“A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965)
Retro Review #17: 1960s shocker! Network TV actually broadcasts the true meaning of Christmas!
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965) — 1960s shocker! Network TV actually broadcasts the true meaning of Christmas!
+ TV special, @ 25m
Project #1: 2024 Christmas Tour
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A+^
Family Suitability
+ ✅4️⃣ OK for younger kids. (Grades K+) | TV-G
Alignment with Judeo-Christian Values
+ ❎4️⃣ Excellent/Very Strongly Favorable
+ Based on comic strip Peanuts (1950)⭐ by Charles M. Schulz⭐
+ 1️⃣/51 TV specials in Peanuts series ⭐
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965)
Grade: A+^ (20.0) / HOF: 6
EQ 👍A++ | 📖A+ 👥A+ 📽️A+ 🎼A+
DW 😎7.8 | 🌚7 🌝11
POPCAP 💯n/a 🍿n/a 🧢n/a
L-R ☮️n/a ◀️n/a ▶️n/a 🛐n/a
Please indulge me for a short rant. I like to own good content, so I can experience it whenever I want. Now that I’m a reviewer that’s more important to me than ever before. Physical ownership is best, but I’m plum out of room to own and store more books and Blu Ray discs. So I’ve embraced Kindle books and the Vudu (now Fandango, but always Vudu to me) platform. Amazon Prime Video also allows purchasing digital content.
I really dislike subscription streaming services. And when they behave like Apple+, the dislike turns to deep hatred. Apple has acquired exclusive rights to all streaming of the Peanuts TV specials (51 of them at present), opposing efforts to make them more accessible. You used to be able to own most of them on Vudu or Amazon, but if you didn’t purchase earlier, it’s too late now. I guess they think that exclusive rights encourages sign-ups to view good content. It just makes me hate them and look for a work-around. I probably spend more in the long run to own content, but it bothers me more to pay a monthly fee for a month where I didn’t use the service even once. In the short run, I bought the Blu Ray disc for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for the price of just one month of Apple+. A good deal if you ask me. Rant over.
The influence of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” can’t be overstated. It essentially created the genre of the half-hour television special, with animated and/or holiday specials leading the way. The digs against aluminum Christmas trees destroyed demand for that once popular type of artificial tree in just a few years. (Today, unless they remember them from watching this program, most people would say they’ve never heard of such a thing!) The superb jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. And now, in 2024, when I consulted ten all-time best Christmas movie lists, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was on every last one.
Charles M. Schulz was the creative genius behind the Peanuts comic strip, and Bill Melendez was the talented animator who faithfully brought full motion to Schulz’s characters and themes.
Peanuts had already changed comic strips before “A Charlie Brown Christmas” changed television. Before Peanuts, comic strips were primarily serialized adventure stories and quick gag strips telling a joke a day. Schulz used humor effectively, but added thought-provoking philosophy, social commentary, and clever satire. Peanuts reflected societal anxieties of the times as the post-war celebration of the late forties morphed into the Cold War concerns of the early fifties when Peanuts debuted. Schulz successfully weaved many of his intellectual themes from the comic strips into the longer form script for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and the Bill Melendez animation made Peanuts a success in a whole new medium.
The most impactful decision Schulz made in writing this holiday special was to have Linus recite the nativity story from the King James Version of the Gospel of Luke. Never before, and rarely, if ever, since, has religion been featured so prominently in a positive light in mainstream network television.
If you were to rank the three top reasons for the greatness of this TV special, you’d have a tough choice for which deserves #2 and #3 between the charm and breadth of the cast of Peanuts characters created by Schulz and the Guaraldi soundtrack featuring the iconic number, “Linus and Lucy”.
But #1 is no contest. It’s Linus explaining to all of us the true meaning of Christmas.
Onwards!
P.S. For more interesting background on this special, since 2008, the dvd's and Blu Rays have included:
“A Christmas Miracle: The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas”
Short documentary (2008) 16m
Grade: A+v (20.0) / HOF: 1
viewed 2024-12-07, HDX7, 1:33, 2D
+ last viewed (~7) 2025-12-09, HDX7, 1.33, 1M
+ first viewed ~1960s, bw, sd2, 1.33, 1
+ 👨👩👧👦🎈⛄🎄😏😥🥸🐾🐶
Family Suitability Detail
+ ✅4️⃣ OK for younger kids. (Grades K+) | TV-G
+ 😡+4 😵💫+4 🤬+3^ 🤭+4 🫣+4
Judeo-Christian Values Detail
+ ❎4️⃣ Excellent/Very Strongly Favorable
+ ✝️ +4 ➕✝️✝️✝️🎁🎁😇😇😇❤️❤️❤️
+ ✡️ +4 ➕✡️✡️✡️🌗🌗💎💎🤍🤍
+ 🗽 +1 ➕🏦🇺🇸
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Text Group Reaction: ❤️ from W
Initially Snoopy's house is blue in this show. I've never noticed as the red house, embedded by merchandise has been always on my mind. Twice Linus dropped his security blanket for to emphasize Hope and Love overcoming fear. This show set the trend for annual traditions of watching Christmas animations.