Christmas Top Ten Throwback #3: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Ok…who does’t love Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty and the Peanuts gang??!!  “Chuck” as he was affectionately called by Peppermint Patty was a permanent fixture of my holiday season on television for as long as I can remember.  Believe it or not 2020 marks the 55th Anniversary of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.  Take a listen to this fabulous look back a the historic classic via NPR Radio. Lee Mendelson, working with veteran Disney and Warner Bros. animator Bill Melendez, collaborated on their first work, the holiday special “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” a TV show that took chances and defied certain conventions and has remained utterly authentic to the trio’s collective vision.

NPR RADIO SPECIAL ON “A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS”

 

The debut of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” would capture not only the Emmy and Peabody awards, roughly half the people watching television across America and solidified its place in the nation’s holiday tv traditions where it  has remained a fixture ever since.  Everyone has had that Christmas where they couldn’t afford a tree or that plastic one owned for decades finally die a slow painful death…lol.

In A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, Charlie Brown is depressed by the Christmas season because it’s so commercial, but cheers up when Lucy asks him to direct the holiday pageant. But the bossy Lucy doesn’t allow him to do much directing and sends Charlie off to buy an aluminum Christmas tree. Instead, he’s drawn to a sad little fir tree, which everyone mocks. Linus makes a speech about the true meaning of Christmas; moved by his words, the Peanuts gang then transforms the little tree by adding beautiful decorations, and Charlie Brown finally celebrates a Merry Christmas.

In 2020 You Watch ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ And Other ‘Peanuts’ Holiday Specials
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Apple TV+/PBS.
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Take a look back with me to A Charlie Brown Christmas…