Charlie Brown almost didn't get to celebrate Christmas in prime time

The seasonal TV classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas, has been one of the highlights of the Christmas season for many people since it made its first appearance in 1965. But it almost didn’t make it to air because TV executives were concerned that that, among other things, it was too religious.

In 2011, writer and media producer Lee Habeeb talked with me about the Christmas special that almost wasn’t.

The network brass—the program originally aired on CBS— second-guessed this Peanuts special over all kinds of things. Tell us about it. In 1965, the Peanuts guys got a call from Coca-Cola, and they were interested in putting together, quickly, a Christmas special. This turned out to be good fortune for Charles Schulz. He had a lot of leverage because he put together this program quickly. And he put together a very unconventional program. First, children voiced over the children’s parts. This was something that the CBS executives were not happy with; the sponsors didn’t have a problem. The second thing was there was no laugh track. Charles Schulz didn’t believe we should be guiding people when and where to laugh. And last, and most important, was the scene in which Linus goes up onto the stage and recounts the Gospel of Luke.

I understand the CBS executives wanted it taken out. How did Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, prevail and keep that scene in there? Well, it was simple. CBS had promoted the special. It was put together on short notice, and Schulz said, well, I’m not taking it out. You go ahead and try and run something in its place. And so CBS basically figured, we have no other choice. We’ve promoted it. We’ll do it the way he wanted it, and it’s a tax write-off. The people aren’t going to like these overt religious references. Of course, the suits at CBS didn’t like it and assumed that the American people wouldn’t like it. They were wrong.

In addition to not liking the Scripture recitation, some of the network executives also didn’t like the music Schulz and the creative team wanted in the program. They didn’t like that, either. They didn’t like the jazz and the complexity of the music. They thought people wouldn’t understand it and people wouldn’t like it—once again a great gaffe and an underestimation of the people’s sensibilities not only about Christ and God, but about even the most basic things like music and the sophistication of an audience to grasp that you don’t need a laugh track to laugh.

A Charlie Brown Christmas airs on ABC this year at 8:30 p.m. ET tonight and 8 p.m. ET Dec. 16.

My conversation with Habeeb about A Charlie Brown Christmas aired today on The World and Everything in It: