A Charlie Brown Christmas: Why the TV special endures 50 years later

When Peanuts creatorCharles M.Schulz, documentaryproducerLee Mendelson and director/animator BillMelendez gottogether 50 years ago to create an outline for ACharlie Brown Christmas TVspecial, only one, veryminordisagreement emerged.

"I had said we have to have a laugh track," Mendelson recalled, arguing at the time that cartoonslike The Flintstonesall had laugh tracks. "And Mr. Schulz said: 'No we don't.'

"And that was the end of that argument. I was wrong and it took about 10 seconds to correct."

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But most ofthe other iconicelements that would makeit to the smallscreen on Dec. 9, 1965 the Christmas play, the sad little tree, the Bible passage, the jazz music, the jab at consumerism all thosewere agreed upon by the three wise televisionmenover the course of just twodays.

"One idea after another just came out," Mendelson said.

Many of thoseideas were certainly unconventional for an animated Christmas special coming together in the mid-1960s. Take the opening scene of a brooding Charlie Brown lamenting about his depressive state over the holidayssurelya heavy theme toconfront atoddler just ploppingdown to watch a Christmascartoon.

When screened before it aired, the show's sponsor Coca Cola, CBS, MendelsonandMelendezthemselveswere unhappy with the final product. They allfigured the showwould be a bust, that the airing on Dec. 9 would be its first and last and that the special would quickly become a distantChristmas memory.

"Wedidn'tlike it and the networkdidn'tlike it.They thought it was too slow,"Mendelsonsaid."BillMelendezand I thought that we had somehow failed Charlie Brown,that itwasn'tworking."

Holiday TV ritual

But as the story goes, there was one animator at the screening who stood up,dismissed the criticisms and boldly predictedthe show would run for 100 years.

Well, so far, he's half right.

Not only was ita ratings monstrosity, capturing a 45 per centshare of the TV audience that evening, but it has also become a Christmas television ritual,shared fromone generation to the next. Itremains a powerfulratings performerto this day, with its airing last week on ABC getting seven million viewers in the U.S.

"Most people are raised on the special," said Schulz's sonCraig Schulz, producer and writer of this year's The Peanuts Movie."They buy into the story because it's such a heartfelt story."

"It allgoes back to theSchulzcharacters,becausehe was dealing with eternal truths," Mendelson said. " Those truths are meaningful 50 years ago and they're meaningful today.

"Although it was simple animation, and very quiet animation compared to everything else, the story and the characters are more important than the technical aspect."

Mendelson, who had produced a documentary on Schulz, got involved when he was asked by Coca Cola executives if his production companyhad ever thought of doing a Christmas show.

Something with a little tree

"I lied. I saidabsolutely," he said. "I hung up the phone, I called Mr.SchulzandsaidI may have just sold a Charlie Brown Christmasspecial. And he said: 'What in the world is that?' And Isaid it'ssomethingyou'regoingto write tomorrow.'

"There was a long pause and he said 'OK, we can do it.'"

Schulz,MelendezandMendelsongottogetherthe next day to sketch out the outline.Schulzthought the main plot should be based on putting on aChristmasplay, as he had done stripson the pressures placed on kids involved in those productions.

"I mentioned that I'd read HansChristianAnderson's The Fir Tree and went over that story and Mr.Schulzsaid 'Well, maybe we can do something with a littletree that CharlieBrowncan identify with.' "

But it wasSchulzwho insistedthe animated specialneededto addresswhat Christmas is really all about and suggestedLinusread a passage from the Bible.

However, both Mendelson and Melendez expressed some initial apprehension,questioningwhether that would work and noting that nobody had ever animated anything religious.

"And [Schulz]said: 'Well, if wedon'tdo it, who will?' "

Of course, the specialwouldn't be nearly as special without theiconic dance scene, inspired in part, said Craig Schulz, by his sister, who would prance around the living room, trying to mimic the popular dances of thattime.

Jazzing it up

Mendelson said each animator was given acharacter and toldto draw it doing a famous or distinctivedance step.

"In that one scene you're seeing six iconic dances," Mendelson said.

As for the music,Mendelsonwent with a uniquechoice, eschewing the typical light cartoony music of the time andsuggestingthey bring in jazz musicianVinceGuaraldi.

"Without thatmusic, thatshowmay have never had thenotorietythat it has," Mendelson said. "Wethoughtthe music was asimportantas thestory,andtheacting andeverythingelse."

Also unique for the time was to hire children, and not adult actors, to provide the voices for the characters.

"I rememberworking withBill and he actually talked a lot to us about our characters and that's really where I got my first inkling of how [Lucy]was," said Tracy Shaw, who at the age of eight provided the voice for the fussbudget. "She wasn't really a brat per se, she was rather, as CharlesSchulzwould say,persnickety."

"Ironically, when I waslittleIwasprettycompliant. But the older I'vegotten the more like her Iam," said Shaw, who now works as a high schoollibrarianin Washington State.

Shaw said that at the time, as a child actress, she didn't consider her role or the showto be abig deal.But as she is now foreverpart of a Christmasinstitution, shenow realizes it's"pretty amazing."

"I recognizethe fact that not very manypeoplehave had theopportunityto be a part ofsomethingthat becomesincrediblyiconic like that."