Charlie Brown: The Christmas Classic That Almost Wasn't

[Geoff_M]

For you other fans out there:

The Christmas classic that almost wasn't

By Bill Nichols, USA TODAYTue Dec 6, 7:42 AM ET

When CBS bigwigs saw a rough cut of A Charlie Brown Christmas in November 1965, they hated it.

"They said it was slow," executive producer Lee Mendelson remembers with a laugh. There were concerns that the show was almost defiantly different: There was no laugh track, real children provided the voices, and there was a swinging score by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi.

Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez fretted about the insistence by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz that his first-ever TV spinoff end with a reading of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke by a lisping little boy named Linus.

"We told Schulz, 'Look, you can't read from the Bible on network television,' " Mendelson says. "When we finished the show and watched it, Melendez and I looked at each other and I said, 'We've ruined Charlie Brown.' "

Good grief, were they wrong. The first broadcast was watched by almost 50% of the nation's viewers. "When I started reading the reviews, I was absolutely shocked," says Melendez, 89. "They actually liked it!"

There's lots more to the article... LINK

 

[manchurianbrownbear]

Great story! Thanks for sharing!

 

[sodaseller]

Someone on another board swore it had been changed to reduce the "Christian content". Not that I saw - looked the same - did I miss something?

 

[Deb in IA]

Great article, Geoff!!!



A confession: I cry too . . .