History Book: A Charlie Brown Christmas

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, 60 years ago the world of the Charlie Brown comic strip sprang to life for the first time as an animated TV special—becoming an instant classic Christmas flick.

Today, critics praise the heartwarming Peanuts gang, but the special almost never made it to the screen, because the original cartoonist and his co-creators made some rather unconventional choices. And TV executives fought them every step of the way.

REICHARD: Good grief! Here’s WORLD’s Emma Eicher with the story.

LINUS: Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who could take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem … of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest.

EMMA EICHER: In the days before A Charlie Brown Christmas hit CBS airwaves, many thought it would be a disaster. Even the Peanuts creator Charles Schulz had his doubts.

AUDIO: Oh no, we’re doomed!

In June, 1965, the Coca-Cola Company commissioned the Christmas special. And animator Bill Melendez and TV producer Lee Mendelson took the lead on it.

But the problem was, Coca-Cola wanted the project to get going as fast as possible.

So Melendez and Mendelson sat down with Schulz—or Sparky, as everyone called him—at his California home. The pressure mounted as they all stared at each other, unsure of how to put the project together so close to the wire.

Bill Melendez recollected the moment in The Making of Charlie Brown Christmas documentary.

BILL MELENDEZ: Sparky was an incredible creative. Not just a cartoonist, he was a storyteller. And he just did these things that came out of the woodwork. Sometimes I would just sit back like, holy Toledo, this guy comes up with great ideas!

Thanks to Sparky, the outline came together in less than a day. Here’s producer Lee Mendelson.

LEE MENDELSON: And that’s how the whole show came together, on a Thursday afternoon in California. We sent the outline to Coca-Cola, and they got it on Monday and on Tuesday they called up and said they’d do it.

Six months later, Mendelson rushed the special to final production. But TV executives heavily criticized the show after a private screening. Mark Evanier is a cartoonist and historian.

MARK EVANIER: The networks were against it. It went against the conventional thinking at the time of what a children’s special, what a Christmas special had to be.

Executives called the voice acting amateurish, the jazz music out of place, and the pacing too slow. And they said the scene where Linus reads the nativity story from the Book of Luke was too controversial.

LINUS: 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 …

But CBS had already scheduled the special for December 9th. So it had to run.

AUDIO: You've been dumb before, Charlie Brown, but this time you really did it.

A Charlie Brown Christmas aired at 7:30pm, and the next day, reviews began pouring in. Turns out, everything the executives hated was everything that audiences loved.

CHARLIE BROWN: I guess I really don't know what Christmas is all about. Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

In the outline, Sparky insisted that there had to be a scene from the Bible. At the time, hardly any TV shows referenced Scripture, and the move was risky. Here’s producer Mendelson again.

MENDELSON: And Bill and I looked at each other and he said, ‘Oh gee, we don’t know if we can animate from the Bible, it’s never been done before.’ …. And he said, ‘if we don’t do it, who will?’

Despite the opposition, Linus’s soft spoken delivery aired to 15 million people that night.

LINUS: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good will toward men.

In the weeks following, audiences praised the special for its warmth, charm, and humor—which was quite the surprise for the CBS executives who had predicted its failure.

TED KLUCK: Critics don't always know what they're talking about, and in fact, they often don't.

Ted Kluck is an assistant Professor of Journalism at Union University in Tennessee, and WORLD Opinions Contributor.

KLUCK: And as lots of Christmas media has come and gone, I think it's significant that something with that much Scripture in it has survived.

A Charlie Brown Christmas still captivates families today, whether for nostalgic reasons:

KLUCK: The animation is really sort of charmingly primitive and analog, but the storytelling is really good.

Or to find comfort amid the same problems Charlie Brown faced, like the overwhelming commercialism of the holiday.

KLUCK: I imagine there was something prophetic in him about if we don't caution people about this, if we don't point them back to the real meaning of Christmas, then maybe they'll lose it.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Peanuts comic strip, and A Charlie Brown Christmas is still one of most beloved American Christmas traditions despite the humbugs.

LINUS: That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Eicher.

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