When I started on this blog doing Peanuts lookbacks back during the 65th anniversary year of "Peanuts" in 2015. There also was a second anniversary that year, that being the 50th for "A Charlie Brown Christmas". When I started the lookbacks my primary goal wasn't to look at holiday specials because one I assumed that people knew most of those already and would be retreading ground (which could be a wrong assumption) and 2, to give a look at specials that don't get talked about much. This year while not doing look back's per-say I decided to talk about the holiday specials in their own special sub-section of my Peanuts topics.
This special is about Charlie Brown and Christmas (yeah yeah stay with me) his relationship with Christmas. What does Christmas mean to him? He goes through the special trying to answer that question. There's no him explicitly telling the others they are celebrating wrong he doesn't like that the holiday seems overly commercialized and wonders maybe he's doing something wrong because he's not feeling the same way as the other kids are feeling.
Backing away from Charlie Brown to overall talk about the special. This was the first Peanuts media on television that wasn't a commercial. It first premiered on CBS on December 9th 1965, later cementing a relationship with CBS where every special until 1992 , premiered on the network. While , " A Charlie Brown Christmas" repeated every year from 1965 to 2001 then continued rerunning on ABC as of this writing. (in 2018) Every thing about this special shouldn't have worked. CBS didn't like the idea of using actual children to voice the children, CBS didn't like the idea of the bible verse being stated , the music was jazz music which seemed to be annoying to someone. They had only 6 months to make this special, this is with hand drawn animation, no computers for help at all and when even now it takes about 9 months to make cartoon episodes. I am also glad Schulz rejected the idea of having a laugh track. It shouldn't have worked , it should have been on the dust bin of history and I would be writing about a lost Christmas special right now instead of the most popular one. Yet, even though it was a little rough on the sides, and contradicted some popular trends of the time it made it . Which is a little like Charlie Brown himself. The voices being genuine and mostly non Hollywood kids gives it something more because the little mistakes and way things are said are more fitting and less polished. In away fits the special even more that the simpleness of the story.
The special also shows how good a friend Linus is to Charlie someone who doesn't mock Charlie Brown and goes along with him when needed. When Charlie Brown gets that famous Christmas tree the one that nobody else would see as anything but some weird thing that was picked by accident. Ironically to me, the Christmas trees in the background look awful compared to this little guy. Linus comments , "Do they still make wooden Christmas trees, anymore?". Fun fact : this special killed aluminum Christmas trees. (source) The tree is kind of like Charlie Brown not much to look and people might not see worth to him yet, there's is so much potential plus this shows shows us Charlie Brown's characterization as someone who sees the best in things that others wouldn't. The other kids (though I will note that Linus and Schroeder don't) make fun of Charlie Brown for picking that tree.
The other main point, is Linus doing the bible verse from Luke chapter 2, The place where it's written in and they way it's kind of central to the special means that it's edit proof. Though if a network tried they'd probably not have a good few days. That is the simple core reason Christmas exits there would be no it with out it. (that's my kind of sentence) Charlie Brown feels determined to have his simple Christmas takes the little tree with him. He's still Charlie Brown so when puts a heavy bubble on it , it does bends over in the weight leaving C.B slightly dejected. Linus comes by and sees it and puts his treasured blanket around the bottom and the other kids some how make the look like a nice little tree. Charlie comes back and they all wish him a Happy Charlie Brown.
Looking at the animation, it's simple works and fits again with the them unintentionally. It's not a preachy special and doesn't say anyway you celebrate Christmas is wrong or right. It criticizes the over commercialization of it where people tend to lose the true theme of the holiday. This is a great Christmas special and I am glad that it exists. Glad it's been running each year non stop for over 50 years and hope it runs another 50 more plus.
Thanks for reading, tune in next time when we find out if Christmas trees can be made from wood.
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