When Rudolph's red nose hit the screens in homes across the nation in 1964 via Rankin & Bass' holiday movie special entitled Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, people everywhere fell in love with this glowy-snouted oddball. When the outcast heroically saved Christmas by guiding Santa's sleigh through a stormy Christmas Eve, the world cheered as his eccentricity became the source of his triumph. But when the film ended without redemption for those many exiled toys which he met on the Island of Misfit Toys, public outcry was so strong that production was re-initiated and the movie's ending was modified to include a resolution for these other banished playthings. Why was this necessary?

Viewer protest was strong enough to prompt a validation for these misfits for a profound reason: deep down, each of us sees a little of ourselves in outcasts. We relate to those who do not fit in, are regarded as unlovable, or are simply perceived as "odd." And, it is each of our deep-seeded desire to see this ostracization reversed; to see the outcast find a place to belong; and for the unloved to find comfort and affection. By leaving the toys behind, it was as though the statement being made was that such oddballs deserved to be left behind as well