Creating A Charlie Brown Christmas

A Behind the Scenes Look at Charles Schulz's Holiday Classic

Dec 19, 2008

Today, A Charlie Brown Christmas is considered a holiday classic. But when it first screened, very few people - including its creators - thought it would succeed.

For many, Charles Schulz’s A Charlie Brown Christmas is an annual tradition. The tale of Charlie Brown’s holiday blues, his attempts to create some Christmas cheer by buying a lonely tree for the Peanuts gang, and the tree’s amazing transformation are all treasured memories for many families.

So it might come as a surprise to know that when the show first aired, its creators thought they would be lucky if their special lasted two years!

A Charles Schulz Documentary

In 1963, documentary filmmaker Lee Mendelson was marketing a film he had made on Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. In addition to footage of Schulz, the film featured two minutes of Peanuts animation by Disney animator Bill Melendez, and the first-ever recording of jazz musician Vince Guaraldi’s song Linus and Lucy. In true Charlie Brown-style, however, no networks picked up the documentary.

Then in April 1965, John Allen of the McCann Erickson Agency contacted Mendelson and mentioned Coca-Cola wanted to sponsor a Christmas special. Allen asked if Mendelson had ever considered doing a Peanuts Christmas special.

Mendelson - who had never considered the idea - answered, “Of course” – and was asked to deliver an outline in five days.

After panicking, Mendelson contacted Schulz, who calmly outlined the story – which included ice skating, a Christmas play, and a scene read from the Bible – in one day. Throughout the entire production, this outline never changed.

Good Grief! A Six Month Production Schedule

Mendelson brought Bill Melendez and Vince Guaraldi back to direct, animate, and compose music for the show. The team had only six months to produce the special – by the time they actually got started, they only had four months.

From the beginning, Schulz insisted the characters be voiced by children – something rare in animation at the time.

For Charlie Brown, the team cast eight-and-a-half-year-old Peter Robbins who had appeared in other television shows including Get Smart. Robbins would also play Charlie Brown in five more Peanuts specials and the first Peanuts movie.

Seven-year-old Christopher Shea, whose slight lisp endeared him to the producers, was cast as Linus. The youngest actress, six-year-old Cathy Steinberg, couldn’t even read when she was cast as Sally Brown, and had to be fed her lines one at a time.

There was one adult in the cast – director Bill Melendez who played Snoopy. To record Snoopy’s voice, Melendez spoke his lines then sped up the tape, creating Snoopy’s “crazy dog talk.”

For music, Guaraldi used Linus and Lucy, and composed Christmas Time is Here near the end of production. Although Guaraldi meant the song to be an instrumental piece, Mendelson wanted it to have words – and wrote the lyrics on the back of an envelope in only fifteen minutes!

Rats! A Negative Reception

Unfortunately, when the staff saw the final product, many felt the show had failed – save for one animator who predicted the special would run “a hundred years.”

Unlike other cartoons, A Charlie Brown Christmas is slow and introspective. The children’s voices and choppy animation make it seem unpolished. Moreover, Linus’ Bible reading made Melendez uneasy – although Schulz insisted that scene be included.

The staff’s insecurities were magnified when CBS executives saw the special and told Mendelson they wouldn’t order any more Peanuts specials.

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

All naysayers were silenced, however, when the show aired. According to the Nielsen ratings, 15,490,000 homes watched A Charlie Brown Christmas when it aired on December 9, 1965. CBS soon ordered four more Peanuts specials – and in 1966, the special won an Emmy.

Today, many of the show’s imperfections are considered part of its charm – with Linus’ reading of the Bible as the show’s highlight. Like Charlie Brown, the show has struggled through many disappointments, but in the end, its good nature won over its viewers. Ultimately, that’s the quality of all great Christmas classics. And that's what A Charlie Brown Christmas has become.

Source:

Mendelson, Lee and Bill Melendez. A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition. NY: HarperResource/HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.

The copyright of the article Creating A Charlie Brown Christmas in Vintage Animated Films is owned by Michael Jung. Permission to republish Creating A Charlie Brown Christmas in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.