A Charlie Brown Christmas

***A Charlie Brown Christmas*** is the first of 45 animated television specials based on the comic strip *Peanuts* by Charles M. Schulz, it originally aired on CBS on December 9, 1965. In the program, Charlie Brown questions the meaning of Christmas, if it has lost its true meaning from how commercial it is.

All of the *Peanuts* characters that had been introduced and established as permanent in the strip by 1965 feature in the program. "Pig-Pen", Frieda and even Shermy feature in minor roles; 5 and his sisters 3 and 4 appear in non-speaking roles, performing memorable dances. Charlotte Braun had been dropped a decade earlier, and Roy had only made one guest appearance at camp that year.

## Plot

Most of the Peanuts characters are skating on a frozen pond as the song "Christmas Time Is Here" plays. On his way to join them, Charlie Brown confides in Linus that even though the holidays are approaching he is starting to feel depressed despite all the presents and cards and tree decorating. His depression and aggravation only get exacerbated by the goings-on in the neighbourhood. Though his mailbox is empty of Christmas cards, he tries sarcastically to thank Violet for the card she sent him, though Violet knows she did no such thing. Charlie Brown shouts after Violet as she walks away: "Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it?"

Ultimately, Charlie Brown visits Lucy in her psychiatric booth. On her advice, he gets involved in directing a Christmas nativity play. She also sympathizes with Charlie Brown about holiday depression, always getting a lot of stupid toys instead of what she wants: real estate. On the way to the theatre, Charlie Brown is drawn to Snoopy, who is frantically and gleefully busy decorating his doghouse. When Charlie Brown demands an explanation, Snoopy hands him a flyer about a neighbourhood Christmas lights and display contest. Charlie Brown walks away in frustration at his dog having been bitten by the Christmas commercialization bug. He then gets accosted by Sally, who wants Charlie Brown to dictate a letter to Santa. Sally ultimately asks Santa to just send money, particularly tens and twenties, causing Charlie Brown to run away in exasperation at even his sister's secularization.

Charlie Brown arrives at the rehearsals, but try as he might, he cannot seem to get control of the situation. The uncooperative children are more interested in modernizing the play with dancing and lively music. Charlie Brown, on the other hand, is determined to not let the play become secularized, by focusing on the traditional side of the story.

Thinking the play requires the proper mood, Charlie Brown decides they need a Christmas tree. So Lucy takes over the crowd and dispatches Charlie Brown to get a big shiny aluminum tree... maybe painted pink. With Linus in tow, Charlie Brown sets off on his quest. But when they get to the tree market, Charlie Brown zeroes in on a small baby tree which, with symbolic irony, is the only real tree on the lot. Linus is reluctant about Charlie Brown's choice, but Charlie Brown is convinced that with decoration it will be just right for the play.

They return to the auditorium with the tree, only to be verbally castigated by everyone, especially Lucy, about the puny tree. Second-guessing himself, Charlie Brown begins to wonder if he knows what Christmas is about, loudly asking in despair. Linus quietly says he can tell him and walks to the center of the stage to make his point. Under a spotlight, Linus quotes the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 8 through 14 from the King James Bible, in which angels from heaven tell a group of initially frightened shepherds of the birth of the baby Jesus, and instruct them as to where they can find the babe.

Charlie Brown now realizes he does not have to let commercialism ruin his Christmas. With a newly-found sense of inspiration, he quietly picks up the little tree and walks out of the auditorium, intending to take the tree home to decorate and show the others it will work in the play.

On the way, he stops at Snoopy's decorated doghouse, which now sports a first prize blue ribbon for winning the display contest. Letting his dog's commercialism roll off his back, Charlie Brown takes an ornament off the doghouse and hangs it on his tree, but the ornament's weight is too much for the small branch and pulls it to the ground, much to Charlie Brown's shock.

Charlie Brown, seeing the ornamented branch droop to the ground, says, "I've killed it. Oh! Everything I touch gets ruined!" and walks away without taking the ornament off, his head hanging in shame. Unbeknownst to Charlie Brown, the rest of the gang, having also heard Linus' recitative began to realize they were a little too rough on Charlie Brown and quietly followed him from the auditorium. Linus goes up to the little tree and gently props the drooping branch back to its upright position, ornament and all. Linus says, "I never thought it was such a bad little tree", then wraps his blanket around the base of the trunk and adds, "It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love." The rest of the children grab the other decorations off of Snoopy's doghouse and add them to the tree.

When they have finished, even Lucy concedes to Charlie Brown's choice, saying, "Charlie Brown is a blockhead, but he did get a nice tree." The children then start humming the traditional Christmas carol, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." When Charlie Brown returns, he demands to know what is taking place. When he sees what they have done with the tree, he cannot believe his eyes, and all the children shout, "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!" At this point, the children, joined by Charlie Brown, begin singing the carol in earnest as the end credits roll and the snow begins to fall.

## Trivia

* This special has been repeated at least once every year since its original broadcast, making it the longest-running animated TV special in history.
* This special received 2 Emmy Award nominations, one for Special Classification of Individual Achievement and one for Outstanding Children's Program which it had won.
* This is the only special in which Schroeder's piano sounds like a toy piano when he is asked to play "Jingle Bells" by Lucy. He first plays it like a conventional piano, then an organ, and finally a toy piano on one finger.
* A running gag in the special is that whenever someone says "That's it!", someone else jumps in alarm.
* This is the first of two specials in which Charlie Brown is simply called Charlie by one of the other characters. On this occasion, it is Lucy. He would later be simply referred to as Charlie again in *Charlie Brown's All-Stars* and the 1969 feature film *A Boy Named Charlie Brown*.
* Snoopy's doghouse appears to be blue instead of red.
* The original broadcast preempted *The Munsters*.
* When they first saw the show, CBS executives were horrified at the idea of an animated Christmas special with such a blatant message. They also strongly objected to the fact that the show had no canned laughter. A version with a laugh track was produced but later discarded after the success of the broadcast version.
* Kathy Steinberg, who did the voice of Sally Brown, had not yet learned to read at the time of production, so she had to be fed her lines, often a word or syllable at a time, which explains the rather choppy delivery of the line: "All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share."
* Bill Melendez tried to talk Charles M. Schulz out of using Biblical references (especially Linus's speech) in this special. Schulz reportedly won him over by saying, "If we don't do it, who will?" As it turned out, Linus' recitation was hailed as one of the most powerful moments in the highly acclaimed special.
	+ Linus's speech about the true meaning of Christmas is actually Luke 2:8-14 from the King James translation of the Bible.
* In addition to the soundtrack album containing music by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, a Disney Read-Along record was later produced, which re-created the special as a radio program-like audio experience (this was before the prevalence of home video). This book-and-record set re-created almost the entire program, with only some minor cuts (primarily musical).
* Two making-of documentaries have been made: the first is *The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas*, which was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and aired following ABC's initial airing of the special in 2001, and the second is a completely unrelated documentary that was created for Warner Home Video's 2008 Deluxe Edition DVD release.
* Television executives figured that the show would be a ratings failure, but instead, it was watched by half the American viewing public. With such spectacular ratings, those same executives soon contacted the producers for a whole series of *Peanuts* specials that would run for decades.
* Over the decades, the special was increasingly shortened for time to more commercials until the viewing public protested vigorously. When the broadcast rights were purchased by the ABC TV network, the network compromised with an hour-long timeslot for the special to be broadcast uncut for time, and padding out the remaining time with initially *The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas*, and then *Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales* in subsequent years. Of course, this arrangement also allowed the network to sell twice as many commercial spots for a reliably high-rated annual rerun.
* Producer Lee Mendelson wrote the lyrics for Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here" music, and his son Glenn, along with his then sixth-grade class, sang the vocals.
* Production ended ten days before the special premiered.
* None of the children who voiced the characters received credits at the end.
* When "A Charlie Brown Christmas" won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program in 1966, only Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez were called up to accept the award, but they made sure that Charles Schulz was with them to give the acceptance speech. Schulz's speech simply went, "Charlie Brown's not used to winning, so we thank you."
* (1 October 2015) The US Postal Service issued a set of ten postage stamps with various scenes from the TV special, to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
* Not long after the animation was finished Tracy Stratford's voice broke, which is why she never voiced Lucy in another Peanuts special.
* When the completed special was first presented to the CBS executives, they promptly hated it. Their major complaints were that the pace was too slow, the jazz music didn't work with the special's tone, and that the animation was too simple, among other things. However, the special had to air, as CBS had already scheduled and promoted it. As Lee Mendelson later said, "I really believe that if it wasn't already scheduled to air the following week, there was no way they were ever going to broadcast that special."
* The rock music group Jefferson Airplane wanted autographs from all the kids who voiced the characters.
* At one point, Lucy mocks Linus' security blanket, asking him what he plans to do with it when he's older, to which Linus smugly replies, "Maybe I'll turn it into a sport coat." In one Peanuts strip series, Linus tried to kick his blanket habit by giving it to Snoopy to keep it away from Linus, and Snoopy ended up turning the blanket into a sport coat.
* In 1993, Knott's Berry Farm gave out free VHS copies of this special during the holiday season to kids during a special event. The VHS tapes did not contain any previews, promos, studio logos, or even FBI Warnings; it was just the full (unedited) special.
* The short was watched by over 15 million viewers when it first premiered in 1965.
* Patty in this special is not Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt. The latter first appeared several years later in the strip. The former was phased out gradually, disappearing completely by the end of the 1970s, despite being one of the four original Peanuts characters.
* This special helped bring to an end the brief fad of aluminum Christmas trees, which had been going on since 1958, when it portrayed them in a negative light as part of the over-commercialization of the holiday.
* The idea was given by John Allen, who worked for an ad agency for Coca-Cola, as he called Lee Mendelson. He originally saw the documentary that was canceled to be broadcast, because he was unable to sell it. He asked Mendelson if the producers of "Peanuts" thought about making a Christmas special. Mendelson admittedly lied, saying "Of course we have." Allen then asked for an outline of the special to be presented in four days. After this conversation, Mendelson promptly called Charles Schultz and said to him, "I just sold 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'." Schultz asked, "What's that?", and Mendelson said, "That's a new show you and I have to come up with this weekend." Mendleson later recalled a long pause of silence before Schultz responded, very casually, "Okay, we can do it."
* This was the first of several holiday themed Peanuts specials produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez. It's still their most famous special. The least famous is probably 1976s "It's Arbor Day Charlie Brown". Or 1984s abysmal effort, "It's a Flashbeagle Charlie Brown", which futily attempted to steal some of the magic from the 1983 breakdancing musical film "Flashdance". The success of this Emmy winning special opened the door for their first feature film; the 1968 classic "A Boy Named Charlie Brown."
* Apple TV+ bought the rights to the Peanuts specials in 2020, and therefore 2020 was supposed to be the first year since A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered that it would not air on free television. However, after an outcry from the public for removing the programs from free television, the specials (beginning with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and later this special) were offered to public television stations in November and December 2020, sponsored by Apple.