Holiday favorite marking 40th year

06:04 PM CST on Monday, December 5, 2005

By DARLA ATLAS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

As part of the 40th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas, the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, Calif., is displaying letters that kids sent after the first airing in December 1965. The show, which was funded by Coca-Cola, clearly made an impression, says Jeannie Schulz, the artist's widow.

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"One said, 'I promise to drink more Coke so you can put out more specials about Charlie Brown,' " she said in a recent telephone interview. She recalls her husband, who died in 2000, saying during the show's 25th anniversary that "he was so proud. He was pleased that it had become a classic."

Not that it was destined to be one. The show wasn't well received by the suits at CBS, according to the book A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition. After watching a screening, they were so unimpressed that they decided to not let the Time magazine critic see it – even though he was waiting out in the hall.

Quietly panicking, executive producer Lee Mendelson spoke up. "Won't it be worse if we don't show it to him?" he asked.

The execs relented, and the critic loved it. His review called it "one children's special this season that bears repeating." Which, of course, it has.

Why it's still around: Sure, there are flashier, even funnier, holiday shows out there. And including a Bible reading in the middle of a kids' show is risky for many reasons. But if everyone was asked to name his or her favorite part of the show, most of us would quickly have an answer. (Those twins dancing, with their hair flopping from side to side, is oddly seared into our brains.) The show's staying power owes a lot to such nostalgia, Ms. Schulz says. But it's not just that: "It's simple. It's simple and truthful."

The extras: Although it kind of goes against the anti-commercialization message of the show, fans can buy stuff to commemorate its 40th year. There's a Snoopy version of Monopoly; a special ornament that comes free with the purchase of a Keepsake model at Hallmark; a CD featuring new recordings of the show's music; and, best of all, a Charlie Brown tree of your very own. The pathetic, overgrown twig comes with a wooden stand and one red ornament, which the makers recommend be hung from the highest branch so it droops just so. The tree, selling at Urban Outfitters for $24, is inside a box that pleads, "This Tree Needs You."

They don't make them like this anymore: The concept of the story was Mr. Schulz's alone (with help in the execution from Mr. Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez). "You look at how television shows are conceived today, and there are too many cooks," his wife says. "Having a single storyteller gives it a presence and a cohesiveness."

You're a bullied man, Charlie Brown: The poor guy takes a beating in this show. A sampling of disses: "Boy, are you stupid, Charlie Brown." "You're hopeless, Charlie Brown, completely hopeless." "You've been dumb before, Charlie Brown, but this time you've really done it." Then they all laugh in his face for good measure. No wonder he seeks psychiatric help (although he gets it from Lucy, of all people). Nowadays, the show would end with the meanies being trotted off to sensitivity training.

The 'message' part: Even back in the 1960s, the idea of including Scripture from the book of Luke was controversial. When, according to Making of a Tradition, Mr. Melendez suggested that it seemed too religious and they shouldn't do it, Mr. Schulz replied, "If we don't do it, who else can?" If he was going to do a Christmas special, he said, it was going to include religion.

Candace Hackett Schively, who was part of the choir of kids singing the opening and closing numbers ("Christmastime is Here" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing") once wrote a letter to Mr. Schulz. She said, "I cannot listen to the King James version of the Christmas story without hearing Linus' voice adding, '... and that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.' "

Rest in heavenly peace: Mr. Schulz died in his sleep the day before his final strip was scheduled to run in newspapers across the world. "If you'd written it like that, people would say, 'Well, it's dramatic license,' " Ms. Schulz says, still amazed by the timing. Ms. Schulz says her continued involvement in the Peanuts industry "has given me my life since he died. I continue to get to live in this space with him, with his memory right at my shoulder."

Darla Atlas is a Dallas-area freelance writer.

A Charlie Brown Christmas
Tuesday at 7 p.m. ABC (Channel 8).