1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,920 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I 2 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:11,480 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, 3 00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:14,920 Speaker 1: a show that knows how you feel about all this 4 00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:20,119 Speaker 1: Christmas business. I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode, We're 5 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:23,919 Speaker 1: returning to the well of beloved Peanuts holiday specials to 6 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:27,080 Speaker 1: talk about the one that started it all and why 7 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:42,680 Speaker 1: it almost never happened. The day was December nine, A 8 00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:46,760 Speaker 1: Charlie Brown Christmas aired for the very first time on CBS. 9 00:00:47,760 --> 00:00:51,239 Speaker 1: It was the first animated TV special based on the 10 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:56,560 Speaker 1: popular characters from Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip. Like many 11 00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:59,720 Speaker 1: of the forty four specials that would follow it, the 12 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:04,480 Speaker 1: original was written by Charles Scholz, produced by Lee Mendelssohn, 13 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:09,360 Speaker 1: and directed by Bill Melendez, with music by Vince Guaraldi. 14 00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:15,640 Speaker 1: The Peanuts Christmas Special was unexpectedly mature and melancholy for 15 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:19,039 Speaker 1: an animated holiday offering. The show had a lot on 16 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:23,120 Speaker 1: its mind, taking aim at the commercialism of Christmas and 17 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:26,559 Speaker 1: devoting much of its run time to a wistful search 18 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:30,240 Speaker 1: for meaning. It's all the more surprising then that the 19 00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:35,640 Speaker 1: special was originally conceived as a way to sell soda 20 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:40,120 Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, Coca Cola and Pepsi were locked 21 00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:44,760 Speaker 1: in an ongoing advertising war for domination of the Cola market. 22 00:01:45,440 --> 00:01:49,880 Speaker 1: The ad agency representing Coca Cola decided it's next move 23 00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:54,240 Speaker 1: should be the sponsor of family friendly TV show, preferably 24 00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:59,320 Speaker 1: a holiday special centered on an already established brand. To 25 00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:03,680 Speaker 1: that end, the agency called a young documentary film producer 26 00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:07,240 Speaker 1: named Lee Mendelssohn, who was known to be working with 27 00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:11,560 Speaker 1: Shoals on a short film about his life. The agency 28 00:02:11,800 --> 00:02:15,359 Speaker 1: asked whether Mendelssohn and his team could deliver a Peanuts 29 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:20,520 Speaker 1: Christmas special in just six months. The producer replied yes, 30 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:24,799 Speaker 1: without even thinking of whether the comic strips creator would 31 00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:29,160 Speaker 1: actually sign off on such a deal. Thankfully, with a 32 00:02:29,160 --> 00:02:34,040 Speaker 1: little convincing he did. Shoals quickly hammered out a story 33 00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:38,320 Speaker 1: that followed Charlie Brown trying and failing to direct the 34 00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:43,360 Speaker 1: school Christmas play. Mendelssohn suggested the plot include a Christmas tree, 35 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:47,480 Speaker 1: and Shoals obliged by having Charlie Brown adopt a scrawny 36 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,200 Speaker 1: little tree that all of his peers would mock relentlessly. 37 00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:54,880 Speaker 1: A few days later, the two men sent a one 38 00:02:54,919 --> 00:02:58,600 Speaker 1: page story treatment to Coca Cola, and the company signed 39 00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:02,360 Speaker 1: off on it right away. Despite the success of the 40 00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:06,240 Speaker 1: long running Peanuts comic strip, no one involved in the 41 00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:09,720 Speaker 1: special thought it was actually going to work. It's hard 42 00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:13,440 Speaker 1: to imagine since it's so iconic now, but there were 43 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,840 Speaker 1: a lot of factors working against the Special while it 44 00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:19,920 Speaker 1: was in production, and a lot of them stemmed from 45 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:26,160 Speaker 1: controversial choices that Shoals insisted on personally. For starters, he 46 00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:30,079 Speaker 1: demanded that the Peanuts kids be voiced by real children. 47 00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:34,519 Speaker 1: This meant the crew would be working with mostly non professionals, 48 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:37,920 Speaker 1: many of whom were too young to memorize their lines 49 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,760 Speaker 1: or even to read. In some cases, most of the 50 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:44,880 Speaker 1: child actors had to have their lines fed to them 51 00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:47,840 Speaker 1: a few words at a time, which was done by 52 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:52,200 Speaker 1: the long suffering director and voice of Snoopy, Bill Melendez. 53 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:56,480 Speaker 1: You can find traces of this process in the final product. 54 00:03:56,880 --> 00:04:00,360 Speaker 1: There's not a lot of rhythm to the sentences, which 55 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:03,480 Speaker 1: makes them sound a little choppy. In fact, if you 56 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:07,600 Speaker 1: listen closely, you can hear the seams between words where 57 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:11,040 Speaker 1: different parts of a line were stitched together in post. 58 00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:15,680 Speaker 1: The untrained actors were just the first of many notes 59 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:20,440 Speaker 1: from Shoals that ended up jeopardizing the project. Another shake 60 00:04:20,520 --> 00:04:23,359 Speaker 1: up came when he refused to let the network include 61 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:26,400 Speaker 1: a laugh track to highlight the jokes for the viewers. 62 00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:29,800 Speaker 1: It's hard to picture the low key special with a 63 00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:33,880 Speaker 1: laugh track, especially since it obviously wasn't filmed in front 64 00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:37,719 Speaker 1: of a live studio audience, but canned laughter was a 65 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:42,080 Speaker 1: staple of TV comedy at the time, even in cartoons 66 00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:47,240 Speaker 1: like The Flintstones for instance. However, when producer Lee Mendelssohn 67 00:04:47,279 --> 00:04:51,080 Speaker 1: mentioned the idea to Shoals, the artists quickly shot it down. 68 00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:55,440 Speaker 1: When Mendelssohn pleaded that the special would drag without it, 69 00:04:55,880 --> 00:04:59,240 Speaker 1: Shoals put his foot down by standing up and leaving 70 00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:02,360 Speaker 1: the room with out a word. A few minutes later, 71 00:05:02,640 --> 00:05:05,760 Speaker 1: he reportedly came back and carried on as if nothing 72 00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:10,080 Speaker 1: had ever happened. Mendelssohn took the hint and gave up 73 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,279 Speaker 1: on the idea of a laugh track. Another point of 74 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:17,839 Speaker 1: contention were the specials heavier themes, such as the commercialization 75 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:21,760 Speaker 1: of Christmas and the climactic scene in which Linus reads 76 00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:25,800 Speaker 1: from the Bible. Shoals insisted on those elements because it 77 00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:28,720 Speaker 1: was important to him that the special explore what he 78 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,560 Speaker 1: considered the true meaning of Christmas, and that's why Linus 79 00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:36,200 Speaker 1: reads the story of Jesus's birth straight from the Gospel 80 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:39,960 Speaker 1: of St. Luke. This was a pretty risky move at 81 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:43,599 Speaker 1: the time, because, according to The Atlantic, less than nine 82 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:47,839 Speaker 1: percent of Christmas episodes and specials from the era contained 83 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:54,680 Speaker 1: religious references of any kind, much less direct quotes from scripture. Surprisingly, 84 00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:00,200 Speaker 1: CBS didn't object to the inclusion, and neither did Coca Cola. However, 85 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:05,160 Speaker 1: producer Lee Mendelssohn was nervous. Once again. He told Shoals 86 00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:09,200 Speaker 1: that no animated character had ever read from the Bible before, 87 00:06:09,640 --> 00:06:12,880 Speaker 1: which two Shoals was all the more reason to do it. 88 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:17,040 Speaker 1: He told Mendelssohn, quote, well, if we don't do it, 89 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:21,840 Speaker 1: who will. You might imagine that CBS and Coca Cola 90 00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:24,800 Speaker 1: must have really liked what they saw if they let 91 00:06:24,880 --> 00:06:29,120 Speaker 1: the religious themes stand without pushback, But in reality, an 92 00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:33,719 Speaker 1: executive from Coke's ad agency actually visited the crew halfway 93 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:37,000 Speaker 1: through production and said the special was shaping up to 94 00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:40,920 Speaker 1: be a disaster, and CBS thought the same thing when 95 00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:44,479 Speaker 1: they screened an early cut just three weeks before the premiere. 96 00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:48,680 Speaker 1: The network said there was two little action and that 97 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:52,240 Speaker 1: the whole thing moved way too slowly, not to mention 98 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:56,440 Speaker 1: the low energy voice acting and the jazz soundtrack, which 99 00:06:56,480 --> 00:07:00,600 Speaker 1: they found annoying. Bill Melendez later said the the network 100 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,400 Speaker 1: would have scrapped the special altogether, except that they had 101 00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:07,080 Speaker 1: made a commitment to Coke and it was too late 102 00:07:07,160 --> 00:07:10,520 Speaker 1: to back out. So the show went on as scheduled, 103 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:17,040 Speaker 1: and to everyone's surprise, viewers tuned in in droves. In fact, 104 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:21,800 Speaker 1: of all American TVs in use that night were tuned 105 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:26,920 Speaker 1: to the special, accounting for roughly fifteen million people. And 106 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:31,680 Speaker 1: as for that annoying jazz soundtrack, provided by pianist and 107 00:07:31,760 --> 00:07:35,960 Speaker 1: composer Vince Guaraldi, it became iconic in its own right. 108 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:40,120 Speaker 1: The tune, called Linus and Lucy even went on to 109 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:53,920 Speaker 1: become the theme song for the whole Peanuts brand. A 110 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:57,920 Speaker 1: few months after the special aired, Charles Scholz and Lee 111 00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:02,160 Speaker 1: Mendelssohn found themselves on stage at the Emmy's accepting the 112 00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:07,920 Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six Award for Outstanding Children's Program. The Peanuts 113 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:11,400 Speaker 1: Christmas Special was the surprise hit that no one had 114 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:16,000 Speaker 1: seen coming, and that includes Charles Showles himself, as he 115 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:21,320 Speaker 1: later told TV Guide in night quote, the continued success 116 00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:24,520 Speaker 1: of the special has surprised me as much as anyone. 117 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:29,560 Speaker 1: A lot of the drawings are terrible. Of course, those 118 00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:33,360 Speaker 1: terrible drawings were based on his own designs, so take 119 00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:37,480 Speaker 1: from that what you will. The executives at CBS were 120 00:08:37,520 --> 00:08:40,800 Speaker 1: also caught off guard by the success, though they moved 121 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:45,199 Speaker 1: quickly to capitalize on it anyway. Soon after the special's premiere, 122 00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:50,199 Speaker 1: the network called Mendelssohn and ordered four More's Peanuts specials, 123 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:53,760 Speaker 1: with many more to follow. Less than a week later, 124 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:58,400 Speaker 1: CBS also announced that it would rebroadcast the special the 125 00:08:58,480 --> 00:09:03,600 Speaker 1: following Christmas, launching an annual tradition that's continued across various 126 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:08,120 Speaker 1: networks for more than half a century. The main difference 127 00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:12,640 Speaker 1: between the original broadcast and its yearly re airings is 128 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:16,280 Speaker 1: that the Coca Cola branding was removed from the opening 129 00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:20,839 Speaker 1: and closing sequences. The glowing reception of a Charlie Brown 130 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:25,600 Speaker 1: Christmas encouraged CBS and other networks to invest in more 131 00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:30,120 Speaker 1: prime time holiday specials, many of which also became part 132 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:35,160 Speaker 1: of yearly family celebrations. In fact, the very next year, 133 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:41,440 Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, CBS premiered its second animated holiday special, 134 00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:47,439 Speaker 1: an adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. 135 00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:50,720 Speaker 1: But that's a story for another day, a story for 136 00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:57,920 Speaker 1: December eighteen, to be precise. I'm Gabe Louzier and hopefully 137 00:09:58,280 --> 00:10:01,000 Speaker 1: you now know a little more about out history today 138 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:05,040 Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. If you have a second, consider 139 00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:08,520 Speaker 1: following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d 140 00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:12,400 Speaker 1: i HC Show. You can also leave us a review 141 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,280 Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, and you can write to us at 142 00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:19,319 Speaker 1: this Day at i heart media dot com. Thanks, as 143 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:22,120 Speaker 1: always the Channel or Maze for producing the show, and 144 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:25,199 Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back here 145 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:38,320 Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another Day in History class. For more 146 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:40,840 Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, 147 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:43,560 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.