Puppet center gets ‘Rudolph’ originals

ATLANTA — The most famous reindeer of all has flown to Atlanta.

The puppet hero of the 1964 animated children’s feature, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and his boss Santa have piloted their sleigh to Midtown’s Center for Puppetry Arts.

An anonymous donor bought them for $368,000 at auction Nov. 13 and gave them to the center on semi-permanent loan.

Rudolph’s stop-motion Christmas special is perhaps the most successful Rankin/Bass production ever, and one of the most durable traditions of holiday television-watching.

In 2014, on the film’s 50th anniversary, the U.S. Postal Service issued stamps in its honor.

But while the film has lasted, the puppets that starred in it haven’t. After the production wrapped, the filmmakers handed out the poseable figures as souvenirs. Rudolph, Santa, Hermey the elf, Sam the Snowman, Bumble, Clarice (Rudolph’s crush) and others, were scattered.

One crew member gave about a half dozen to the children in her family, who played with them harshly.

No one imagined then that the figures would become treasures. In 2006 a nephew of a Rankin/Bass employee brought two battered but surviving stars — Rudolph and Santa — to the experts at the PBS production “Antiques

Road Show,” and they were judged to be genuine, and worth $8,000 to $10,000.

Kevin Kriess of Time and Space Toys in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, acquired the figures, had them restored, and put them up for auction this year on Nov. 13. The selling price was expected to be $150,000 to $250,000.

Beth Schiavo, executive director of the Center for Puppetry Arts, got updates from the auction, as the bids went up. She knew that a certain Atlanta individual had an eye on the puppets, with the goal of lending them to the center.

Bids rose above $300,000, and Schiavo thought, “There’s no way our donor will go that far. Come on!” But the donor stayed with the bidding, buying the pair for $368,000.

Schiavo was flabbergasted. “It was incredibly generous,” she said.

The Midtown puppetry center is a logical home for Rudolph and Santa. In

2010 the center debuted a puppet show based on the Rankin/Smith film. Atlanta’s puppet builders viewed the film, frame-byframe, to recreate scrupulously accurate puppet versions of the figures.

The center’s yearly performance of “Rudolph,” through an exclusive arrangement with the licensing company Character Arts, is always its most popular show.