A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
Charlie Brown just wants to know what Christmas is all about.
Depressed by the commercialization around him, Charlie Brown directs the school Christmas play and chooses the saddest little tree on the lot — and Linus answers his question with one quiet speech. Vince Guaraldi's jazz score is half the magic. It won an Emmy and a Peabody, and it changed how holiday specials were made.
Everybody expected this special to fail. The network disliked the jazz score, the real children's voices, the lack of a laugh track, and Charles Schulz's insistence that Linus recite the Gospel of Luke on camera — Schulz answered that if they didn't tell the Christmas story, nobody would. Half of America's television audience watched anyway. It won the Emmy and the Peabody, Vince Guaraldi's music became jazz standards, and the special is often credited with ending the aluminum Christmas-tree fad by showing a country what a real, scraggly tree means.
From the Film
The Facts
- Year
- 1965
- Director
- Bill Melendez
- Runtime
- 25 minutes
- Genres
- Animation, Family, Comedy, Classic
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Peter Robbins | Charlie Brown |
| Christopher Shea | Linus van Pelt |
| Tracy Stratford | Lucy van Pelt |
| Cathy Steinberg | Sally Brown |
| Chris Doran | Schroeder |
| Bill Melendez | Snoopy |
Good to know: Won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program in 1966 and a Peabody Award.
Where to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas
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More from the 1960s — or browse the full A–Z catalog.
