{"id":4185,"date":"2012-12-20T04:01:10","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T12:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/entertainment\/?p=4185"},"modified":"2015-11-30T03:45:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T11:45:32","slug":"did-montgomery-ward-give-the-rights-to-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-back-to-the-songs-author-for-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/entertainment\/2012\/12\/20\/did-montgomery-ward-give-the-rights-to-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-back-to-the-songs-author-for-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Montgomery Ward Give the Rights to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Back to the Story’s Author for Free?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about music and whether they are true or false. Click here<\/a> to view an archive of the music urban legends featured so far.<\/p>\n

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND<\/span><\/u>: The CEO of Montgomery Ward returned the rights to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to his creator for free. <\/p>\n

There is a dispute over just how Robert May, a copywriter for Montgomery Ward, came up with the story that became Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The difference between the two stories is not particularly vast. In one, May is assigned a job by his boss as Montgomery Ward to come up with a story that could be used for a promotional giveaway book for the 1939 Christmas season. In the second, May came up with the story first<\/b> and then was paid $300 for the rights to the story for use in a giveaway book for the 1939 Christmas season. May himself told the former version of the story in a series of articles over the years (May passed away in 1976). The latter version of the story originated with writer Ace Collins’ Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas<\/a>\"\". Collins claims that he was given access to documents from Montgomery Ward (before they went out of business in 2001) that verified his story, and that May was just going along with the story Montgomery Ward wanted (that he created the character as a work-for-hire for Montgomery Ward as opposed to Montgomery Ward buying the character’s rights from May). I could see either story being true, but for the sake of this legend, it does not really matter how<\/strong> we got to the point of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer being owned by Montgomery Ward so much as we got to the point where Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was, indeed, owned by Montgomery Ward. <\/p>\n

The department store chain produced over 2 million copies of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer story as a giveaway in 1939. <\/p>\n

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