Romeo Muller, Jr. was an American screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 and actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 most remembered for his screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

s such as for the 1964 TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Early years

Muller was born in the Bronx, New York and raised on Long Island. His talents in the arts were evident very early on. At age 11, he became a puppeteer

Puppetry

Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance which involves the manipulation of puppets. It is very ancient, and is believed to have originated 30,000 years BC. Puppetry takes many forms but they all share the process of animating inanimate performing objects...

 at his grade school and eventually he began writing his own plays.

His career in theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 began when he joined an acting troupe called "Theater Go Round" in Virginia Beach, Virginia

Virginia Beach, Virginia

Virginia Beach is an independent city located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay...

 with producer/friend Lesley Savage. At this time Romeo wrote plays such as Angel With The Big, Big Ears and The Great Getaway, which eventually became the Rankin-Bass off Broadway play A Month Of Sundays. Since Mullerr was a big man at 6'2", 300 pounds (1.88 m, 136 kg), he decided to stay away from acting and turn his attention towards writing.

Career

After writing material for comedian Jack Benny

Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

, Muller was discovered by CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 founder William S. Paley

William S. Paley

William S. Paley was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.-Early life:...

 and selected to be a staff writer for the prestigious Studio One and Philco Theatre. He wrote one of the most popular episodes for the Studio One series entitled "Love Me To Pieces, Baby".

In 1963, Muller met with producer/directors Arthur Rankin, Jr.

Arthur Rankin, Jr.

Arthur Rankin, Jr. is an American-born, Bermudian director, producer and writer, mostly working in animation.The son of actor , in the early 1960s he founded the film production company Videocraft International with Jules Bass...

 and Jules Bass

Jules Bass

Jules Bass is an American director, producer, composer, and author.- Biography :Educated at New York University, he first worked at an advertising agency in New York until the early 1960s, when he founded the film production company Videocraft International with Arthur Rankin, Jr...

 and began a relationship that would last for years. Rankin and Bass asked Romeo to write a screenplay for their first Network television special, entitled Return To Oz

Return to Oz

Return to Oz is a 1985 film which is an unofficial sequel to Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz. The film is based on the second and third Oz books, The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz...

, which aired on NBC's the General Electric Fantasy Hour. The show was a success and set the stage for the most popular holiday television special of all time Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Muller embellished the short story into an hour-long broadcast and added a variety of characters into the story.

Muller is also known for his screenplays in other such films as Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, The Little Drummer Boy, Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Here Comes Peter Cottontail is a 1971 Easter television special made by Rankin-Bass, based on a 1957 novel by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich entitled The Easter Bunny That Overslept. The title of the special is from the Easter song "Here Comes Peter Cottontail", which is also heard in the special....

, and Frosty the Snowman

Frosty the Snowman

"Frosty the Snowman" is a popular song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950. It was written after the success of Autry's recording of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" the previous year; Rollins and Nelson shipped the...

, among many others.

He was also the voice of the narrator, a talking sun in the first three Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake is a licensed character owned by American Greetings, originally used in greeting cards and expanded to include dolls, posters, and other products...

 TV specials from the 1980s, which he also wrote and co-produced.

Muller read his favorite and first Christmas story every year on Christmas Eve on New York radio station WGHQ. This story was reworked with a different ending for an animated film in 1992 and aired days before Muller died.

In 2002 the book Jill Chill & the Baron of Glacier Mountain by Ed McCray featured a character named Romeo after Muller. The book is written in the style of the old Christmas specials that Muller had written.

Death

Muller died of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in his sleep shortly after receiving a diagnosis of cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

.

Plays

• Angel With the Big, Big Ears
• A Month of Sundays
• Superman
• A Month of Sundays

Filmography

Holiday TV specials

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV special)
  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a Christmas television special produced in stop motion animation by Rankin/Bass. It first aired Sunday, December 6, 1964, on the NBC television network in the USA, and was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour...
  
  (1964)
• The Cricket on the Hearth
  The Cricket on the Hearth
  The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20  December 1845 with illustrations by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield and Edwin Henry Landseer. Dickens began writing the book around...
  
  (1967)
• Mouse on the Mayflower (1968)
• The Little Drummer Boy (1968)
• Frosty the Snowman
  Frosty the Snowman (TV program)
  Frosty the Snowman is an American animated television special based on the popular song of the same title. The program, which first aired on December 7, 1969 on CBS , was produced for television by Rankin/Bass and featured the voices of comedians Jimmy Durante as narrator and Jackie Vernon as the...
  
  (1969)
• Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
  Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (TV special)
  Santa Claus is Comin' to Town is a 1970 stop motion television special, made by Rankin-Bass with models carved from wood . The film stars actor Fred Astaire as S.D. Kluger, the narrator, and Mickey Rooney as Kris Kringle/Santa Claus...
  
  (1970)
• Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971)
• Rudolph's Shiny New Year
  Rudolph's Shiny New Year
  Rudolph's Shiny New Year is the 1976 stop-motion animated sequel to the 1964 television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced by Rankin/Bass.-Plot:...
  
  (1976)
• Frosty's Winter Wonderland
  Frosty's Winter Wonderland
  Frosty's Winter Wonderland is an animated Christmas television special produced in 1976 by Rankin-Bass. It is a sequel to the 1969 Frosty the Snowman special, also written by Romeo Muller, with narration provided by Andy Griffith...
  
  (1976)
• The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town(1977)
• Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
  Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
  Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey is a Christmas television special produced in stop motion animation by Rankin-Bass. It was first aired in 1977, and its plot is similar to an earlier Rankin-Bass special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.- Plot :...
  
  (1977)
• The Stingiest Man in Town (1978)
• The Little Rascals Christmas Special (1979)
• Jack Frost
  Jack Frost (TV special)
  Jack Frost was an animated television special, directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr. and written by Romeo Muller; it premiered on NBC on December 13, 1979. This stop motion animated special tells the tale of Jack Frost, the winter sprite, and his adventures as a human...
  
  (1979)
• Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July
  Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July
  Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July is a feature-length 1979 Rankin-Bass crossover sequel filmed in stop-motion animation in the style of their 1964 Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was 97 minutes long. Although designed as a theatrical release , it made its U.S...
  
  (1979)
• Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz (aka Dorothy in the Land of Oz) (1980)
• Pinocchio's Christmas (1980)
• The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold (1981)
• The Snowman {1982}
• Peter and the Magic Egg (1983)
• Father Christmas (1991)
• Rugrats Santa experience (1992)
• The Twelve Days of Christmas (1993)
• The Land Before Time the great valley adventure: {1994}
• The Land before Time the time of the great giving: {1995}
• The Land Before Time journey through the mists: {1996}

Other TV specials

• Return to Oz
  Return to Oz (TV program)
  Return to Oz is an animated television special produced by Crawley Films for Rankin/Bass . It first aired 9 February 1964 in the United States on NBC's General Electric Color Fantasy Hour. It was directed by F.R...
  
  (1964)
• The Ballad of Smokey the Bear (1965)
• The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians (1970)
• The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor's New Clothes (1972)
• Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid (1972)
• The Hobbit (1977)
• It's a Brand New World (1977)
• Puff the Magic Dragon (1978)
• Puff the Magic Dragon in The Land of the Living Lies (1979)
• The Return of the King
  The Return of the King (1980 film)
  The Return of the King, also known as The Return of the King: A Story of the Hobbits, is a 1980 animated television special created by Rankin/Bass and Topcraft. The film is an adaptation of the third volume in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R...
  
  (1980)
• The World of Strawberry Shortcake (1980)
• Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City (1981)
• Puff and the Incredible Mr. Nobody (1982)
• Strawberry Shortcake in Pets on Parade (1982)
• The Flight of Dragons (1982)
• The Wind in the Willows (1983)
• Peppermint Rose (1992)

TV series

• The Smokey Bear Show (1969)
• The Reluctant Dragon and Mr. Toad Show (1970–71)
• The Jackson 5ive Show (1971–73)
• The Osmonds (1972–74)
• The Comic Strip
  The Comic Strip (TV series)
  The Comic Strip was an American animated series which featured four rotating cartoon segments. The 30-minute series ran in first-run syndication during the 1987-1988 season and was also seen on RPN-9 in the Philippines....
  
  (1987) (The Mini-Monsters segments)
• The Kids from C.A.P.E.R.
  The Kids From C.A.P.E.R.
  The Kids From C.A.P.E.R. is a Saturday morning live action television comedy series for children, produced by NBC, that aired from September 11, 1976 to November 20, 1976 and resumed from April 9, 1977 to September 3, 1977. The 13 episodes were produced and directed by Stanley Z. Cherry; among the...
  
   (1976-77)

Feature films

• The Daydreamer (1966)
• The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1966)
• Marco (1972)

Films

• "" {1993}

External links