SyncBlog

With a story as well-known as Rudolph, it's fun to play "what if," and try to figure out what would happen if things had gone a little differently. If Rudolph had never bothered to come back to the North Pole, for instance, there would've been some pretty dire consequences. The obvious change, of course, is that Christmas just doesn't happen that year, but in the grand scheme of things, that wouldn't be so bad — Santa could always just deliver the presents on New Year's or something, and in the meantime, all those greedy kids who abandoned their polka dot elephants could learn to appreciate the things they had.

The bigger problem, of course, is the complete collapse of the entire space-time continuum.

See, while it's far less well known than the original special, the sequel, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, is infinitely more insane. In it, a cosmically powerful vulture called Eon the Terrible, who's fated to disintegrate on January 1, sets his sights on kidnapping Happy, the Baby New Year, to stop time and therefore stave off his prophesied death. The good news is Happy is hiding out in the Archipelago of Last Years — which is basically what would happen if you mashed up Hawaii with the concept of time travel — and for some reason, Rudolph gets sent to bring him back. Apparently Santa Claus, who can literally see every child no matter where they are, couldn't be bothered to take a few minutes to save the universe from utter destruction.

Needless to say, Rudolph succeeds and the flow of time continues unabated. If he hadn't been Santa's go-to guy, however, it's pretty clear that we'd all be spending an ageless eternity on December 31, ruled over by a giant vulture. No offense, but Comet and Cupid ain't solving that one.

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