Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 60th Anniversary Mystery Minis - Yukon Cornelius exclusive review

For 33 years, nobody got the joke of this character.

Throughout Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Yukon Cornelius is seen using his pick on the ice and snow, then tasting and sniffing it to see if he's found what he's looking for. Considering the song "Silver and Gold" is sung right after Cornelius is introduced, we're left to assume that's what he's looking for. And if you watched the TV special through the '70s, '80s, and '90s, that was all there was; but in 1998, a scene was restored that had only appeared during the original 1964 broadcast and was removed the next year, a scene that showed Cornelius finally finding what he was looking for: he was tasting his pickaxe because he was looking for peppermint, proving he's just as much of a weirdo as Rudolph and Hermey! CBS kept showing the old version, while ABC Family/Freeform showed the restored version. When NBC regained the broadcast rights in 2024, they showed the full one, as well.

Yukon Cornelius gets his name from Canada's northwesternmost territory - yes, it is more north and more west than even the Northwest Territories. It backs right up against Alaska, so Corny, here, being a big burly prospector makes sense. He's got a big orange beard and a crinkly mustache, wears a red knit cap and a pair of light yellow earmuffs, has snowshoes under his black boots, and wears a large backpack with a bedroll on top. In addition to the pickaxe in his right hand, there are several tools sculpted tucked into his belt. In the cartoon, that's a hammer and pistol, but the gun is missing here, so all we see is the piton on that side. Like most merch, YuCorn is wearing dark blue; in the original special, he wore teal, closer to green. At different points he wears his earmuffs with the strap up, down, or in various places around his bald headl this Mini opts to put right in the middle.