Happy is a character from Rudolph's Shiny New Year. He is the Baby New Year who is destined to represent the year "19-Wonderful" as the old year passes. Born with abnormally large ears, his appearance causes people to laugh when he removes his top hat. Everyone in Father Time's castle (including his nurse, Nanny Nine O'Clock) laughs so much that he can't put up with it anymore and decides to run away to the Archipelago of Last Years.
Through the various years preserved in the islands of the Archipelago, Happy never finds anyone who can't laugh at his ears and finds himself constantly on the move. Eventually, Rudolph catches up with him and helps him by telling his own story about being an outcast, and the fact that his ears make people happy. With some help from Santa Claus, he makes it back across the Sands of Time just before the last stroke of midnight on December 31st so that he can become the New Year.