Rudolph's Shiny New Year (U.S. special)

Despite that this TV special was often labeled as a sequel to the 1964 Rudolph TV special, the majority of the other side characters like Clarice, Hermey the Elf, and Yukon Cornelius were all completely absent with no mentioning of them. While the puppet designs of Santa Claus and Rudolph look completely different from their 1964 TV special counterparts. In which Rudolph was depicted as being a younger looking reindeer with a smaller set of antlers as opposed to depicting him as a full grown reindeer with a large set of antlers. While Santa was depicted as being much taller looking. This has prompted some fans to declare this TV special as being a separate continuity from the 1964 TV special.

Red Skelton’s voice for Baby Bear is a recreation of his Junior character from his radio show.

According to Frank Gorshin, all of his voice work for this TV special was all done in within one day.

When Rudolph raises the sail to the boat for his voyage through the Time Islands, there is a calendar for August 1928 visible on the sail. This is a reference to the birth month of writer Romeo Muller who was born on August 7, 1928.

Production on this TV special began in 1975.

Despite that this TV special had a copyright of 1976, the dates and days of the week on the calendars shown during the new year song actually correspond to the calendar from 1973. However the story begins and ends on the island of 1965, which purposefully obfuscating the internal chronology.

Upon its original broadcast, the scene in which Happy enters the home of the Three Bears, which was followed by an outdoor scene of Papa Bear emerging from the forest who emits a low growl before the scene fades to black for a commercial break. This scene ended up being too menacing for children, so the growl was ultimately edited out of the TV special. As a result, the rebroadcasts and home video releases of this TV special depicted the same scene of Papa Bear emerging from the forest, except now when he opens his mouth to growl, no sound emerges whatsoever, thus making the scene less menacing.

The Father Time stop motion puppet that was used for this TV special is the only puppet that still survives to this day due to it being delivered to the Rankin Bass' New York headquarters for publicity purposes after the production in Japan had concluded, and has since been shown at various conventions over the years with Rankin Bass Historian Rick Goldschmidt.

Billie Mae Richards and the rest of the cast expressed that they enjoyed doing the voice work and singing for this TV special.

Happy simply represents the year "nineteen wonderful" as a way to prevent the TV special to be tied to an actual year.

Goof: Despite that each of the Time Islands are time locked on a certain time period, the 1,000,000 B.C. Island features dinosaurs being the main habitat creatures when in reality, dinosaurs went extinct at least 65 million years prior to the year 1,000,000 B.C.

When Rudolph mentioned his visit to the 4,000 B.C. Island, he notes that its inhabitants only wanted to build pyramids rather than locating Happy. This would be in reality put the time frame of the island to approximately one thousand years before the first Nile River valley pyramid known as Adjib's Tomb was built.

When Rudolph mentioned his visit to the 1492 island, he noted that its inhabitants were too busy discovering things as opposed to helping Rudolph locate Happy. Referencing the voyages of Christopher Columbus.

The significance of the 1893 Island in which Rudolph mentions briefly visiting the island to find Happy, is that it is referring to the year of economic depression known as the Panic of 1893.

Rudolph mentions briefly visiting the 1965 Island, but deems the island as too noisy for him to locate Happy. This is a nod to the year being known for having the then current Beatlemania (and other British Invasion-related music hysteria) as well as the growing opposition to the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War.

The 1776 Island’s daily tradition of celebrating the Fourth of July on a daily basis is a very fitting concept as this TV special aired the same year as the bicentennial anniversary of the United States declaring itself independent from British rule.

Billy Mae Richards was the only voice actor from the 1964 Rudolph TV special to reprise her role as Rudolph. And even though Paul Frees didn’t originally voiced Santa in the 1964 TV special nor was he part of the original voice cast. He did however previously voiced Santa in a few other Rankin Bass TV specials which were "Frosty the Snowman" (1969), "Here Comes Peter Cotontail" (1971), & "The First Easter Rabbit" (1976).

Goof: Father Time at first mispronounced the "arch" in "archipelago" several times as "ARCH", before he actually switch over to the correct pronunciation of "ARK" later on in the story.

Goof: When Rudolph arrived at the Sands of Time, he was concerned on how to cross them until Quarter-Past-Five arrived to provide him with a ride. Rudolph is a flying reindeer, so he could have easily flown over the Sands of Time much more quickly than riding on Quarter-Past-Five who is a lumbering camel.

Goof: When Father Time says that Happy left the 1 Million BC island on a giant conch shell. It was in actually a giant scallop shell.

Goof: After Father Time informed Rudolph that Happy ran away when the Time Castle staff all laughed at his big ears, he also explained that they didn't mean to be cruel upon laughing. At yet Rudolph assumes that they also called him names and wouldn't let him join in any New Year games. His remark doesn’t make any sense, as it completely contradicts Father Time's statement, in which the Time Castle staff simply laughed at the sight of Happy's ears out of enjoyment. With no indication that they were calling him names or prevent him from joining any New Year celebrations.

Goof: When Rudolph and his friends eventually found Happy, Rudolph was worried about getting him to the Time Castle before the 12th bong until Santa shows up in his sleigh. Since Rudolph is a magical flying reindeer, he shouldn't need the help of Santa or his sleigh to get to the Time Castle. When he can simply fly back towards the Time Castle with Happy riding on his back.