As many times as I watch this one, The Great Pumpkin, and the Thanksgiving special, I still never get tired of them. I've been warching them since I was a child, and have fond memories of drinking hot (luke warm) chocolate and watching this special.
A few things. A. This video needs to blow up. You did an amazing job making it and everyone needs to see it B. It was a Christmas miracle that this movie was made. C. This special seems like a series of ef it, we'll do it live
I absolutely love this special. My Dad is a HUGE fan of the Peanuts comic strip, and introduced my sister and I to the special from a very young age. Just last weekend, I played in a jazz band that actually featured Christmas Time Is Here, with vocals!!! This show is timeless, and always will be
I'm a huge fan of animation and also a huge Peanuts fan. I was born the year it premiered and remember it re-airing every year since I was old enough to remember. This retelling of the story was largely accurate but a couple of extra points are worth noting. First, the reason why the special aired at all despite the suits at the network and Coca-Cola all hating it, was that TV Guide magazine, which was the main source in people's homes as to the upcoming daily TV schedule had already been printed and being mailed out to millions of Americans (it was published weekly). While pre-emptions of shows happened, since it was a show that was actually featured in the magazine as something people should watch, it would be a huge mistake just to yank it for a rerun of something else. The network knew they had a huge hit on their hands when TV stations around the country reported people phoning their main switchboards expressing their love for the show. The folks at the network were also leery of the show having Linus quote directly from the Bible. Schulz stuck to his principles and insisted it remained in. One of the main reasons for the pressure to get a new Christmas special on that year (1965) was the enormous success of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", which premiered in 1964. And while Rudolph was not the first animated Christmas special ("Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" would premiere inn 1962), the success of Rudolph pressured TV execs to find something new to hopefully find similar popularity. Vince Guaraldi's involvement was not only due to Melendez but to Schulz himself who was a fan of his music and he frequently performed in northern California where Schulz had moved to from his original home base in St. Paul, MN. It's really hard to make a lasting Christmas classic but "A Charlie Brown Christmas" had two of them, specifically "Christmas Time is Here" and "Skating" as well as the first appearance of "Linus and Lucy", which is now the default theme music for anything Peanuts. "Skating" would also be featured again in the first full length Peanuts movie, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown". It's understandable why Bill Melendez would not be happy with his own work on "A Charlie Brown Christmas". It was rushed and it shows in some places with minor animation mistakes that there was just not time to redo. But this was a guy who had cut his teeth at Disney working on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Fantasia" and "Pinnochio" which were animation marvels by any standard. Then he spent a decade at Warner Bros. doing Looney Tunes cartoons during the era where they had the most lavish budgets to do really great work. And even though he'd done Peanuts before dating back to the Ford Motor Company ad campaign in 1959, he had more time for the cells he needed to complete and it was in black and white. Ironically when "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was a smash hit, he agreed to do two specials in 1966 including "A Charlie Brown All-Stars" and the venerable classic "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". At least the later special had the nine months to get right, as well as larger budgets to hire more staff. "A Charlie Brown All-Stars" was brought to the screen on June 8th, 1966, barely six months after "A Charlie Brown Christmas" aired. Kids were just not cast as animation voices and to this day, the Peanuts specials are largely the only ones that buck that tradition for television. Lee Mendelson, who was always looking out for new voices since kids would quickly grow out of their voices once told a story about being in a shopping mall and heard a child who he knew would be a perfect Peppermint Patty. Sadly, the mother of the child thought he was crazy, didn't believe who he was despite being handed a business card and walked off. The only voice that wasn't a kid was the voice of Snoopy, which was Bill Mendelez's own voice. To this day, Mendelez's voice in archival footage is still used for Snoopy, long after he passed away.
I watched this yearly in the 70's as a child. For me, even being so young, the message of humbleness, gratefulness, and the message of the true meaning of Christmas has always stuck with me. Keep stories like these coming History in the Dark - excellent! Kudos to you!! Oh yeah, I watched every Charlie Brown animated feature I could find on TV :)
I am not a boomer who despises technology, I love that it was on VHS and later Blu-Ray or Streaming. But back when I was a kid, you would come home from school for the start of Christmas vacation and that was when CBS would show Charlie Brown Christmas and all the other Christmas specials.
This is my all-time favorite Christmas special. It's gone down through all our generations since its creation as a tradition to watch every Christmas. ❤
I'm currently 25 years old and for as long as I can remember, each and every year during Christmas time, me and my mother would ALWAYS watch 2 movies together back to back. The original How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. This was very likely my very first introduction to the Peanuts as a whole and I absouletly adore the Peanuts. We even have a wooden tree with lights outside that we call our "Charlie Brown tree" due to me wrapping up the base of it with a dark blue blanket with Charlie Brown and Snoopy on it that was gifted to me by my grandmother years ago. This special always just makes me happy, both as a kid and as an adult. It takes you back to when you were just a kid like Linus or Charlie Brown during the Christmas season while telling a simple and effective story coupled with incredible music and a very important lesson to be learned. Christmas isnt about the gifts nor the lights nor the letters to Santa, its about coming together and appreciating each other and all the good things we have in life. Take a page from Good Ol' Charlie Brown himself and remember: Never let the commercialism ruin what Christmas is really about.
Same but my grinch was the jim carrey one. It had just came out and i was like 3 or 4. It was amazing and i watch it every year, along with Charlie Brown, and now j get to watch it with my little one ❤
I love the Peanuts gang, as does my grandma. It is so hilarious how back then and now in the modern day, the special was basically cobbled together but, loved by many even to this day.
The Story goes that Bill Melendez told Charles Schultz they would never get away with quoting the Bible in a cartoon. Schultz replied "Well Bill, if we can't do it, who can?"
Wonderful overview of A Charlie Brown Christmas. The Peanuts TV specials were a huge and defining part of my own personal upbringing. Am really happy to know that, despite the chaos of creating the special, it really ended up becoming a classic part of TV Americana. Sounds like the idea of keeping the story as simple as possible, plus using the best of what was requested along with Charles Schultz’s ideas, made A Charlie Brown Christmas the game changer that it was.
When Charlie Brown and Linus go to the Christmas Tree lot and find nothing but ugly aluminum trees, well that was a fad in the 60's. People were buying trees that looked like modern Art. Charlie Brown Christmas actually brought back the real tree.
I have one of those silver trees. We had one when I was a child. I remember we gave it to one of my teachers for a classroom tree. I bought one 20 years ago. It's in rough shape. I need to restore it. Paint the "trunk" and reglue the tensil. Plus, I want to get a light for it.
No way, a Charlie Brown video?! Your way of branching things out just keeps getting better! Say, I’ve noticed you made your tv and media playlist. May I suggest adding to it your videos on Thomas, Olton Hall, Sierra 3, This is your life, Orson Welles, Blockbuster, and Circuit City’s DIVX. Just thought this might help you organize your movie-related stuff, too.
Excellent Darkness. Your best yet. Here in the UK, the Peanuts specials are equally loved, if only rarely seen these days. Just one point - I don't think they would have worked without Vince Guaraldi, at least, at first. It was right to make it with Jazz, but what Jazz? Cue Vince's slightly overdriven (in a good way!), simple, joy-filled piano jazz, and it was PERFECT. I think a look at the life of Vince is in order, Darkness, from his slightly chaotic bringing up to his tragic (and a little spooky - look up snow in San Francisco, because it snowed for the first time in 35 years the day before) early death. My own personal favourite of Vince's is "Peppermint Patty", especially the slightly off-kilter live version. (There is a later version that is based on, but isn't the same as the original - it's good, I like it, but it's not the same.) So, how about it, a look at the life of Vince Guaraldi?
When I was a kid, Christmas wasn't Christmas until we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's the best Christmas special ever and I will die on that hill! Hehehe... Crazy that it was so thrown together and was only saved because of the timeline.
Being 22 years old I do remember having a vhs player and we had this movie on the tapes absolutely loved it there was nothing better than watching this movie on tape 😂
Wow... It really is nothing short of a miracle anything creative and wholesome comes out of corp Hollywood. Been a fan of this special since the 80s as a kid. And after becoming a jazz fan as a late teen in the 90s really loved the sound track as well. Vince sounds A LOT like my fav jazz musician of all time Bill Evans.
Been a huge fan of Peanuts since I first found and read the small books belonging to my dad in the spare bedroom of our house many years ago. And Snoopy's Christmas by The Royal Guardsmen is one of my favourite Christmas songs.
This cartoon is part of my childhood and I think part of my parents childhood as welI. I showed it to my children when they were young, but being that they were born in 1999 and 2006, they were not as impressed as I was at their age.
I actually didn't realize aluminum trees were a real thing let alone common... I would love to get and put up Charlie Brown's tree (though it would just have to be a smaller decoration next to the actual tree)
Literally have what UA-cam's bots call the *Master* copy in my UA-cam Studio. The original broadcast with Coke sponsorship and uncut. Tried to upload it here Butttttttt 🤷♂
As many times as I watch this one, The Great Pumpkin, and the Thanksgiving special, I still never get tired of them. I've been warching them since I was a child, and have fond memories of drinking hot (luke warm) chocolate and watching this special.
A few things.
A. This video needs to blow up. You did an amazing job making it and everyone needs to see it
B. It was a Christmas miracle that this movie was made.
C. This special seems like a series of ef it, we'll do it live
i agree with everything you said
I absolutely love this special. My Dad is a HUGE fan of the Peanuts comic strip, and introduced my sister and I to the special from a very young age. Just last weekend, I played in a jazz band that actually featured Christmas Time Is Here, with vocals!!! This show is timeless, and always will be
I'm a huge fan of animation and also a huge Peanuts fan. I was born the year it premiered and remember it re-airing every year since I was old enough to remember. This retelling of the story was largely accurate but a couple of extra points are worth noting.
First, the reason why the special aired at all despite the suits at the network and Coca-Cola all hating it, was that TV Guide magazine, which was the main source in people's homes as to the upcoming daily TV schedule had already been printed and being mailed out to millions of Americans (it was published weekly). While pre-emptions of shows happened, since it was a show that was actually featured in the magazine as something people should watch, it would be a huge mistake just to yank it for a rerun of something else. The network knew they had a huge hit on their hands when TV stations around the country reported people phoning their main switchboards expressing their love for the show.
The folks at the network were also leery of the show having Linus quote directly from the Bible. Schulz stuck to his principles and insisted it remained in.
One of the main reasons for the pressure to get a new Christmas special on that year (1965) was the enormous success of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", which premiered in 1964. And while Rudolph was not the first animated Christmas special ("Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" would premiere inn 1962), the success of Rudolph pressured TV execs to find something new to hopefully find similar popularity.
Vince Guaraldi's involvement was not only due to Melendez but to Schulz himself who was a fan of his music and he frequently performed in northern California where Schulz had moved to from his original home base in St. Paul, MN. It's really hard to make a lasting Christmas classic but "A Charlie Brown Christmas" had two of them, specifically "Christmas Time is Here" and "Skating" as well as the first appearance of "Linus and Lucy", which is now the default theme music for anything Peanuts. "Skating" would also be featured again in the first full length Peanuts movie, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown".
It's understandable why Bill Melendez would not be happy with his own work on "A Charlie Brown Christmas". It was rushed and it shows in some places with minor animation mistakes that there was just not time to redo. But this was a guy who had cut his teeth at Disney working on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Fantasia" and "Pinnochio" which were animation marvels by any standard. Then he spent a decade at Warner Bros. doing Looney Tunes cartoons during the era where they had the most lavish budgets to do really great work. And even though he'd done Peanuts before dating back to the Ford Motor Company ad campaign in 1959, he had more time for the cells he needed to complete and it was in black and white. Ironically when "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was a smash hit, he agreed to do two specials in 1966 including "A Charlie Brown All-Stars" and the venerable classic "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". At least the later special had the nine months to get right, as well as larger budgets to hire more staff. "A Charlie Brown All-Stars" was brought to the screen on June 8th, 1966, barely six months after "A Charlie Brown Christmas" aired.
Kids were just not cast as animation voices and to this day, the Peanuts specials are largely the only ones that buck that tradition for television. Lee Mendelson, who was always looking out for new voices since kids would quickly grow out of their voices once told a story about being in a shopping mall and heard a child who he knew would be a perfect Peppermint Patty. Sadly, the mother of the child thought he was crazy, didn't believe who he was despite being handed a business card and walked off. The only voice that wasn't a kid was the voice of Snoopy, which was Bill Mendelez's own voice. To this day, Mendelez's voice in archival footage is still used for Snoopy, long after he passed away.
In my opinion, the relative roughness of the animation adds to the charm.
I can not imagine my life without "A Charlie Brown Christmas." ❤
I think music is even more iconic
And the humble shall be exalted! Defines Charles Schultz,and Peanuts,in one sentence! Thank you 😇 😊!
I watched this yearly in the 70's as a child. For me, even being so young, the message of humbleness, gratefulness, and the message of the true meaning of Christmas has always stuck with me. Keep stories like these coming History in the Dark - excellent! Kudos to you!! Oh yeah, I watched every Charlie Brown animated feature I could find on TV :)
I am not a boomer who despises technology, I love that it was on VHS and later Blu-Ray or Streaming. But back when I was a kid, you would come home from school for the start of Christmas vacation and that was when CBS would show Charlie Brown Christmas and all the other Christmas specials.
This is my all-time favorite Christmas special. It's gone down through all our generations since its creation as a tradition to watch every Christmas. ❤
I'm currently 25 years old and for as long as I can remember, each and every year during Christmas time, me and my mother would ALWAYS watch 2 movies together back to back. The original How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. This was very likely my very first introduction to the Peanuts as a whole and I absouletly adore the Peanuts. We even have a wooden tree with lights outside that we call our "Charlie Brown tree" due to me wrapping up the base of it with a dark blue blanket with Charlie Brown and Snoopy on it that was gifted to me by my grandmother years ago. This special always just makes me happy, both as a kid and as an adult. It takes you back to when you were just a kid like Linus or Charlie Brown during the Christmas season while telling a simple and effective story coupled with incredible music and a very important lesson to be learned. Christmas isnt about the gifts nor the lights nor the letters to Santa, its about coming together and appreciating each other and all the good things we have in life. Take a page from Good Ol' Charlie Brown himself and remember: Never let the commercialism ruin what Christmas is really about.
Same but my grinch was the jim carrey one. It had just came out and i was like 3 or 4. It was amazing and i watch it every year, along with Charlie Brown, and now j get to watch it with my little one ❤
The most realistic prospects of how a lot of people fell about Christmas. One of the few special that address depression around the season
I love the Peanuts gang, as does my grandma. It is so hilarious how back then and now in the modern day, the special was basically cobbled together but, loved by many even to this day.
Christmas isn't Christmas without watching A Charlie Brown Crhistmas
The Story goes that Bill Melendez told Charles Schultz they would never get away with quoting the Bible in a cartoon. Schultz replied "Well Bill, if we can't do it, who can?"
Wonderful overview of A Charlie Brown Christmas. The Peanuts TV specials were a huge and defining part of my own personal upbringing. Am really happy to know that, despite the chaos of creating the special, it really ended up becoming a classic part of TV Americana. Sounds like the idea of keeping the story as simple as possible, plus using the best of what was requested along with Charles Schultz’s ideas, made A Charlie Brown Christmas the game changer that it was.
I’ve been watching A Charlie Brown Christmas every year since the 70s, will never get tired of it! ❤️
When Charlie Brown and Linus go to the Christmas Tree lot and find nothing but ugly aluminum trees, well that was a fad in the 60's. People were buying trees that looked like modern Art. Charlie Brown Christmas actually brought back the real tree.
Very informative and entertaining history lesson my friend!
Well 👏 done! ❤🎉. Loved this!
I have one of those silver trees. We had one when I was a child. I remember we gave it to one of my teachers for a classroom tree. I bought one 20 years ago. It's in rough shape. I need to restore it. Paint the "trunk" and reglue the tensil. Plus, I want to get a light for it.
No way, a Charlie Brown video?! Your way of branching things out just keeps getting better!
Say, I’ve noticed you made your tv and media playlist. May I suggest adding to it your videos on Thomas, Olton Hall, Sierra 3, This is your life, Orson Welles, Blockbuster, and Circuit City’s DIVX.
Just thought this might help you organize your movie-related stuff, too.
Excellent Darkness. Your best yet. Here in the UK, the Peanuts specials are equally loved, if only rarely seen these days. Just one point - I don't think they would have worked without Vince Guaraldi, at least, at first. It was right to make it with Jazz, but what Jazz? Cue Vince's slightly overdriven (in a good way!), simple, joy-filled piano jazz, and it was PERFECT. I think a look at the life of Vince is in order, Darkness, from his slightly chaotic bringing up to his tragic (and a little spooky - look up snow in San Francisco, because it snowed for the first time in 35 years the day before) early death. My own personal favourite of Vince's is "Peppermint Patty", especially the slightly off-kilter live version. (There is a later version that is based on, but isn't the same as the original - it's good, I like it, but it's not the same.) So, how about it, a look at the life of Vince Guaraldi?
When I was a kid, Christmas wasn't Christmas until we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's the best Christmas special ever and I will die on that hill! Hehehe...
Crazy that it was so thrown together and was only saved because of the timeline.
When I was a kid, my Mom and I would set time aside to watch this every year
Being 22 years old I do remember having a vhs player and we had this movie on the tapes absolutely loved it there was nothing better than watching this movie on tape 😂
I am totally going to find this and put it on for my almost 5 yr old tomorrow. Can't believe I haven't.
Wow... It really is nothing short of a miracle anything creative and wholesome comes out of corp Hollywood. Been a fan of this special since the 80s as a kid. And after becoming a jazz fan as a late teen in the 90s really loved the sound track as well. Vince sounds A LOT like my fav jazz musician of all time Bill Evans.
I watch this every year
Been a huge fan of Peanuts since I first found and read the small books belonging to my dad in the spare bedroom of our house many years ago. And Snoopy's Christmas by The Royal Guardsmen is one of my favourite Christmas songs.
My grandparents have a peanuts nativity set. And they have it out every year.
Soundtrack slaps
Well I grew up with the Charlie Brown Christmas and I just got schooled
I watch every Charlie Brown movie evey year 😁
I'd like to teach the world to sing. Some of the ads are remarkable.
Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
This cartoon is part of my childhood and I think part of my parents childhood as welI. I showed it to my children when they were young, but being that they were born in 1999 and 2006, they were not as impressed as I was at their age.
Snoopy is 75
Charlie Brown killed the Aluminum tree
I actually didn't realize aluminum trees were a real thing let alone common...
I would love to get and put up Charlie Brown's tree (though it would just have to be a smaller decoration next to the actual tree)
Literally have what UA-cam's bots call the *Master* copy in my UA-cam Studio. The original broadcast with Coke sponsorship and uncut. Tried to upload it here Butttttttt
🤷♂
I've got a Vans Snoopy Backpack and Wallet.
This video made me realize the creator's last name is Schulz, not Schultz....
I don't think it's syndicated anymore Apple bought the rights in 2020 and keeps it on apple TV.