In 1965, my friend and frequent employer Lee Mendelson produced his first animated TV special. Bill Melendez and his crew animated it, based on a script by Charles M. Schulz which was, in turn, based on Schulz's rather popular newspaper strip, Peanuts. The folks at the network hated it and predicted it would bomb… but it wound up being quite popular, winning every award it could possibly win. It catapulted Mr. Schulz's lovely little strip into a merchandising phenomenon, and launched Mendelson-Melendez on a career of producing award-winning animated specials. Several of the songs, expertly crafted by Vince Guaraldi, have become standards.
Over the years, A Charlie Brown Christmas has been rerun more often than any other prime-time TV special. For some folks, Christmas isn't Christmas 'til they see Good Ol' Charlie Brown bring home that ratty Christmas tree and see that weird kid doing that weird dance in the musical sequence. Alas, over the years, the increased number of commercials in a network time slot has forced a few minutes to be trimmed from this classic animated work.
This year, the annual event switches from CBS to ABC and reverts to its original, restored glory. A 17-minute documentary has been prepared on the creation of the special and, by putting all this together and adding in Whoopi Goldberg as host, they can put it all in an hour time slot and not have to cut anything from the original show, save for the plugs for Coca-Cola. It airs Thursday evening, December 6 at 8 PM. Enjoy, enjoy.