Western Animation / A Charlie Brown Christmas

♫ Christmas time is here. ♫

Charlie Brown: Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?!
Linus: Sure, Charlie Brown. I can tell you what Christmas is all about...

While Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol predated it by three years, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by one, it was really A Charlie Brown Christmas which solidified animated Christmas specials as an obligatory part of the holiday in the Western world.

The first of the prime-time television specials based on Charles M. Schulz's classic comic strip Peanuts, and made on the cheap-and-quick for CBS in 1965^note a careful viewer will notice that it's rife with animation errors due to its rushed production by Lee Mendelson, a San Francisco-based producer of documentaries and commercials, this has nevertheless gone on to become one of the most iconic and successful Christmas works of all time, enjoying a prominent place in pop culture from its debut to the present day. In fact, if you are from a Christmas-celebrating household, chances are that you've already seen this special more times than you can count, and we don't have to remind you about the plot. But, just on the off chance that you haven't seen it...

Butt-Monkey protagonist Charlie Brown is having a rather cheerless holiday season. He's received no Christmas cards, and he feels no particular seasonal joy. Lucy manages to rope him into directing the school Christmas pageant, but after his first attempt falls flat, she gives him a new assignment: to pick the show's Christmas tree. She favors something in aluminum and painted pink, but instead he brings back a twiggy sapling that's too tiny to even support the weight of a single ornament — though it is a real tree — and returns to mockery and scorn. Despairing, he asks aloud whether Christmas has any deeper meaning at all. By way of answer, Linus recites the Nativity story from Luke 2 and seemingly reminds everyone that the humble things are what should matter. With "a little love", Charlie Brown's sad little tree becomes transfigured, and his spirits are restored.

Yes, that's the whole plot. And yes, the animation by Bill Meléndez and crew is equally as sparse, as is the musical score by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi and his trio.

And yet... there's a reason this 26-minute cartoon aired on network TV each and every December for 50+ years, originally on CBS and then on ABC. For whatever reason, the special just clicked with audiences in a way nothing else had before, and very few Christmas works have since. The special's perennial appeal is so strong that when ABC started editing it for time in order to accommodate more commercials, fans raised such a stink that the network agreed to broadcast it uncut in an hour-long timeslot with a new segment, Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, being commissioned to fill out the remaining time.^note  Of course, the fact that the network could then sell twice as many commercial spots with a consistently popular rerun was appealing as well. In 2020 it appeared that such concern for accommodating commercials would no longer be relevant, as it was announced the special would be available for streaming on Apple TV+ along with other animated adaptations of the Peanuts franchise. It was later announced that PBS as well as the 24/7 PBS Kids channel would be airing the special as part of a last-minute deal between Apple and PBS. The special aired again on PBS in 2021, but did not do so in 2022.

This humble television special that no one had any faith in – CBS was fully-prepared to disown it and only aired it out of legal obligation – went on to win an Emmy Award and ended up turning Peanuts into a multimedia juggernaut.^note CBS quickly changed their tune when the ratings came in; literally half of America watched this special. For reference, the only other things on American TV to earn that high an audience share are the Super Bowl (sometimes), and the final episode of M*A*S*H. Over the next four decades, Peanuts would get several dozen more specials, a Saturday-Morning Cartoon that ran for two seasons, four theatrical feature films,^note Plus a CGI adaptation years later from Blue Sky Studios and two Broadway musicals.^note Each of which was given a Recursive Adaptation as a TV special. It effectively is the gold standard for all subsequent Christmas specials in any medium, and it single-handedly exterminated both the use of a Laugh Track in animated comedy and the popularity of tacky painted metal Christmas trees. In 2015, ABC aired a two-hour special called It's Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown, which focuses on the enduring popularity of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Directly followed by Charlie Brown's All-Stars! in 1966, but seasonally, the 1985 series finale of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show next featured the Peanuts gang in a Christmas context, finally letting us see them actually perform a Christmas play! Further Christmas specials included It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown in 1992, followed by two specials on ABC, namely Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales and 2003's I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown. All of the follow-up specials were heavily adapted from existing Peanuts strips. Despite Christmas Tales being made specifically to help fill a one hour timeslot with the unedited Charlie Brown Christmas, the original is usually paired with It's Christmastime Again... on DVD.

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A Charlie Brown Christmas contains examples of:

• Absurd Phobia: Lucy in her psychiatrist booth tries to diagnose Charlie Brown's depression, and wonders if it might be a phobia of something like cats, staircases, or crossing bridges. Eventually, they settle on pantophobia: the fear of everything.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Charlie Brown lampshades the absurdity of Pig-Pen's filthiness being fully active in a snowy environment.
  Charlie Brown: Pig-Pen, you're the only person I know who can raise a cloud of dust in a snowstorm.
• Appeal to Force: Lucy has a memorable one;
  Linus: Give me one good reason I should memorize this.
  Lucy: I'll give you five good reasons. (holds up palm, starts curling in fingers) One, two, three, four, five! (holds fist under Linus' nose)
  Linus: ...those are good reasons. Christmas is not only getting too commercial, it's getting too dangerous!
• Ass in a Lion Skin: Overlaps with an In-Universe example of Acting for Two. Snoopy is tapped to perform the parts of all the animals in the Christmas play, including a sheep, a cow, and a penguin. (He gratuitously adds a vulture and, yes, a lion)
• As the Good Book Says...: Linus' short sermon is a direct quote from Luke 2:8-14.^note The classic King James Version, of course.
• Audible Gleam: A variation, as Charlie's tree loses pine needles to the sound of tinkling piano keys.
• Beautiful All Along: The tree.
• Bootstrapped Theme: The song from the dance sequence, titled "Linus and Lucy", is considered the Peanuts theme song (It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown would codify it as such).
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Poor Charlie Brown sees no joy in a commercialized Christmas and gets belittled and ignored by everyone around him.
  • Also, Shermy. You know, the guy who gets one line... and it's to complain that every Christmas he always plays the shepherd.
• The Cameo: 5 appears as one of the dancers. Also, his sisters, 3 and 4, are those twin girls in purple dresses.
• Chekhov's Gun: Snoopy's elaborate Christmas lights (which he puts on his dog house for the big neighborhood Christmas light display contest... which he wins). Said lights, a symbol of holiday "commercialization", ironically become the trimmings that give Charlie Brown's tree new life!
• Christmas Carolers: This show ends with the gang outside standing around a Christmas tree and singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". The kids start with an impromptu "ooooooooo" version after the tree's transformation, followed by the real thing when Charlie Brown shows up.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Commercialism is portrayed as the antithesis of the True Meaning of Christmas.
• Copycat Mockery: Snoopy ridicules Lucy's bossiness by imitating her gestures and mouthing her lines, much to her annoyance.
• Crappy Holidays: Possibly one of the first examples. Before the True Meaning of Christmas snaps everyone out of it, Charlie Brown spends most of the special depressed, none of the kids seem to get along, and by the end of the ordeal with the Christmas tree, everyone's in a bad mood.
• Cult Soundtrack: Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack album is one of the most popular Christmas albums of all time, and is also the second-best-selling album in the entire genre of Jazz (behind Kind of Blue by Miles Davis).
• Demoted to Extra: In-universe, Shermy complains about this happening to him in the school play ("Every Christmas it's the same; I always end up playing a shepherd"). Also a case of Leaning on the Fourth Wall, since Shermy – who was the sole speaker in the very first Peanuts strip in 1950 and had a major role in it for the first few years afterwards – has just that one line in the special, reflecting the increasing rarity of Schulz's use of him. He would make his last appearance in the strip four years later.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  Linus: Maybe Lucy's right. Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Brown-iest.
• Despair Event Horizon: "I killed it."
• Double Don't Know: After failing to get the cast of the play to focus, Charlie Brown is sent out to get a Christmas tree for the play. As he walks out the door with Linus, Charlie Brown says "I don't know, Linus. I just don't know."
• Downer Beginning: The special starts when Charlie Brown goes to the skating pond feeling depressed and ends up thrown against a tree by Snoopy. The title credits appear over his snow-covered form (all the snow on the tree's branches shook loose and and buried him).
• Dramatic Spotlight: Linus asks for one of these for his True Meaning of Christmas speech (seen in the page image for the latter).
• Early Adaptation Weirdness: Such characters as Peppermint Patty (who debuted in 1966), Franklin (debuted in 1968), Marcie (formally debuted in 1971), and Woodstock (not a regular until 1967, and not named until 1970) weren't in the Peanuts ensemble yet, so they're not seen here. Meanwhile, "regular" Patty, Violet, and Shermy, all of whom would eventually get Demoted to Extra (or worse), are prominently featured.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Lucy actually gives good advice to Charlie Brown that if the holidays are depressing him, he should find a way to make himself happy. She recommends him as a director for the Christmas play with sincerity and serves as his co-director to get the kids in line. Later comic strips and specials would show that Lucy's psychiatrist's advice was useless and Charlie Brown exists as her punching bag.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After spending the whole special in a depression, Charlie Brown is inspired by Linus' speech that he shouldn't let it bother him anymore, and his brief Heroic BSoD is solved when the other kids fix the tree for him.
• Enemy to All Living Things: Charlie Brown thinks he's this with regard to his tree.
  Charlie Brown: I've killed it! AAUGH!! Everything I touch gets ruined!
• Everybody Do the Endless Loop: The "dancing" scene, which is also one of the most-parodied and iconic sequences from the special.
• Exposed to the Elements: The girls don't wear any pants or leggings under their winter coats. The boys do wear long pants instead of their usual shorts, however.
• Extra-Long Episode: This and other Peanuts specials originally ran in a standard 30-minute time slot including commercials, then got bits chopped out of them in order to accommodate more advertising. In more recent years up to 2020 they ran in hour long blocks so that the original can run in its entirety in 32-35 minutes, followed by Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, a collection of Peanuts Christmas shorts (which itself was sometimes cut down) to fill the hour. In 2020, the special moved to Apple TV+, a streaming service outside of scheduling conventions, with an auxiliary broadcast on PBS, where it comfortably fits the non-commercial half-hour timeslot.
• Eyebrow Waggle: Linus gives one upon telling Lucy about turning his blanket into a sport coat.
• Failures on Ice: While Charlie Brown and Linus are skating, Snoopy grabs Linus' blanket. Charlie Brown gets tangled up in it and is thrown against a tree, and then Linus gets thrown against a sign that says, "Brought to you by the people in your town who bottle Coca-Cola." (Coca-Cola was the special's original sponsor.)
• Filler: ABC's televising strategy was to combine this with Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales to fill an hour.
• Full-Name Basis: Briefly subverted. When Lucy tells Charlie Brown that Christmas is really a racket run by an Eastern syndicate, she starts by saying, "Look, Charlie..." This is the only time she ever calls him by just his first name.
• George Lucas Altered Version: The version originally broadcast in 1965 has never aired again nor been made available commercially. All currently circulating versions are based on a re-edit that Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson did in 1966, which made a bunch of changes: some new animation and dialogue, scenes either cut or extended, and, most significantly, four Vince Guaraldi pieces added to the score (either borrowed from the 1964 A Boy Named Charlie Brown documentary soundtrack or taken from the score of the upcoming Charlie Brown's All-Stars).
• Hear Me the Money: Lucy loves to hear that old money plink, that beautiful sound of cold hard cash, that beautiful, beautiful sound of nickels, nickels, nickels!
• Heroic BSoD: "...I killed it."
• Hidden Depths: Charlie Brown — an eight-year-old boy — knows the basics of theatre direction and is determined to get it right. One suspects he’ll do a pretty decent job... if the other kids will listen to him.
• Incoming Ham: Snoopy's animated special debut manages this completely wordlessly when he comes sliding out like an Olympic ice skater during the opening scene.
• Inspiring Sermon: Toward the end of the episode, after everyone gives Charlie Brown grief for bringing a small, natural, needle-shedding tree back to the theatre, he asks if anyone can tell him what Christmas is about. Linus takes the stage and delivers a sermon about the birth of Christ, quoting Luke 2:8-14 and how it's meant to be a sign of peace on Earth and goodwill towards men. This sermon proves so moving that it not only gives Charlie Brown the motive he needs to try and decorate the tree, but it makes the rest of the kids follow him, sympathize with him, and show the tree so much love that they're able to turn it into a beautiful, traditional tree to surprise Charlie Brown with.
• Insult Backfire: Frieda attempting to lay the law down with Pig-Pen doesn't go how she anticipated.
  Frieda: You're an absolute mess. Just look at yourself!
  Pig-Pen: (looks into mirror) ...On the contrary, I didn't think I'd look that good.
• Internal Homage: A December 1966 Peanuts strip directly referenced the climax of this special. Linus reads the same Luke verses, only this time using the Revised Standard translation rather than the King James, followed by Linus saying "Like I've said before, that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!"
• Invisible Backup Band: Sometimes, drums and cymbals can be heard accompanying Schroeder, despite the fact that no one is seen playing them (both when Schroeder plays alone and in the dance scenes, where he's joined by Pig-Pen on upright bass and Snoopy on guitar, despite no guitar whatsoever in the score).^note If you really want to nitpick, Pig-Pen is playing his bass pizzicato, even though "Linus and Lucy" and "Christmas is Coming" both include some sections where the bass is played with a bow, a jazz rarity that was a particular Vince Guaraldi trademark.
• Invisible Parents: To the point where even the school pageant appears to be organized entirely by the kids themselves with no adult involvement.
• Jerkass: Some of the characters are nicer (Lucy is notably kinder than her usual characterization), but with exception to Linus, Sally, and Pig-Pen, everyone handles the Jerkass Ball, especially Lucy, Violet, and Patty, who pull no punches in berating Charlie Brown for the tree he brings back. They at least sing with him at the end.
• Jerkass Realization: Those who laughed at Charlie Brown's tree, Lucy especially, all have a change of heart following Linus' heartfelt speech.
  Lucy: Charlie Brown is a blockhead... but he did get a nice tree.
• Jingle the Coins:
  Lucy: Boy, what a sound! I love hearing that old money clink! That wonderful sound of cold hard cash. That beautiful sound! Nickels, nickels, nickels. That beautiful sound of plinking nickels!
• Kicked Upstairs: It's implied that Charlie Brown is appointed to direct the Christmas pageant because no one trusts him in any meaningful role.
• Laugh Track: Averted to the point of being Defied. Charles Schulz was stupefied when producers suggested a laugh track for the cartoon, and flatly refused to include one.
• Limited Animation: Well, what would you expect from a Dark Age cartoon with a six-month production schedule?
• Long Speech Tea Time:
  • Charlie Brown's long speech to his actors finishes up by revealing that everyone's gone off to dance on the stage again.
    Charlie Brown: Am I right? I said, "AM I RIGHT?!"
  • Amusingly enough, the music picks up right after he explains his signal for "Pick up the tempo." The key to comedy is timing.
  • The strip that this scene is based on is actually Charlie Brown attempting to discuss his new baseball signals to his team on a rainy day at his house. But after he says, "I said, 'Am I right?'", he sees that the other teammates are watching television.
• Ludicrous Gift Request:
  • When forcing Charlie Brown to write her letter to Santa for her, Sally says that if her list "seems too complicated", then Santa should "make it easy on [him]self" by sending money; suggesting "tens and twenties". (And while you think about that, consider this: this was in The '60s! In early-21st century terms, it would be roughly equivalent to asking for "fifties and hundreds")
    Charlie Brown: Tens and twenties?! Oh, even my baby sister!
  • In an earlier scene, Lucy claims that all she wants for Christmas is "real estate".
• Lyrical Dissonance: The song being played during the ice skating sequence, "Christmas Time is Here". The visuals and lyrics — "Christmas time is here... Happiness and cheer..." — suggest something upbeat and lighthearted, but the wistful piano chords and children's chorus make it very melancholy. It might be meant to symbolize Charlie Brown's inner depression and how the Christmas spirit seems shallow to him. In particular, notice how the word "cheer" is underscored by the chords shifting downward from a C to an A minor 7th.
• The Makeover: To a tree instead of a human, though. Oddly, adding all those ornaments onto it somehow makes it grow extra branches and foliage.
• Mood Whiplash: The climactic scene starts with Charlie Brown being mocked, berated, and jeered, and without even pausing to take a breath dives into Linus reciting a verse from The Bible that shames everyone there into realizing the True Meaning of Christmas.
• Mythology Gag: Snoopy really loves to pretend he's a vulture.
• Never Trust a Trailer: This promo incorporates a scene from the untelevised documentary A Boy Named Charlie Brown (not to be confused with the 1969 feature film of the same name) without identifying it as such.
• No Antagonist: There's not really a "bad guy" in the setting. Lucy's the closest because of her trying to force her desired acting role on Charlie Brown, but that's about it. They're still trying to do the best they can to put on a good show.
• Only Friend: Linus, Pig-Pen, and Sally are the only kids at the auditorium who don't laugh at Charlie Brown and his tree.
• Only Sane Man: Linus when viewing Christmas trees with Charlie Brown grabs the Smart Ball. He tells Charlie Brown that the tree doesn't have to be perfect but it should at least be presentable, and protests Charlie Brown getting a sickly, little one. Yet when the other kids laugh, Linus goes onstage and recites the True Meaning of Christmas to cheer up his best friend.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Linus normally suffers a breakdown when separated from his Security Blanket. Here, he selflessly uses it to stabilize Charlie Brown's tree because it needs a "little love" in his words. He also drops the blanket when he gets to "fear not," during his Rousing Speech.
• Over-the-Top Christmas Decorations: Snoopy gives his doghouse the decorative overkill treatment and wins 1st prize in the local newspaper's Christmas decoration contest.
  Charlie Brown: Oh, well. This commercial dog is not going to ruin my Christmas.
• The Power of Love: What makes the tree beautiful at the end, if what Linus says is true. To accentuate the point, he stabilizes it with his beloved blanket.
• Product Displacement:
  • Originally, after the title card appeared, Snoopy tossed Linus at a billboard for Coca-Cola (the special's original sponsor). Modern broadcasts cut to commercial after the title card instead, while home video releases fade to black. However, an original colour print was discovered and posted to YouTube in 2018.
  • The original airing also contained a sponsor tag at the end for Coca-Cola, which explains why later airings have the chorus of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" over the closing credits fading out early. An alternate version from 1968 has also been discovered.
  • In ironic contrast to the aforementioned product placement of early airings, Charlie Brown objects to Sally's and Snoopy's misguided holiday priorities, as well as commercialization in general.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Charlie Brown, as director of the Christmas play, tries to be this but it's quickly made apparent that he has absolutely no control over anything. Lucy then says she'll get the kids in line while he goes Christmas tree shopping to help him out.
• Safe Under Blankets: When Charlie Brown announces that Sally will be playing Linus' wife in the Christmas pageant, Linus immediately throws his blanket over his head when Sally gets too close.
• Sarcasm-Blind:
  Charlie Brown: Thanks for the Christmas card you sent me, Violet.
  Violet: I didn't send you a Christmas card, Charlie Brown.
  Charlie Brown: Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it?
• Security Blanket: Obviously, Linus, who is never without his, except when reciting the Bible verse. He drops it when he gets to the part when the angel tells the shepherds to not be afraid.
• School Play: The gang rehearses for a Christmas pageant, though in typical Peanuts fashion it's unspecified whether any adults are involved in the production.
• The Speechless: Snoopy may be a dog who can't talk, but he seems to be treated as good as a human by the rest of the cast. Especially here.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: In contrast to her usual portrayal, Lucy is surprisingly kind to Charlie Brown for much of the special, offering to help him out even if she doesn't see eye-to-eye with him. She counteracts this with traces of her usual crabbiness, though.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: When Charlie Brown thinks he "killed" the tree after placing just one ornament on it, the rest of the kids fix it to surprise him and they all sing together, bringing the special to a wonderful finish.
• Swords to Plowshares: A variation. After Linus uses his Security Blanket to knock a can off of a fence, which he's shown to weaponize on occasion, Lucy chastises him for having it in the first place, followed by a Rhetorical Question Blunder.
  Lucy: You think you're so smart with that blanket! What're you gonna do with it when you grow up?!
  Linus: Maybe I'll make it into a sport coat!
• The Syndicate: Mentioned by Lucy. This could also have been a sly reference to United Feature Syndicate, which distributed Peanuts to newspapers (and owned its copyright until 2011).
  Lucy: Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket! It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.
• "Take That!" Kiss: After Lucy turns around and catches Snoopy imitating her:
  Lucy: I oughta slug you. (slurp) AUGH! I've been kissed by a dog! I have dog germs! Get hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some iodine!
  Snoopy: Bleah...
• That Russian Squat Dance: Snoopy briefly does this during Schroeder's jazz solo.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The kids show Charlie Brown they appreciate his tree, and wish him a Merry Christmas. He happily joins in their verse of "Hark Herald Angels Sing".
• True Meaning of Christmas: Charlie Brown longs to find this, and Linus ultimately delivers it courtesy of the Gospel of Luke. It also seems to be that You Are Not Alone.
• Unbuilt Trope: A lot of tropes common to Christmas specials are played a little differently here, despite the fact that this special made most of them.
  • Christmas as a time of gift-giving: This special focuses on how the message of Christmas has been lost by its commercialization and promise of presents. Instead, the special says the purpose of Christmas is kindness for everyone, and conspicuous consumption around the holidays cheapens that purpose.
  • A character learns the True Meaning of Christmas: it's not the protagonist who learns it, but everyone else. Also, rather than a secular message about kindness using Santa Claus, the Aesop delivered explicitly uses Biblical and Christian themes.
  • The Christmas tree as a symbol of Christmas: There is one, but it's tiny. So tiny it can't even support the weight of one bulb. The message is that True Beauty Is on the Inside.
  • Holiday depression: The title character isn't sad because it's Christmas (at least, not solely); he's sad because nothing ever seems to go right for him and his faith is shaken in the True Meaning of Christmas, with his family and friends focused more on the material benefit.
• When He Smiles: After all he went through in the special, seeing Charlie Brown smiling is so special.
• You Are Not Alone: How the special ends. Charlie Brown worries that he's ruined the play and the tree. Linus then uses his blanket to stabilize the tree, and everyone, Snoopy included, uses the doghouse decorations to decorate it. They then wish a Merry Christmas to Charlie Brown and all begin singing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing". He then joins in, having found that the meaning of Christmas is people who care about you.

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"...That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

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