Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer postage stamps

This 55-minute stop-action feature by Rankin/Bass Productions premiered on American television December 6, 1964, and is still immensely popular in the US after fifty years. It was based on a 1939 poem, written for a department store, which was in turn released as an immensely popular song in 1949. 

A note on YouTube by the Miser Brothers Press, who distributes merchandise related to the special, says that “[t]he lettering that is featured on the packages in the original end credits was done by Tony Peters and Arthur Rankin, Jr.” Peters was the storyboard artist and Rankin was the producer. Rankin, who had worked as a TV art director, also drew the characters, so he probably directed Peters on the lettering. Tony Peters died in 2009, and Arthur Rankin died only last February.

A digital version of the letterforms was created by Steve Ferrera and has been published as freeware font under the name Island of Misfit Toys. Thanks to Ryuk on Typophile.com for identifying it so quickly. Island of Misfit Toys has been used in the TV movie A Miser Brothers’ Christmas (ABC Family, 2008). The stamps don’t use this very font, though: the letters there either are heavily modified and cleaned-up, or custom.

I never liked this program, even when I was a kid!