A Charlie Brown Christmas is a 1965 American animated television special. It is the first TV special based on the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz, and features the voices of Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Kathy Steinberg, Tracy Stratford, and Bill Melendez. Produced by Lee Mendelson and directed by Melendez, the program made its debut on the CBS television network on December 9, 1965, four days after it was broadcast in Canada. In the special, Charlie Brown (Robbins) finds himself depressed despite the onset of the cheerful holiday season. After Lucy Van Pelt (Stratford) suggests he direct a neighborhood Christmas play, his best efforts are ignored and mocked by his peers when he chooses a puny Christmas tree as a centerpiece.
After the comic strip's debut in 1950, Peanuts had become a worldwide phenomenon by the mid-1960s. The special was commissioned and sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company, and was written over a period of several weeks, and produced on a small budget in six months. In casting the characters, the producers took an unconventional route, hiring child actors. The program's soundtrack was similarly unorthodox, featuring a jazz score by pianist Vince Guaraldi.
Its lack of a laugh track (a staple in American television animation in this period), in addition to its tone, pacing, music, and animation, led both the producers and the network to predict the project would be a disaster. However, contrary to their collective apprehension, A Charlie Brown Christmas received high ratings and acclaim from critics. It received an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and became an annual presentation in the United States, airing on broadcast television during the Christmas season for 56 years before becoming exclusively available on Apple TV+ streaming service. Its success paved the way for a series of Peanuts television specials and films. Its jazz soundtrack achieved commercial success, selling five million copies in the US. Live theatrical versions of A Charlie Brown Christmas have been staged.
Plot
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On their way to join their friends' ice skating on a frozen pond, Charlie Brown confesses to Linus Van Pelt that, despite all the things he likes about the Christmas season, he is still depressed. After Linus's reproach, and a put-down from Violet, he visits Lucy Van Pelt's psychiatric booth and tells her his problem. She suggests he direct the group's annual Christmas play to get involved, and he accepts.
Charlie Brown becomes even more discouraged by his observations of Christmas's commercialization as he heads for the rehearsal: Lucy laments over not receiving real estate for Christmas; Snoopy decorates his doghouse for a neighborhood lights and display contest; and Charlie Brown's younger sister Sally asks him to write a greedy letter to Santa Claus. At the rehearsal, Charlie Brown finds a play fit for the 1960s with dancing, lively music, an uncooperative cast, and a "Christmas Queen" (Lucy). Unable to control the cast, Charlie Brown decides the play needs a more "proper mood", and recommends a Christmas tree. Lucy suggests a big, pink aluminum Christmas tree, then sends him and Linus to get one.
At the tree lot, Charlie Brown picks the only real tree there, a small sapling. Linus questions his choice, but Charlie Brown believes that once decorated, it will be perfect. Upon their return, Lucy, Violet, Patty, and Frieda scorn him and the tree and walk away laughing. Crestfallen, Charlie Brown asks if anyone knows what Christmas is all about. Linus says he does, walks to center stage, asks for a spotlight, drops his security blanket, recites the King James Version of the annunciation to the shepherds, picks up his blanket, returns, and says, "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
Realizing that he does not have to let commercialism ruin his Christmas, Charlie Brown takes the tree home to decorate it and show the others that it will work in the play. The others realize they are too hard on Charlie Brown and quietly follow him after listening to Linus's speech. He stops at Snoopy's doghouse, which has won the lights and display contest, and hangs a large red ornament on his tree. The ornament's weight causes the tiny tree to bend to the ground. Believing that he killed the tree, a dejected Charlie Brown walks off.
The others arrive at Snoopy's doghouse and as they all start to see its potential, Linus gently uprights the drooping tree and wraps his blanket around its base to offer some support. After the others hand the tree a makeover using more decorations from the doghouse, even Lucy concedes to Charlie Brown's choice. The children then start humming "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Hearing them, Charlie Brown returns to see that the sapling is a fully decorated Christmas tree. All the children shout, "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!", and then sing "Hark" with Charlie Brown and Snoopy (original version only) joining in as snow begins to fall.
Cast
- Peter Robbins as Charlie Brown
- Christopher Shea as Linus Van Pelt
- Tracy Stratford as Lucy Van Pelt
- Kathy Steinberg as Sally Brown
- Chris Doran as Schroeder and Shermy
- Geoffrey Orstein as Pig-Pen
- Sally Dryer as Violet
- Ann Altieri as Frieda
- Bill Melendez as Snoopy
- Karen Mendelson as Patty
- Choral vocals: Members of the children's choir of St. Paul's Episcopal Church (San Rafael, California) directed by Robert "Barry" Mineah. The choir was also featured on the Vince Guaraldi recording At Grace Cathedral.
Production
Development
By the early 1960s, Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts had gained enormous popularity. Television producer Lee Mendelson acknowledged the strip's cultural impression and had an idea for a documentary on its success, phoning Schulz to propose the idea. Schulz, an avid baseball fan, recognized Mendelson from his documentary on ballplayer Willie Mays, A Man Named Mays, and invited him to his home in Sebastopol, California, to discuss the project. Their meeting was cordial, with the plan to produce a half-hour documentary set. Mendelson wanted to feature roughly "one or two" minutes of animation, and Schulz suggested animator Bill Melendez, with whom he collaborated some years before on a spot for the Ford Motor Company. Mendelson later stated that he was drawn to doing an animated Charlie Brown after working on A Man Named Mays, noting that Mays was arguably the best baseball player of all time, while Charlie Brown, in a running gag in the strips, was one of the worst, making him a natural follow-up subject to his previous work.
Despite the popularity of the strip and acclaim from advertisers, networks were not interested in the special. By April 1965, Time featured the Peanuts gang on its magazine cover, prompting a call from John Allen of the New York-based McCann Erickson Agency.
Schulz's faith in the Bible stemmed from his Midwest background and religious and historical studies; According to a 2015 "spiritual biography", Schulz's religion was personal and complex, and would be integrated in a number of his programs.
The program's script has been described as "barebones", and was completed in only a few weeks. His godmother, Hollywood agent Hazel McMillen, discovered Christopher Shea, who would become Linus in the special. His slight lisp, according to Mendelson, gave him a "youthful sweetness," while his emotional script reading "gave him power and authority as well." Tracy Stratford played the role of Lucy, with the creators being impressed by her attitude and professionalism. Kathy Steinberg was the youngest of the performers, just six years old at the time of recording. Too young to read, the producers had to give her one line at a time to recite. Robbins remembered Melendez did this for him as well, joking that he also mistakenly copied his Latino accent.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas is an unorthodox mix of traditional Christmas music and jazz. The jazz portions were created by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Producer Lee Mendelson, a fan of jazz, heard Guaraldi's crossover hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" on the radio not long after completion of his documentary Charlie Brown & Charles Schulz, and contacted the musician to produce music for the special. Guaraldi composed the music for the project, creating an entire piece, "Linus and Lucy," to serve as the theme. When Coca-Cola commissioned A Charlie Brown Christmas in spring 1965, Guaraldi returned to write the music. and added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" American sound recordings in 2012.
"I have always felt that one of the key elements that made that show was the music," said Mendelson in 2010. "It gave it a contemporary sound that appealed to all ages. Although Vince had never scored anything else and although I was basically a documentary film maker at the time, we started to work together on the cues because we both loved jazz and we both played the piano. So he would bring in the material for each scene and we would go over it scene by scene. Most of the time, the music worked perfectly. But there were times we would either not use something or use it somewhere else. We went through this same process on all sixteen shows. Although there was always some left over music, most of the time what he wrote and performed is what went on the air."
Reception
All involved believed the special would be a disaster. Melendez first saw the completed animation at a showing in a theater in the days before its premiere, turning to his crew of animators and remarking, "My golly, we've killed it." His review, printed the following week, was positive, praising the special as unpretentious and writing that "A Charlie Brown Christmas is one children's special this season that bears repeating."
The program premiered on CBS on December 9, 1965, at 7:30 pm ET (pre-empting The Munsters), and was viewed by 45% of those watching television that evening, with the number of homes watching the special an estimated 15,490,000, placing it at number two in the ratings, behind Bonanza on NBC. and Terrence O'Flaherty of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Charlie Brown was a gem of a television show." Ben Gross of the New York Daily News praised the special's "charm and good taste," while Rick DuBrow of United Press International predicted, "the Peanuts characters last night staked out a claim to a major television future."
The film has an aggregated review score of 86% based on 21 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Of the three negative reviews, two come from the same 2020 episode of Medium Popcorn, a podcast in which both hosts gave the special a one-out-of-five stars review. The third is a 2005 two-out-of-five star review from Emanuel Levy that is no longer available. In 1970, a viewer survey by Clarke Williamson ranked the special as the best Christmas special to air that year.
In 2022, an internal poll of writers at Fatherly ranked the special at 62 in a list of the 100 greatest family-friendly films of all time, one of only two productions made specifically for television to make the list (the other being the 1966 version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!). In its summary, the writers noted that the special's technical flaws "are what makes A Charlie Brown Christmas feel distinct and special rather than generic" and that its low-budget feel fit the theme of the story.
Television broadcasts
CBS
The special was originally broadcast on CBS in 1965 and rerun each year from 1966 until 2000.
The original broadcasts included references to the sponsor, Coca-Cola. Because of Dolly Madison's eventual co-sponsorship of the series, as well as subsequent FCC laws mandating the separation of commercial material from the actual program material, subsequent broadcasts and home media releases removed all references to Coca-Cola products. Broadcasts of the special in later years also had some scenes, animation, and sound effects redone for correction. Snoopy's dog bowl was repainted red instead of white, Lucy now makes a whirling noise when scared out of her psychiatric booth, new animation was placed in scenes where the children dance on stage after the first time to avoid repetition, music was added in the background of the rehearsal scenes, and Snoopy no longer sings with the children in the final carol, amongst others.
Removed from some subsequent broadcasts is a scene in which Linus throws a snowball at a tin can using his blanket. For several years it was rumored the can was a Coca-Cola can. In 1997, CBS promoted the special as “uncut, with scenes you haven’t seen in years”.
ABC
Beginning with the 2001 holiday season, ABC held rights to the special. On December 6, 2001, a half-hour documentary on the special titled The Making of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas (hosted by Whoopi Goldberg) aired on ABC. This documentary has been released as a special feature on the DVD and Blu-ray editions of the special. In subsequent years, to allow the special in an hour timeslot to be broadcast uncut for time, the animated vignette collection, Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, is broadcast in the remaining time for that hour.
The show's 40th anniversary broadcast on December 6, 2005, had the highest ratings in its time slot.
The 50th anniversary broadcast aired on November 30, 2015, and it featured a full two-hour time slot that was padded by a special, It's Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown, which was hosted by Kristen Bell, and featured musical performances by Kristin Chenoweth, Matthew Morrison, Sarah McLachlan, Boyz II Men, Pentatonix, David Benoit, and the All-American Boys Chorus. It also included documentary features. After 18 consecutive years of being broadcast on the network, the special aired on ABC for the last time on December 17, 2019, at 8pm ET/PT.
Apple TV+
In October 2020, Apple TV+ acquired exclusive rights to all Peanuts-related media. Under the terms of the agreement, Apple TV+ must make A Charlie Brown Christmas and two other holiday specials (It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving) available for free on the platform during a three-day window. The window for A Charlie Brown Christmas was from December 11 to 13, 2020, and in 2025 it was from December 13 through December 14. Subscribers to Apple TV+ have a broader window to watch the specials.
Apple TV+ renewed its exclusive agreement in 2025, extending the streamer's exclusive rights under the same terms through 2030. Non-streaming television rights, should a buyer emerge for them, would be handled by Sony Pictures Television, which acquired majority control of the special along with the rest of the Peanuts library shortly after its renewal with Apple.
PBS
After mounting criticism over Apple's decision to remove the Peanuts specials from free television, the company announced a deal with PBS to resume the annual broadcast tradition. In accordance with most PBS member stations' non-commercial educational licenses, the special was presented on PBS without commercial interruption, with an underwriting message from Apple being the only advertising. PBS, Apple and WildBrain, the rightsholder to the Peanuts television library, announced they had renewed the arrangement in October 2021. PBS did not acquire the broadcast rights for the Peanuts specials in 2022, ending a 57 year run on broadcast television.
Home media
In 1985, the special was released on VHS and Betamax by Media Home Entertainment, along with You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown. In 1987 the special was released on VHS by its kids subsidiary, Hi-Tops Video.
On September 28, 1994, the special was released by Paramount on VHS. A laserdisc was released by Paramount (distributed by Pioneer) in 1996; Side 2 contained the 1979 special You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown. In September 2000 it was released on DVD. Bonus features included the 1992 special It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. On September 23, 2008, Warner Home Video (to which the rights to the Peanuts specials reverted earlier in the year, due to Melendez's connections to WB) released a "remastered" DVD. Bonus features include a restored version of Christmastime Again and a new documentary titled "A Christmas Miracle: The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas".
On October 6, 2009, it was released in high definition Blu-ray Disc from Warner in remastered Dolby 5.1 surround sound. This disc also contains It's Christmastime Again, A Christmas Miracle, a DVD of the special, and a digital copy.
Since off-network rights to this special have been transferred to Warner Bros., it has become available as a download on the iTunes Store, PlayStation Network, Amazon Instant Video, and Google Play, and includes It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown
and It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown.
In December 2014, a 50th anniversary 2-DVD set was released. It also features the special It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, and the Making of... documentary from previous editions.
On October 31, 2017, it was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray disc containing It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown and the Making of... special.
Legacy
A Charlie Brown Christmas has become a Christmas staple in the United States. Within the scope of future Peanuts specials, it established their style, combining thoughtful themes, jazzy scores, and simple animation. It also, according to author Charles Solomon, established the half-hour animated special as a television tradition, inspiring the creation of numerous others, including How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) and Frosty the Snowman (1969). (Earlier animated specials such as Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ran a full hour.) USA Today summarized the program's appeal upon its 40th anniversary in 2005: "Scholars of pop culture say that shining through the program's skeletal plot is the quirky and sophisticated genius that fueled the phenomenal popularity of Schulz's work."
The problems encountered during the special's production prompted CBS to place a "premium on quality" for its future Christmas specials, and for How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, CBS allotted Chuck Jones a budget of $315,000, quadrupling its budget compared to A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Stage adaptation
In 2013, Tams-Witmark Music Library, Inc. began licensing an official stage version of the television special authorized by the Schulz family and Lee Mendelson. The stage version follows the television special but includes an optional sing-along section of Christmas songs at the end. It includes all of Vince Guaraldi's music from the television special and the television script is adapted for the stage by Eric Schaeffer. It has been performed at hundreds of schools, churches and community theatres.
The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree
thumb|right|Charlie Brown (left) and Linus (right) with the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree
Charlie Brown's insistence on purchasing a real tree and disparagement of the aluminum Christmas tree practically eliminated the popularity of the aluminum tree, which was a fad at the time of the special. By 1967, they were no longer being regularly manufactured, to the point that most modern viewers of the special are unfamiliar with this type of artificial tree. On the contrary, artificial models of Charlie Brown's "poor tree" are offered by various retailers and have become synonymous with minimalist Christmas decorating.