Description
On December 9, 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired on television.
Peanuts creator Charles Schulz had his first cartoon series published at the age of 25. Entitled Li’l Folks, it featured a character named Charlie Brown. When the syndicate opted not to renew the strip, Schulz developed a new one, named Peanuts, which debuted on October 2, 1950 in seven newspapers.
Schulz’ comic strip Peanuts had become a worldwide phenomenon by the mid-60s. After the Peanuts gang was pictured on the cover of Time Magazine, Coca-Cola commissioned a Christmas special starring the characters.
A Charlie Brown Christmas was written and animated in just six months. The script was simple, sparse, and heavily influenced by Schulz’ background. Deeply religious, he wanted to focus on what he believed the “true meaning of Christmas” to be. Schulz then added secular themes taken from his Minnesota childhood, including a school play, falling snow, and ice-skating.
Professional child actors were only used for the voices of Charlie Brown and Linus. Schulz convinced the producers to use regular children for the remaining characters. Studio employees took tape recorders home and had their children audition for the part. Gibberish was recorded for Snoopy and sped up to make his unique sound. Schulz also resisted the use of a laugh track, which was widely used during the ”?60s.
"5 books of 100 First-Class Forever® USPS postage stamps. *The slash over “Forever” in the image is to protect it from being used to produce counterfeit postage. Actual stamps will not have this."
