Rudolph's New Year

We're in that special time of year where there are specials. Many, many specials. Most of them are Christmas shows, repeated in many cases for eons. Some of them probably should never again see the light of day. But the television schedule must be filled, so the good is repeated with the bad.

Rankin-Bass (purveyors of many holiday programs, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer likely the most well known and loved) in an obvious attempt to take advantage of sentimentality, in 1975 created a New Year's special featuring our nasally powerful friend.

It isn't good. I caught it on Christmas Eve and could have spent my time better. But one thing about it left me laughing. It was surely unintentionally funny, and maybe only my warped mind thinks so. 

To cut to the chase, when a new year rings in 'old' year retires to an individually chosen island where it stays his year forever. The island of 1889, for example, stays locked in 1889 for all times. It serves the plot, I suppose. You don't want to kill off a character, in this case an old man who represents the passing year, in a kid's show.

My question is this. If each island stays a given year, does that mean that the island of 1352 repeats the Black Plague forever? In 1883, must Krakatoa constantly erupt? Does 1943 live the Battle of Stalingrad over and over again? How about Rome getting sacked day in and day out by barbarians on island 476? Must Bill Buckner constantly have that ground ball hop through his legs from the 1986 World Series for all times, for crying out loud? None of that sounds like retirement. It sounds like Hell.

I'm just asking.