Air dates of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" in its First Twenty Years

 My brother and I were discussing A Christmas Story and how folks have tried to date it using clues in the movie such as the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, a calendar on the wall, the appearance of Wizard of Oz characters, events in sports mentioned by the Old Man, and so forth. I brought up that perhaps since the movie narration is done by the adult Ralphie looking back perhaps his memory of events in his childhood was faulty. Thus he could remember his Dad mentioning some baseball player being traded that Christmas and got mixed up and thought it was  Bill "Bullfrog" Dietrich. "Bullfrog" was actually traded three or four years earlier than the year the movie seems to take place. The same explanation could be used for an upcoming game between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears that was mentioned in the movie, and many other things.

This conversation segued into a conversation about our own memories we found not to be accurate. And I mentioned that when I was younger I thought Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer always aired on December 1st. This made me curious so I searched online for a list of air dates of Ruldolph.... but could not find any. Still curious I went searching through old TV listings to see if Rudolph... ever aired on December 1st when I was a child and found it did one year. In the process I came up with a list of air  dates of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when I was a child. I expanded this list out to its first twenty years. Note, this list may not be totally accurate as stations sometimes aired network programming at different times. However, I did try to cross reference between station listings to make it as accurate as possible. There is always the off chance though two stations both aired it at a time different than the network on the same night though.

Air Dates of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer  the first twenty years it aired.
 
1964: Dec. 6
1965: Dec. 5
1966: Dec. 4
1967: Dec. 8
1968: Dec. 6
1969: Dec. 5
1970: Dec. 4
1971: Dec. 6
1972: Dec. 8
1973: Dec. 7
1974: Dec. 8
1975: Dec. 3
1976: Dec. 1
1977: Nov. 30
1978: Dec. 6
1979: Dec. 5
1980: Dec. 3
1981: Dec. 14
1982: Dec. 1
1983: Nov. 27
1984: Dec. 1