50 free Rudolph trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Rudolph trivia questions with answers. Rudolph is younger than most people assume. He was invented in 1939 as a giveaway booklet for a department store, by a copywriter who nearly called him Rollo, and whose bosses first rejected the glowing nose because in the 1930s a red nose meant a drunk. This quiz follows the whole chain: the booklet and its 2.4 million copies, the 1949 song, and the 1964 stop-motion special that was voiced in Toronto, animated in Tokyo, sponsored by General Electric and has aired every December since. There are questions on Hermey the would-be dentist, Yukon Cornelius, King Moonracer and the Abominable Snow Monster, plus a final round on the real animal, which is the only deer whose females grow antlers. Every answer is written against a sourced account with the sentence that establishes it attached. Good for a Christmas quiz, a family movie night, or the argument about which network is supposed to show it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who created the character of Rudolph, in 1939?
Robert L. May
It was a work assignment: his employer wanted a Christmas giveaway booklet of its own.
Q 02Which department store commissioned the original booklet?
Montgomery Ward
The chain had been buying booklets to give away each Christmas and decided making its own would be cheaper.
Q 03Which two names did the author consider before settling on Rudolph?
Rollo and Reginald
He picked a reindeer at all because his daughter loved the deer at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.
Q 04How many copies did the store give away in the first year?
2.4 million
It was written as a poem, in the same metre as 'A Visit from St. Nicholas'.
Q 05What gave the author the idea for the glowing nose?
Fog off Lake Michigan
He said it hit him at his office window: a nose that would shine through fog like a spotlight.
Q 06Why was the red nose idea initially rejected?
It suggested alcoholism
In 1930s popular culture a bright red nose meant a drunkard, and management took some convincing.
Q 07Which illustrator's sketches convinced management to approve the story?
Denver Gillen
He drew from live deer at the zoo, and the bouncy character he produced won the argument.
Q 08In which poetic metre is the original story written?
Anapestic tetrameter
It is the same metre as 'A Visit from St. Nicholas', which is why it reads like a Christmas Eve poem.
Q 09Which publisher issued the first mass-market edition, in 1947?
Maxton Books
The copyright on that edition runs until 2034.
Q 10What was the 1954 sequel called?
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Shines Again
Another sequel, written in 1947, sat unpublished until Applewood Books printed it in 1992.
Q 11Which unpublished 1947 sequel finally appeared in 1992?
Rudolph's Second Christmas
Penguin later reissued it under the title Rudolph to the Rescue.
Q 12Who wrote the 1949 song that made the character famous?
Johnny Marks
The television special two decades later took its title and its story straight from that song.
Q 13In which year did the stop-motion television special first air?
1964
It went out on 6 December on NBC, sponsored by General Electric under a Fantasy Hour banner.
Which sponsor backed the special's first broadcast?
Q 21In which city were the voices for the special recorded?
Toronto
Rankin and Bass used Canadian actors partly because American radio drama work had dried up.
Q 22What job does Hermey the elf want instead of making toys?
Dentist
He and Rudolph sing 'We're a Couple of Misfits' after both walk out on the workshop.
Q 23What is Yukon Cornelius searching for?
Silver and gold
He spends the whole special licking his pickaxe to check, and never finds either.
Q 24Who rules the Island of Misfit Toys?
General Electric
The umbrella title on air was The General Electric Fantasy Hour.
Q 15Which studio made the 1964 special?
Videocraft International
It was later renamed Rankin/Bass, the name most people know it by.
Q 16What is the stop-motion process used in it called?
Animagic
It was filmed at MOM Productions in Tokyo under Tadahito Mochinaga.
Q 17In which city was the special's animation actually shot?
Tokyo
The voices were recorded in Toronto, and the songs polished afterwards in New York.
Q 18Which folk singer voiced Sam the Snowman?
Burl Ives
He was hired to please the network and the sponsor, a tactic Rankin/Bass repeated in later specials.
Q 19Who was originally cast as the snowman narrator before the change?
Larry D. Mann
The producers wanted a bigger celebrity name to sell the special to NBC.
Q 20Which actress voiced the title character?
Billie Mae Richards
Most of the cast were Canadian, recorded over two days at RCA Studios in Toronto.
King Moonracer, a winged lion
He flies out each night to find unwanted toys and bring them somewhere safe.
Q 25How is the Abominable Snow Monster finally subdued?
Hermey pulls out its teeth
Yukon Cornelius later brings it back tamed, and it turns out to be very good at trimming trees.
Q 26What job does the tamed monster do at the end?
Trimming a Christmas tree
Yukon explains that its bouncing ability had saved all their lives on the way home.
Q 27Which network aired the special from 1972 to 2023?
CBS
NBC had it from 1964 to 1971 and took it back again in 2024.
Q 28What did CBS unveil in 2005?
A digitally remastered version
It was re-scanned frame by frame from the original 35mm film elements.
Q 29Which anniversaries fell in 2014?
75 years of the character, 50 of the special
The character had first appeared in 1939 and the stop-motion special in 1964.
Q 30As of 2024, which rights holder controlled the Rudolph story?
The Rudolph Company, LP
Character Arts managed the licensing alongside DreamWorks Classics.