A Charlie Brown Christmas, by Kevin Diehl

It was 60 years ago – Christmas of 1965 – when the landscape of network

TV changed in a simple but profound way. For it was that year that “A

Charlie Brown Christmas” aired for the first time on CBS.

Although now it’s a Christmas tradition watched by millions of American

families every year, the beloved cartoon that defied all expectations almost

didn’t happen at all. The story of its unlikely creation has been told before,

but a quick recap is in order.

When Charles Schulz debuted his comic strip Peanuts in October 1950, it

appeared in seven newspapers. From that humble beginning, it grew to

become one of the most influential and popular comics of all time,

eventually being carried by 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries.

So Schulz was already a massive success when a relatively unknown

television producer named Lee Mendelson entered his life. In 1963

Mendelson had produced a documentary about Willie Mays, the great San

Francisco Giants centerfielder. When Mendelson came across a Peanuts

comic strip, he decided that since he’d just “done the world’s greatest

baseball player, now I should do the world’s worst baseball player, Charlie

Brown.”

Mendelson contacted Schulz and pitched the idea of a documentary about

Schulz and his Peanuts gang. It so happened that Schulz had seen the

Willie Mays documentary and liked it, and he agreed to work with

Mendelson.

The documentary got made, but Mendelson couldn’t sell it to anyone.

While he was in the process of trying to find a buyer to air his show,

Mendelson was approached by The Coca-Cola Company. The Cola Wars

between Coke and Pepsi were as intense in the 1960s as they are today;

perhaps more so. Coke asked Mendelson if he was interested in producing

an animated Christmas special for television.

Indeed, Mendelson was interested, and his first thought was to see if

Schulz wanted to be a part of the project. Schulz happily came on board.

He suggested they hire animator and director Bill Melendez, with whom he

had worked on an ad campaign for the Ford Motor Company.

Starting from scratch, the trio had only six months to come up with a story

and produce a finished cartoon that would air at Christmastime on CBS. It

was an absurdly short production schedule. And when CBS executives

saw a partly completed version of the show, they were not happy. They

thought the pacing was too slow, the animation not polished enough, and

they certainly didn’t like the idea of using a Vince Guaraldi jazz soundtrack

for a children’s cartoon.

They also disagreed with Schulz’s idea of using untrained children to bring

his characters to life rather than professional adult voice actors. The

executives weren’t even all that fond of the dialogue. The kids in Peanuts

had always used words that belied their young age, but it was as if the

executives had never read the comic strip. They balked at lines such as

Lucy saying, “We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s

run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know.” But Schulz held true to the

characters he had portrayed in the funny papers for 15 years.

Schulz even had to battle with his collaborators when they wanted to use a

laugh track. According to the story, when that suggestion was made,

Schulz stood up and walked out of the room. There would be no laugh

track.

According to former CBS executive Fred Silverman, when the network

finally saw the finished product, they were certain they had a massive

failure on their hands. “The general reaction was one of disappointment –

that it didn’t really translate as well as we thought it would,” he said many

years later. “There were specific negative comments about the music, the

piano music, some of the voicing, which sounded kind of amateurish.”

But CBS had to air it because the network had already promoted the

cartoon, and Coke had already paid for it. Terrible or not, the show would

go on.

Of course, we now know that it was not a colossal flop. When it aired at

7:30 Eastern on December 9, 1965, half of the television sets in America

were tuned in. Viewers loved it. The reviews were spectacular, and the

three men who created it – Schulz, Mendelson and Melendez – would later

win an Emmy. The surefire disaster was a huge hit. In fact, rather than

being consigned to the scrap heap, A Charlie Brown Christmas has aired

every Christmas for 60 years on one network or another.

So why did this little half-hour cartoon that was considered to be too slow,

that had the wrong soundtrack and amateur acting become a beloved

Christmas tradition? I think it’s because the show offers a quiet respite in

the din of the holidays, a chance to slow down and reflect. But there’s

something more.

Throughout the story, we follow Charlie Brown as he searches for the true

meaning of Christmas amid the commercialization and bustle of the

season.

Finally, when he cries out in utter frustration, “Can’t anyone tell me what

Christmas is all about,” Linus replies, “Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you

what Christmas is all about.”

What follows is a scene that is the high point of the story, a moment that

transformed this cartoon from a nice little Christmas special into an

unforgettable tale for the ages.

Linus turns from Charlie, walks onto the stage in the empty theater, lays his

ever-present blanket by his feet, asks for a spotlight, clears his throat and

delivers from memory the Gospel of Luke, so chosen because it’s

considered the most lyrical and poetic of the narratives of Jesus Christ’s

birth. As you read this, I know you can hear Linus’s voice in your head.

“And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field,

keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came

upon them; the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were

sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold I bring you

tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this

day, in the City of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall

be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes,

lying in the manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of

the heavenly host praising God, and sang, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and

on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.’"

Nobody but Schulz wanted that scene to be in the finished product. Even

in 1965 it was considered a bridge too far to have a child quoting Bible

verses in a primetime cartoon. But on this point Schulz dug in and would

not budge. Because of him, the Linus scene remained, and it’s impossible

to imagine the show without it.

In retrospect, I guess you could argue that the little cartoon missed the

mark since the commercialization of Christmas has continued apace. But

maybe, just maybe, Charlie and Lucy and Linus slowed it down a little bit.

Maybe each year, because millions of people sit down to watch that little

cartoon once again, or they introduce their kids to it, and they hear Linus

recite the Gospel of Luke, maybe a few people are reminded – or perhaps

learn for the first time – that Christmas is really about the humble birth of a

mighty savior and the tidings of great joy that came into the world that

blessed and holy night.

Merry Christmas to all.

By Kevin Diehl

www.neelawfirm.com