59-Year Old Special

59th Anniversary this year

We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas last evening as part of our holiday viewing tradition. 

Did You Know?

December 9 was the 59th anniversary of the animation which debuted in 1965 on the CBS network. The animated special was watched by more than 15 million households, more than half of all TV sets at the time. 

In the special, Charlie Brown is depressed despite the onset of the holidays. He then becomes upset at the commercialization he sees all around. After Lucy van Pelt suggests he direct a neighborhood Christmas play, his best efforts are ignored. Then, he's laughed at by his friends after he chooses a sad-looking little Christmas tree that he believes will be perfect, once it's decorated. When Charlie Brown asks if anyone knows what Christmas is all about. Linus walks to center stage, asks for a spotlight, drops his blanket and recites Luke 2: 8-14 annunciation to the shepherds then says, That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." His friends reconsider their meanness towards Charlie Brown and decorate the tree. The programs ends with everyone singing Hark, the Herald Angels Sing during the closing credits.

A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first TV special based on characters from the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz. It was written by Schulz and produced by Lee Mendelson and directed by Bill Melendez. 

What you may not know is that it almost never aired and, even when it did, CBS network executives had little faith that it would be a success. 

Here's What Happened

The 30-minute Christmas special was commissioned by a commercial sponsor looking to turn the nation's most beloved newspaper cartoon into an animated TV special. In 1965, Coca Cola wanted to sponsor a family-friendly Christmas special and contacted producer Lee Mendelson asking if he and Schulz had ever considered doing a Charlie Brown holiday program. When Mendelson lied that they were thinking about it, he was asked for an outline of the show. He went to Schulz telling him that he sold A Charlie Brown Christmas and they had to write it in 3 days as Coca Cola wanted an outline by then. 

When Coca Cola had its ad agency McCann Erickson pitch the idea to CBS. It was rejected outright. 

The Peanuts characters that Charles Schulz created were popular personalities, just not the kind that fronted prime time some thought. According to the network, the public would have specific expectations. A Charlie Brown Christmas included unexpected elements: children’s voices instead of trained adults, jazz music, a Bible passage and no laugh track.

Then CBS president James Aubrey didn’t believe in specials. He saw them as programming interruptions that distracted viewers from their viewing routines. To Aubrey, children fell into this category expecting cartoons only on a weekend morning and, to Aubrey, Charles Schulz and Peanuts fit that category.

Ironically, in February 1965, Aubrey was replaced as network president by Fred Stanton, not only a friend of Charles Schulz, but a big fan of the comic. It helped to have friends in high positions as in no time, CBS executives agreed to the special. That gave the team of Schulz, Mendelson and animator-director Bill Melendez barely six months to craft a half-hour animated special, a first for all. The team had to create a script, then record it, add-in a soundtrack and create 30,000 animation cells. Consider that in the 1960s, this was before computer-animated design and AI.

Producer Lee Mendelson, Charles Schulz, Director Bill Mendelez (Internet Source)

Three weeks before screening the special, things didn’t look good at all. CBS executives thought the pace was slow, music didn’t quite fit every scene, the dialogue sounded stiff, plus there was no laugh track. This was in the 1960s, when every TV comedy had one. It wasn't included since Schulz thought more highly of viewers. He didn't think they should be cued to laugh at certain times. While some of these issues would be improved, one was thankfully left out — there's no laugh track. 

Realizing that the Vince Guaraldi instrumental for the opening sequence with children skating on the frozen pond, seemed too slow, producer Mendelson jotted the lyrics to Christmastime is Here on an envelope. Guaraldi enlisted a CA children’s choir to sing the lyrics. Since, the actor's cadences were harder to edit, music accompanies some of the dialogue.

What Else Didn't Executives Like?

Linus recites gospel (Internet source)

Everything it seems. Lyrics or not, CBS executives considered the music too sophisticated for a children's program and didn’t think jazz belonged in a cartoon.They also balked at Schulz’s decision to use untrained children instead of professional adult voice actors. Schulz disagreed and argued that using children made the characters more believable. Executives also couldn’t understand why children would use such big words despite the fact that for 15 years, “Peanuts” characters had used adult vocabularies in the comic strip. 

To top it off, CBS executives objected to Linus reciting the story of the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke. The network big-wigs assumed that viewers wouldn't want to listen to something religious or that it wouldn’t be interesting to sit through. Schulz insisted the scripture reading remain and wouldn't back down. He was a long-time Sunday school teacher, and knew the reading would be the show's centerpiece of the show. (As it turned out, he was right according to viewers' later feedback.)

The Network Conceded — It Became a Big Hit

It was a tight production schedule. Coca-Cola had already bankrolled the program and it had been promoted and listed in TV guides. CBS had no choice but to air it, so the executives reluctantly gave in. They remained steadfast in the conviction that it would flop, never to be aired again.

The half-hour special aired Thursday, December 9, 1965, pre-empting The Munsters and following Gilligan’s Island. To everyone's surprise, especially CBS, it was a commercial success; 50 percent of the U.S. televisions tuned into the broadcast. Afterwards, Coca-Cola was inundated with letters from fans.

In 1966,  A Charlie Brown Christmas won a Peabody and Emmy for outstanding children’s programming. Its success changed the network’s prime-time philosophy. The following year, CBS telecast a second prime-time animated holiday special, an adaptation of How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. In 1969, it aired Frosty the Snowman.

CBS ran A Charlie Brown Christmas annually for 35 years until ABC acquired the rights in 2001, a year after Charles Schulz died. ABC contracted to air the special through 2015.It was the first of more than 51 animated Peanuts TV specials. Many of the specials were directed by Bill Melendez and scored by Vince Guaraldi. 

The soundtrack to the 1965 animated special is one of the most popular holiday albums. Featuring music by Guaraldi, it's sold over 5 million copies, across all formats, including 469,000 vinyl LPs, and has been certified Quintuple Plantinum. Guaraldi died February 6, 1976, aged 47, of a heart attack after ending a nightclub performance in Menlo Park.

Who Owns A Charlie Brown Christmas Now?

In 2020, Apple TV+ acquired the rights to the three most popular Peanuts holiday animations: A Charlie Brown Christmas, also It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. This means that they're only available to view on that streaming service. This year, A Charlie Brown Christmas streams free on Apple TV+ only on Saturday and Sunday, December 14 and 15. The free viewing window only lasts for two days. A subscription to Apple TV+ is not required, which is little comfort to those without internet streaming capability.

While this unfortunately means that there's no longer free showings on network TV. There is an easier, and overall, less costly alternative which would let you watch it free every year when it's convenient (not just on certain days). These Peanuts holiday specials are available in DVD and Blu-Ray format, which means buy once, watch many times. 

Quite often, you can buy them at a library sale too. Our local library sells books, movies and music CDs at its annual March sale and it's where we bought the 3 DVD set shown above. Yes, we watched and enjoyed all the specials this year.

Our Charlie Brown Tree & Peanuts members

We have our own Charlie Brown tree and Peanuts friends. These were bought many years ago at an after-Christmas sale for a fraction of what they're being sold for today. They bring a smile every time we see them on our living room window shelf.