"A Charlie Brown Christmas" just reminded us how old we are. The popular TV special turns 50 this year, and we just can't stop watching it over and over again during the holidays, since it aired on Dec. 9, 1965.
According to the New York Post, the TV special almost didn't air back then. Coca-Cola, the one who sponsored the special, was looking for a Christmas special for CBS. Lee Mendelson, an executive producer, pitched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” even before informing “Peanuts” cartoonist, Charles Schulz. They had three days to come up with a fuller proposal. Amateur children were used to voice most of the Peanuts characters, which resulted in chaos and disappointment.
Since the promotions were already released, they aired it anyway and got almost 50 percent of the television sets who were watching the TV special when it aired. This helped the special in winning an Emmy and a Peabody Award.
According to an interview of Comic Riffs with Jean Schulz, the late cartoonist’s wife, she had related, “I think it has to do with the impact that ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ had on the viewer when he or she first saw it. It might have been as a child sitting with parents. Or it might have been adults in their 40s or 50s who were delighted to see a meaningful, adult-themed show that brushed aside the platitudes that surround public dialogue and then passed this on to their children and grandchildren."
Now on its 50th anniversary, ABC celebrates Charlie Brown in a TV special entitled "It’s Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown." According to Forbes, the TV special aired on Nov. 30 on ABC, and included musical performances from Kristin Chenoweth, Matthew Morrison, Sarah McLachlan, Boyz II Men, Pentatonix, and pianist David Benoit, who followed Guaraldi in making the soundtracks of more than 40 Peanuts TV specials that followed “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
Charlie Brown is part of the comic strip called "Peanuts" created by Charles Schulz, which is also became a 3D animated film that was released on Nov. 6, 2015. The film received positive reviews and earned around $126.1 million worldwide.
