn’t you? Rudolph was hanging around Santa’s workshop, bullied and left out, until the night when he was in the right place at the right time. Those other reindeer who wouldn’t play with him were the well-known Germanic-sounding troupe including Donder and Blitzen. Weren’t they? Well, no. Not in the story as initially written. For that, we have to go back to 1939, as the Great Depression waned, and visit the Chicago branch of Montgomery Ward, a member of that great department store chain whose catalogs provided so much reading material to lonely housewives out on the lone prair-ee. (The chain, often fondly called “Monkey Ward,” is alas no more, but I will proudly point out that my little portable sewing machine was bought at the Denver store more years ago than I care to think about. It’s still going strong, I’m happy to say.)