In our canon of Santa Claus, we told the story of Santa from Saint Nicholas of Turkey to the first Christmas tree in Latvia, to his role in the movie Elf. But there’s another tradition celebrated every year at Christmas time. It’s a story that almost never was.
Our story begins in 1439.
Likely a date you learned about in school, it’s the year Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which would change the world.
Our story begins in 1439.
Likely a date you learned about in school, it’s the year Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which would change the world.
In fact, in 1999, the Arts and Entertainment Network (A&E) would name Johannes Gutenberg as the number one most influential person of the Millennium. It was he who printed the Gutenberg Bible, the first mass produced Bible in history.
But generally, Gutenberg is not associated with Christmas.
Four hundred years after Gutenberg invented the printing press, his hometown of Leipzig, Germany would celebrate him, their most beloved resident. And they would hire Europe’s then most beloved composer to write music for the ceremony, Felix Mendelssohn.
Felix was known throughout Europe as a conductor, composer and performer. He walked in the company of other greats like Franz List, Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz. He’d also go on to found the Leipzig Conservatory and write some of the world’s finest classical pieces. But it is just one piece of music that interests us today.
It is the piece he wrote to celebrate the life of Johannes Gutenberg, titled “festgesang” (Festival Song)“. It was performed for that celebration on June 24, 1840, in the market square of Leipzig, with two choirs and two orchestras to fully fill the large open space. It was well accepted, and often played after that at celebrations, including Christmas.
15 years later, William H. Cummings, who had performed in Felix Mendelssohn’s choir, needed this song for one of his performances. As a singer, he had performed in St. Paul’s Cathedral, Exeter Hall, and even in Boston, Massachusetts, for the Handel and Hayden Society.
Being a man of the Gospel and of music, he knew Felix Mendelssohn’s catalogue of music. He knew Felix Mendelssohn’s catalog of music, as well as the hymns of Charles and John Wesley from a hundred years prior.
Charles and John Wesley published their book of Biblical hymns and sacred poems, aptly titled Hymns and Sacred Poems, in 1739. Together, the Wesley brothers would write over 6,000 hymns, traveling far and wide to teach the lessons of the Bible. From their efforts, a new Christian denomination was created, the Methodist Church.
One of the poems Cummings fancied was called “A Hymn for Christmas Day.” Charles Wesley had written it, inspired by hearing the church bells ringing on his daily walk. Cummings knew the rhythm of the poem well and thought it fit together perfectly with the syncopation of Mendelssohn’s “festgesang“.
Combined together, this new song he would publish in 1857 in a book of congregational hymns. You know that song today as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
Around that same time, another fellow was gaining worldwide fame and notoriety, not for music, but for writing. Hans Christian Anderson was 52 years old in 1857 when Hark the Herald Angels Sing was published, and he was known worldwide for his stories and fairy tales.
His first book of poems had been published already 20 years, and he was known for stories like the Tinder box, the Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina, the Naughty Boy, the Ugly Duckling, the Little Mermaid, and the Emperor’s New Clothes.
In 1844, he had published two stories that were meant to be read at Christmas time “The Fir Tree and the Snowman. To promote that book, Anderson actually read his stories aloud. He read both of them to the Princess of Prussia and Count Bismarck of Poland at his Christmas party. The Fir Tree would become an often read story at Christmas time.
As you may know, many of Hans Christian Anderson’s stories were turned into animated movies by Walt Disney in the 20th century, starting with the black and white short of The Ugly Duckling in 1931. It actually became a full feature in 1937, about the same time the story Pinocchio by Carl Coloddi came out.
Bill Melendez, a new animator at Disney, was working on Pinocchio, his first film. He was more than excited to be working on the movie as he’d spent years and years trying to get a job at Disney.
Bill’s real name was José Cuauhtémoc Melendez, and he was born in Hermosillo, Mexico, but when he was 12 his family emigrated to Douglas, Arizona. He’d once sent a letter to Disney asking about animation jobs, but had never heard back. So at 17 years old when his family moved to California, he applied in person with Disney directly.
They asked if he’d get more training at the Schuman School of Art, which he did, and after which they hired him right away. While at Disney, he didn’t work on any Hans Christian Anderson’s films per se, but he did work on Fantasia, which was a conglomeration, which featured a small part based on a Hans Christian Anderson story and part on the Nutcracker.
In 1941, Bill was enamored with the idea of a labor union and eventually became part of labor strike later that year. The labor clash became a major problem for Disney and caused many animators to go elsewhere.
Bill Melendez, P.D. Eastman, and Holly Pratt were some of the casualties. Melendez ended up at Leon Schlesinger Productions, alongside Friz Freleng, making Daffy Duck and other Warner Bros. cartoons. Melendez had the fortunate look of animating to the jazzy music sounds of the Raymond Scott Quartet, Duke Ellington and the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
But in 1950 Melendez left Leon Schlesinger Productions to join the advertising agency Jay Walter Thompson, which brings us to the next hero in our story.
Norman Grant’s was the music producer for Duke Ellington. He’d made a name for himself in the jazz community after founding the Jazz at the Philharmonic. His assistant was Saul Zaentz. Saul was a jack of all trades, getting everything he could done for all the labels artists.
Feeling a bit underappreciated there, Saul left Norman Grant to get a sales job at Fantasy Records, home of the jazzy Great Dave Brubek. To make a name for himself, he decided to put together an album of up and coming San Francisco Jazz artists.
Along with Brubek and Ellington, the city was brewing with Jazz. One of the artists saw came across, was a phenomenal piano player and local celebrity, Vince Guaraldi. Saul and Vince hit it off, and soon made an album together, titled “Jazzimpressions of the Black Orpheus” by the Vince Geraldo Trio.
One song on Side B had a pop feel to it, and Radio DJ’s loved it. The song “Cast Your Fatte to the Wind”, made it to number 22 on the Billboard pop charts, and became Fantasy Records first big hit and landed Vince Guaraldi his first Grammy. It got great airtime on San Francisco’s Jazz radio including Al “JazzBo” Cuming Show on KSFO which would later lead to Vince’s big break.
Across town at KPIX TV San Francisco, Lee Mendelson’s career in TV had just begun. He was working on public service announcements. In his research one day, he came across some old footage of the 1915 San Francisco World’s Fair and decided to try his hand at documentary filmmaking. Amazingly, his program would win a Peabody Award, driving Mendelssohn towards a career in documentaries.
He left KPIX in 1963, the same year Vince Guaraldi won his Grammy, and he started his own production company. For his first independent film, he chose the subject of Willy Mays.
He wanted to do something important that would also be easy to sell. Every child and sports fan in San Francisco loved Willy Mays, and historically his game was very important. Mays had been one of the first players from the Negro leagues to join Major League Baseball.
After Jackie Robinson’s historic 1947 pro contract. May’s joined the San Francisco Giants in 1951 and took home the Rookie of the Year award. To many, he was the greatest baseball player ever, and the documentary got great reviews by everyone.
After the documentary, Mendelssohn stumbled across a Peanuts comic strip about baseball, where Charlie Brown was commenting that he might be the worst baseball player ever. That intrigued Mendelssohn, following up his documentary about the greatest baseball player ever, he thought about doing one about the worst baseball player ever, Charlie Brown.
And this is where all the heroes of our story to come together.
Classical composer Felix Mendelson, Fairy Tail writer Hans Christian Anderson, Jazz musician Vince Guaraldi, Disney animator Bill Melendez Documentary filmmaker Bill Mendelsohn and Charles Schultz.
Far from San Francisco Charles Schultz was born in 1922 in the much colder state of Minnesota. His parents nicknamed him Sparky, prophetically after the most famous comic of the time, Barney Guggo and Snuffy Smith.
Charles loved drawing and often submitted his doodles to contests. At the age of 15, Charles drew a picture of his dog’s spike, along with all the crazy foods the dog ate, and sent it to Ripley’s Believe It or Not. And they published it.
His first success.
His mother and father saw potential in him, and inquired about the Correspondence School Art Instruction, Inc.. After a salesman came to their house, they signed Charles up for the $170 course, which would be equivalent to about $3,400 today.
Charles’s father took an extra job to pay for it. A couple years later, after a long illness, his mother would pass away. In a cruel twist of fate, he would be drafted into World War II, and would be sent to the war the same week his mother passed. His time in the military was one of his proudest accomplishments. He was part of a machine gun squad and ended up being part of the group that liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp.
On August 6, 1945, the day Hiroshima was bombed. Charles Schultz arrived back in New York for a 30-day furlough. Japan surrendered eight days later, and Schultz never went back.
In 1946, he returned to the Minneapolis- Saint Paul area and started drawing for a Catholic comic magazine. And he joined the faculty at Art Instruction School, his early correspondence course, where he worked alongside fellow artists Charlie Brown, Linus, and Frida.
Soon after, he started his own comic, in the Saint Paul Press, called Little Folks, about a bunch of kids and a dog. He even had some of his panels printed in the Saturday Evening Post. Schultz wanted the bigger space and more money from Saint Paul Press, but they didn’t have it to give.
So he applied at Disney, other newspapers, and with United Feature Syndicate in New York City. United Feature Syndicate, and Disney, said yes. But he declined the Disney job and got on a train to New York.
The only thing the United Feature Syndicate wanted to change was the name, Little Folks. With Little Abner and a couple other comics that were too similar to the name Little Folks, they renamed it to Peanuts.
And for his seven newspaper syndication deal, he made $90 a week. It only took a few months before his newspaper reach expanded, and within a few years, publishers began licensing Peanuts Comics to put on books, magazines, lunch boxes, and more.
By 1957, Schultz was drawing a daily strip, a Sunday-covered strip, attending book signings, presenting talks, and doing interviews for newspapers and TV.
In 1955, Kodak became the first product to use Peanuts in the advertisements for their first easy-click-and-shoot pocket camera. A&W Rootbeer and Hallmark shortly followed. And in 1959, Ford Motors licensed the Peanuts Gang to help market the Ford Falcon in print and on TV.
Charles’s father took an extra job to pay for it. A couple years later, after a long illness, his mother would pass away. In a cruel twist of fate, he would be drafted into World War II, and would be sent to the war the same week his mother passed. His time in the military was one of his proudest accomplishments. He was part of a machine gun squad and ended up being part of the group that liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp.
On August 6, 1945, the day Hiroshima was bombed. Charles Schultz arrived back in New York for a 30-day furlough. Japan surrendered eight days later, and Schultz never went back.
In 1946, he returned to the Minneapolis- Saint Paul area and started drawing for a Catholic comic magazine. And he joined the faculty at Art Instruction School, his early correspondence course, where he worked alongside fellow artists Charlie Brown, Linus, and Frida.
Soon after, he started his own comic, in the Saint Paul Press, called Little Folks, about a bunch of kids and a dog. He even had some of his panels printed in the Saturday Evening Post. Schultz wanted the bigger space and more money from Saint Paul Press, but they didn’t have it to give.
So he applied at Disney, other newspapers, and with United Feature Syndicate in New York City. United Feature Syndicate, and Disney, said yes. But he declined the Disney job and got on a train to New York.
The only thing the United Feature Syndicate wanted to change was the name, Little Folks. With Little Abner and a couple other comics that were too similar to the name Little Folks, they renamed it to Peanuts.
And for his seven newspaper syndication deal, he made $90 a week. It only took a few months before his newspaper reach expanded, and within a few years, publishers began licensing Peanuts Comics to put on books, magazines, lunch boxes, and more.
By 1957, Schultz was drawing a daily strip, a Sunday-covered strip, attending book signings, presenting talks, and doing interviews for newspapers and TV.
In 1955, Kodak became the first product to use Peanuts in the advertisements for their first easy-click-and-shoot pocket camera. A&W Rootbeer and Hallmark shortly followed. And in 1959, Ford Motors licensed the Peanuts Gang to help market the Ford Falcon in print and on TV.
Their ad agency, Jay Walter Thompson, wanted to animate the characters for TV, which had never been done before. Schultz was not eager for them to be on TV, but agreed to meet the animator and see what could be done.
A couple days later, the animator arrived.
He’d come with plenty of experience doing commercials and even movies for Disney. You probably remember his name, Bill Melendez. And to Schultz’s surprise, he was able to translate the Peanuts cartoon to video, which delighted Schultz.
In 1963 Schultz got another phone call. This time from a documentary filmmaker who wanted to make a documentary about him. Schultz wasn’t eager to participate until he found out that the producer had previously made the Willy May’s documentary he had just seen.
He thought, “Willy May is trusted this guy, maybe I should too.” They set an appointment and it wasn’t long before Charles Schultz and Lee Mendelsohn got together. Over a few months they made a documentary, with Bill Melendez from the Ford gig helping to create a few animated sequences.
While crossing the Golden Gate Bridge one day, Lee Mendelsohn was listening to KSFO jazz with Al “Jazbo” Collins on the turntable. He was playing “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Vince Guaraldi, and Lee knew that that was the music he wanted for the documentary.
He reached out to music agent Ralph Gleason, who connected him with Vince Guaraldi. Vince Guaraldi was already a big Peanuts fan and was delighted to be involved with the project.
He called Lee a few weeks later and wanted him to listen to a tune over the phone. Lee really wanted to just meet in person, but Vince wouldn’t have it. He played it on the phone right then and there. That was the first time Lee would ever have heard “Linus and Lucy” and he knew it was perfect for the project.
When the documentary, “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” was finished, Lee pitched all the big networks and arranged for a screening before the Greater San Francisco Advertising Club, where it was applauded, but no one chose to sponsor it.
All that work for a failed project.
The following year, Time Magazine put Charles Schultz’s Peanuts on the cover. And then the world’s attention moved to NASA when a fire in the cabin killed the three astronauts, hoping to be the first to land on the moon, the failed Apollo 1 mission.
A memo was sent around to NASA leadership, asking for suggestions for an incentive program to apply to the thousands of NASA employees who were vital to the NASA projects, something that would show them appreciation. Al Chop, the director of public affairs, had an idea for a safety award program. He had been a big fan of the Peanuts, especially Snoopy, the fighter pilot.
And so NASA and Charles Schultz made an arrangement, in which Snoopy would become the National Safety mascot, where outstanding accomplishments would be awarded with the Silver Snoopy Award.
In New York. Coca-Cola took note of the Peanuts Rising worldwide recognition and sent word to their ad agency, McCann Erickson, that they wanted to do something with the Peanuts. John Allen of McCann Erickson had been at the Greater San Francisco Ad meeting when the Charlie Brown documentary was screened.
A couple days later, the animator arrived.
He’d come with plenty of experience doing commercials and even movies for Disney. You probably remember his name, Bill Melendez. And to Schultz’s surprise, he was able to translate the Peanuts cartoon to video, which delighted Schultz.
In 1963 Schultz got another phone call. This time from a documentary filmmaker who wanted to make a documentary about him. Schultz wasn’t eager to participate until he found out that the producer had previously made the Willy May’s documentary he had just seen.
He thought, “Willy May is trusted this guy, maybe I should too.” They set an appointment and it wasn’t long before Charles Schultz and Lee Mendelsohn got together. Over a few months they made a documentary, with Bill Melendez from the Ford gig helping to create a few animated sequences.
While crossing the Golden Gate Bridge one day, Lee Mendelsohn was listening to KSFO jazz with Al “Jazbo” Collins on the turntable. He was playing “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Vince Guaraldi, and Lee knew that that was the music he wanted for the documentary.
He reached out to music agent Ralph Gleason, who connected him with Vince Guaraldi. Vince Guaraldi was already a big Peanuts fan and was delighted to be involved with the project.
He called Lee a few weeks later and wanted him to listen to a tune over the phone. Lee really wanted to just meet in person, but Vince wouldn’t have it. He played it on the phone right then and there. That was the first time Lee would ever have heard “Linus and Lucy” and he knew it was perfect for the project.
When the documentary, “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” was finished, Lee pitched all the big networks and arranged for a screening before the Greater San Francisco Advertising Club, where it was applauded, but no one chose to sponsor it.
All that work for a failed project.
The following year, Time Magazine put Charles Schultz’s Peanuts on the cover. And then the world’s attention moved to NASA when a fire in the cabin killed the three astronauts, hoping to be the first to land on the moon, the failed Apollo 1 mission.
A memo was sent around to NASA leadership, asking for suggestions for an incentive program to apply to the thousands of NASA employees who were vital to the NASA projects, something that would show them appreciation. Al Chop, the director of public affairs, had an idea for a safety award program. He had been a big fan of the Peanuts, especially Snoopy, the fighter pilot.
And so NASA and Charles Schultz made an arrangement, in which Snoopy would become the National Safety mascot, where outstanding accomplishments would be awarded with the Silver Snoopy Award.
In New York. Coca-Cola took note of the Peanuts Rising worldwide recognition and sent word to their ad agency, McCann Erickson, that they wanted to do something with the Peanuts. John Allen of McCann Erickson had been at the Greater San Francisco Ad meeting when the Charlie Brown documentary was screened.
He knew that Lee Mendelson was the guy to call.
Lee was ecstatic to get the call, thinking his documentary might have life after all. But John Allen had only one question. Have you guys ever considered a Charlie Brown Christmas special?
Of course they did, he said. Despite never having considered it before.
The catch was they wanted the Christmas special for this season. And if that wasn’t tight enough, Coca-Cola was meeting in five days and could approve it then if they had an outline and a concept in hand.
Lee called Charles and told him they had to meet tomorrow and create an entire outline for a Charlie Brown Coca-Cola Christmas special. They quickly agreed on the basics. There would be a figure skating scene, a school play, and jazz music.
Lee had been reading Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales to his children and had a particular fondness for the story, “The Fir Tree”. They both agreed that Charlie Brown Christmas special should also have a small tree only Charlie Brown could love.
And finally, Charles Schultz wanted it to be about the true meaning of Christmas. He wanted to include a Bible verse, not just any verse though.
As a child in the Lutheran and Methodist communities of Minneapolis / Saint Paul, every child becomes part of the Christmas Nativity play, each December. They all experience getting picked to be a shepherd or a wise men or sheep, and everyone memorizes the second chapter of Luke, known to extol the true meaning of Christmas.
When Lee asked Charles if he was sure he wanted the Bible verse in a children’s cartoon, Charles replied, “If we don’t, who will?” And so in two days, the outline and basic structure of a Charlie Brown Christmas was written. A worrisome month went by without word, and then they got the call that the show was approved with delivery in six months.
Shultz trusted only one animator and Mendelssohn trusted only one musician. So Charles Schultz, Lee Mendelssohn, Bill Melendez and Vince Guaraldi got together to write the show. Vince left with his marching orders. Having the concept of the Hans Christian Anderson’s The Fir Tree in mind, he knew O’Tannenbam would be part. And the nascivity scene would call for “What Child is This?”.
The character Schroeder loved Beethoven so “Fur Elise” was added, and Charles Schulz wanted the song that announced the true meaning of Christmas. So Felix Mendelssohn’s “Hark the Herald Angels” sing would close the show.
No adult had ever graced the pages of peanuts, and Charles wanted it to remain that way. So they hired some children and used neighbor kids to fill out the parts of the characters. Vince had worked with the St. Paul’s Episcopal Children’s Choir and would use them for the recordings.
Melendez drew over 7,000 panels for the show. The hardest ones being the moment Charlie Brown turned his head. Charles Schulz had never done that in the comics, so Bill had to invent how that would look.
Lee was ecstatic to get the call, thinking his documentary might have life after all. But John Allen had only one question. Have you guys ever considered a Charlie Brown Christmas special?
Of course they did, he said. Despite never having considered it before.
The catch was they wanted the Christmas special for this season. And if that wasn’t tight enough, Coca-Cola was meeting in five days and could approve it then if they had an outline and a concept in hand.
Lee called Charles and told him they had to meet tomorrow and create an entire outline for a Charlie Brown Coca-Cola Christmas special. They quickly agreed on the basics. There would be a figure skating scene, a school play, and jazz music.
Lee had been reading Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales to his children and had a particular fondness for the story, “The Fir Tree”. They both agreed that Charlie Brown Christmas special should also have a small tree only Charlie Brown could love.
And finally, Charles Schultz wanted it to be about the true meaning of Christmas. He wanted to include a Bible verse, not just any verse though.
As a child in the Lutheran and Methodist communities of Minneapolis / Saint Paul, every child becomes part of the Christmas Nativity play, each December. They all experience getting picked to be a shepherd or a wise men or sheep, and everyone memorizes the second chapter of Luke, known to extol the true meaning of Christmas.
When Lee asked Charles if he was sure he wanted the Bible verse in a children’s cartoon, Charles replied, “If we don’t, who will?” And so in two days, the outline and basic structure of a Charlie Brown Christmas was written. A worrisome month went by without word, and then they got the call that the show was approved with delivery in six months.
Shultz trusted only one animator and Mendelssohn trusted only one musician. So Charles Schultz, Lee Mendelssohn, Bill Melendez and Vince Guaraldi got together to write the show. Vince left with his marching orders. Having the concept of the Hans Christian Anderson’s The Fir Tree in mind, he knew O’Tannenbam would be part. And the nascivity scene would call for “What Child is This?”.
The character Schroeder loved Beethoven so “Fur Elise” was added, and Charles Schulz wanted the song that announced the true meaning of Christmas. So Felix Mendelssohn’s “Hark the Herald Angels” sing would close the show.
No adult had ever graced the pages of peanuts, and Charles wanted it to remain that way. So they hired some children and used neighbor kids to fill out the parts of the characters. Vince had worked with the St. Paul’s Episcopal Children’s Choir and would use them for the recordings.
Melendez drew over 7,000 panels for the show. The hardest ones being the moment Charlie Brown turned his head. Charles Schulz had never done that in the comics, so Bill had to invent how that would look.
Vince arranged and performed the songs, including writing several originals. His opening song seemed a bit slow, so in about 15 minutes Lee Mendelsohn wrote the lyrics to the song, not realizing that “Christmas Time is Here” would become one of the most iconic Christmas songs of all time.
The show was finished six days before it would air. Charles and Lee flew out to New York to screen it with CBS. Sadly, the CBS executives thought it was too slow and would bomb. It would never run again. They didn’t even want to air it then, and declined to order any more shows.
What Lee thought was the greatest decision he’d ever made turned into him thinking he’d possibly ruined Peanuts forever.
But CBS had already promoted it and had no choice but to play it anyway. Reluctantly, on Thursday night, December 9, 1965, replacing a show called “The Monsters” and following “Gilligan’s Island”, CBS would broadcast “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.
They had low hopes for it, especially since it was going head to head with America’s number one show, Bonanza. But to everyone’s delight, the Charlie Brown Christmas had been a major hit.
There being only three networks for Americans to watch. The show was seen by 44% of the nation. It was the number one show of the night, and it was the number two show of the week, beating out “I love Lucy” and “The Man From Uncle”.
And it would go on to win a Peabody and Emmy award. CBS immediately ordered four more Charlie Brown specials, and “The Charlie Brown Christmas” would become an annual tradition so ingrained in America that Christmas wouldn’t be complete without it. It soon joined the ranks of “The Wizard of Oz”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and “The Grinch” as family traditions.
Today, a Charlie Brown Christmas is not only a TV classic, but now is the most performed Christmas play. It’s become a Christmas play about a Christmas play, or children everywhere hoping to be chosen to be Charlie Brown or Sally or Snoopy for their parents to watch. The same parents that probably had a Snoopy lunchbox as a kid.
After 17,897 comic panels, Schultz’s health declined, forcing him to retire. He drew his farewell cartoon in December of 1999, which was to be published on Sunday, February 13, 2000. On February 12, 2000, the day before, he passed away quietly in a sleep.
Peanuts were translated into 26 languages and 75 countries and 2,600 newspapers. And in 1984 made the Guinness Book of World Records. The famous comedian Tim Meadows said of Schultz, “Charles Schultz understood that regardless of race we’re all the same. We have heads as large as our bodies, and our mouths disappear when we turn sideways.”
If there is one thing you should get from all of these stories, it’s that everything is connected to everything else. You’ve been listening to the 26th episode of Tracing the Path with Dan Amoris.
The show was finished six days before it would air. Charles and Lee flew out to New York to screen it with CBS. Sadly, the CBS executives thought it was too slow and would bomb. It would never run again. They didn’t even want to air it then, and declined to order any more shows.
What Lee thought was the greatest decision he’d ever made turned into him thinking he’d possibly ruined Peanuts forever.
But CBS had already promoted it and had no choice but to play it anyway. Reluctantly, on Thursday night, December 9, 1965, replacing a show called “The Monsters” and following “Gilligan’s Island”, CBS would broadcast “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.
They had low hopes for it, especially since it was going head to head with America’s number one show, Bonanza. But to everyone’s delight, the Charlie Brown Christmas had been a major hit.
There being only three networks for Americans to watch. The show was seen by 44% of the nation. It was the number one show of the night, and it was the number two show of the week, beating out “I love Lucy” and “The Man From Uncle”.
And it would go on to win a Peabody and Emmy award. CBS immediately ordered four more Charlie Brown specials, and “The Charlie Brown Christmas” would become an annual tradition so ingrained in America that Christmas wouldn’t be complete without it. It soon joined the ranks of “The Wizard of Oz”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and “The Grinch” as family traditions.
Today, a Charlie Brown Christmas is not only a TV classic, but now is the most performed Christmas play. It’s become a Christmas play about a Christmas play, or children everywhere hoping to be chosen to be Charlie Brown or Sally or Snoopy for their parents to watch. The same parents that probably had a Snoopy lunchbox as a kid.
After 17,897 comic panels, Schultz’s health declined, forcing him to retire. He drew his farewell cartoon in December of 1999, which was to be published on Sunday, February 13, 2000. On February 12, 2000, the day before, he passed away quietly in a sleep.
Peanuts were translated into 26 languages and 75 countries and 2,600 newspapers. And in 1984 made the Guinness Book of World Records. The famous comedian Tim Meadows said of Schultz, “Charles Schultz understood that regardless of race we’re all the same. We have heads as large as our bodies, and our mouths disappear when we turn sideways.”
If there is one thing you should get from all of these stories, it’s that everything is connected to everything else. You’ve been listening to the 26th episode of Tracing the Path with Dan Amoris.
CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
To hear all the stories that hit the cutting room floor, you have to listen to the episode.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Let us tell you the story of the 20th Century, by tracing each event back to the original decisions that shaped it. You’ll quickly find out that everybody and everything is connected. If you thought you understood the 20th Century, you’re in for a treat.
Tracing the Path is inspired by storytellers like Paul Harvey, Charles Kuralt, and Andy Rooney.
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James Bond Ghost Armies Ungentlemanly Warfare Ian Fleming was much more than the author of James Bond. |
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Believe it or Not? A cartoonist saved our national anthem. And not just a cartoonist, an American Military March composer as well. |
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When Rural America was Cancelled In the game of Majority Wins . . . the days of Andy Griffith would quickly come to an end. |
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