It's hard to remember a time when A Charlie Brown Christmas wasn't a part of the cultural fabric of this country, but just in time for our annual collective viewing of the classic underdog tale, Jennings Brown over at New York Magazine did a fascinating deep dive into the history of the holiday special.
According to Brown, the idea for the special came after producer Lee Mendelson tried and failed to make a documentary about Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. Mendelson then came up with—and sold—the idea for a holiday special before even talking to Schulz.
When he called Schulz to tell him the news, "Schulz said, 'What's that?'" he remembered. "And I said, 'It's something you're going to write tomorrow.'"
Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Fir-Tree, Mendelson proposed the show focus around a Christmas tree, and a sad one at that. The rest, as they say, is history.
But throughout the production, television execs were hesitant, unsure of the jazz score, the untrained children actors, and the character's elevated vocabulary. Brown cites this quote from Charlie Brown as indicative of their concern: "Don't think of it as dust. Think of it as maybe the soil of some great past civilization. Maybe the soil of ancient Babylon. It staggers the imagination. Maybe carrying soil that was trod upon by Solomon, or even Nebuchadnezzar."
As the digital director for Town & Country, Caroline Hallemann covers culture, entertainment, and a range of other subjects
