Rick Goldschmidt the Rankin Bass historian has the footage but is awaiting funds for a proper restoration and transfer. I doubt he’ll ever make it public unless Dreamworks finally takes an interest in it and includes the footage on a DVD release.
Is there any way that we could get in touch with Rick, and ask him personally to just upload it on YouTube? (For simply preservation purposes)
Also, can you please send me the Discord link for the puppet show Slniecko discussion?
He has Facebook as well as email I believe. He runs the enchantedrankinbass website as well as the Rankin Bass page and group on Facebook. I doubt he’ll ever upload it to YouTube though. He did say it’ll be part of his “Rankin Bass portfolio” but I am unsure of what exactly that means.
So essentially....he’s keeping it for himself instead of showing any of it publicly.
Could you ask him to at least send us a few screenshots of the colorized footage?
Not exactly, this is what he told me about it “To get them transferred will cost quite a bit of $$$, and to make the $$$ back it will need to be used in something that makes $$$. Not free on the internet unfortunately”
So essentially the only way to see it will be when it’s included in something that will help return the money spent on the transfer. Unfortunately no one with the current distribution or home media rights to Rudolph is interested in the credits unfortunately.
Maybe if the credits were found back in the 90’s when the peppermint mine scene was found and included it would be a different story and the studio would actually care about including the credits. I just hope in the future things will change, I know Rick does too.