Rudolph's Shiny New Year

Rudolph's Shiny New Year
Cover of the 1999 VHS release
Written by	Romeo Muller
Directed by	Jules Bass Arthur Rankin Jr.
Voices of	Billie Mae Richards Red Skelton Morey Amsterdam Frank Gorshin Paul Frees Don Messick Harold Peary
Narrated by	Red Skelton
Theme music composer	Johnny Marks
Composer(s)	Johnny Marks Maury Laws
Country of origin	United States Japan
Original language(s)	English Japanese (Dubbed)
Production
Producer(s)	Jules Bass Arthur Rankin Jr.
Cinematography	Akikazu Kono Ichiro Komuro
Running time	50 minutes
Production company(s)	Rankin/Bass Productions
Release
Original network	ABC (1976-present) Freeform (present) TV Asahi (1979)
Original release	December 10, 1976 (USA) December 24, 1979 (Japan)
Chronology
Preceded by	Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
Followed by	Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979)

Rudolph's Shiny New Year is a 1976 Christmas/New Year's stop motion animated television special and a sequel to the 1964 special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. The special premiered on ABC on December 10, 1976. Three years later, it was also aired on TV Asahi in Japan on December 24, 1979 under the Japanese dub title 赤鼻のトナカイ ルドルフ物語 (Akahananotonakai Rudorufu Monogatari).

A year after delivering Christmas presents, Santa Claus receives a letter from his friend Father Time asking for help to find Happy the Baby New Year before midnight on New Year's Eve, or else it will be December 31 forever. Santa sends Rudolph out to find him. An evil vulture called Eon the Terrible is supposed to live for exactly one Eon after which he will turn into ice and snow and disintegrate. As his particular Eon will end January 1 of the New Year, he plans to kidnap Happy to keep the year from ending and stop time, thus preventing his predestined death.

Father Time speculates that Happy, who ran away due to his big ears being laughed at, is hiding out in the "Archipelago of Last Years", where the Old Years retire and rule over an island styled to resemble the year over which they ruled. Sent to assist in this journey are some agents of Father Time including General Ticker (a military clock), The Great Quarter-Past-Five (a camel with a clock in his hump), and Big Ben (a whale with a clock attached to his tail).

Upon arrival in the Archipelagos, Rudolph first travels to the island belonging to a caveman named One Million B.C. ("O.M." for short). O.M. inhabits an island anachronistically inhabited with friendly dinosaurs and other prehistoric and long-extinct creatures. As Rudolph and his friends search for Happy (who left after his hat accidentally fell off and revealing his big ears, causing the dinosaurs to laugh), they repeatedly encounter Eon.