50 years ago the creators of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' thought it was terrible and would fail
© 1965 United Feature Syndicate Inc.
"We thought we had ruined Charlie Brown," said the special's executive producer Lee Mendelson in a taped interview.
On Monday, ABC will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the popular "Peanuts" animation with a special at 8 p.m. and an airing of the program at 9 p.m. It's such a big deal, the US postal service issued a line of stamps for the anniversary.
But in 1965, Mendelson and then CBS (which owned the rights to the special) programming executive Fred Silverman believed they had made a terrible show and that it would air one night and they'd be done with it.
"We didn't think it worked," Mendelson explained. "We thought it was too slow. We didn't know what the network was going to think. And I took it back to New York and the network really didn't like it."
It was the first broadcast special to be made from the popular "Peanuts" comic strip. "Peanuts" creator Charles Schultz had just days to write it and with just six months to produce it, Mendelson was creating things out of thin air. Children without any acting experience voiced most of the characters, and Snoopy's utterings were actually provided by the director, Bill Melendez.
Silverman said of the network's take: "The general reaction was one of disappointment, that it didn't really translate as well as we thought it would."
But the special was already in the TV listings, so they had to air it. "[The network said,] 'Nice try. We'll put it on once and that will be it,'" Mendelson recalled.
To everyone's surprise, the show aired on December 9, 1965, and it was a hit. It earned a 49 audience share, which meant pretty much half of American households with TVs watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas." It was the second-most watched show that week, behind the very popular western series "Bonanza." And it ended up winning an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program the next year and a Peabody Award.
"I think we are all as overwhelmed today as were back then and that it keeps going on and keeps going on," Mendelson said.
Watch the interviews below:
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- 9 health benefits of drinking sugarcane juice in summer
- 10 benefits of incorporating almond oil into your daily diet
- From heart health to detoxification: 10 reasons to eat beetroot
- Why did a NASA spacecraft suddenly start talking gibberish after more than 45 years of operation? What fixed it?
- ICICI Bank shares climb nearly 5% after Q4 earnings; mcap soars by ₹36,555.4 crore
- Nothing Phone (2a) blue edition launched
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market