SusieJ's Advent Calendar December 22, 2012

Lee Mendelson: A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition

... We had no idea if anyone would actually tune in and watch the first Peanuts special when it aired. Shortly after the show aired, we heard the exciting news. [It] had finished second (to "Bonanza") in the national ratings! ... We suddenly had one of the biggest hits on television.

All my life I have loved everything about holiday specials, from the whirling CBS logo to introduce a special to the York Peppermint Patty commercials. I loved crying during the speicials. I loved that there was one chance to watch them (and watch them we did). To my mind, there were two kinds of special: the Rankin-Bass, and Peanuts.

[Christmas pyramid with near life-size figures a Magdeburg Weihnachtsmarkt]When you watch it now, A Charlie Brown Christmas is an odd show. The plot isalmost non-existent. It's both secular and religious, modern (the jazz, those aluminum trees, psychotherapy) and one of the longest-re-running shows on television, nearing its 50th anniversary in 2015.

Published in 2000, The Making of a Tradition details how the special came about, and the careers of the four men who made it happen: Charles Schultz, executive producer Lee Mendelson, animator Bell Melendez (the only animator ever to work with Schultz) and composer Vince Guaraldi. There are storyboards, sample production sheets, music and lyrics for "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Linus and Lucy," aka the Peanuts Theme, and the full script, illustrated with cells from the animation.

This is not a book that will give you lots of dirt on the production. This is a book of fond reminicences of two of the four men who created one of the most beloved Christmas shows of two generations.