Flashback, December 1965: “Charlie Brown Christmas” Airs

Forty-five years ago this past week, Charles Schulz’ adaptation of his Peanuts comic strip, A Charlie Brown Christmas, aired on CBS, earning Peabody and Emmy Awards and, by spawning more than a dozen follow-up specials, becoming a cornerstone of its franchise.

Jazz fans know the show for another reason: its soundtrack lifted to even greater prominence the pianist-composer Vince Guaraldi, whose “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” had landed him a Grammy a couple of years before.

For years, as one of Guaraldi’s fans, I would listen to the "Charlie Brown Christmas" CD or hear tunes from it on the radio or at a coffeeshop. Or I might hear one of the cover versions by admirers such as Shawn Colvin, Sarah MacLachlan or George Winston.

But until this week, I had never understood how the music was used in the special itself, because I had never seen the special in its entirety, believe it or not.

Then the other day, seeing the CD and DVD packaged together and on sale at my local Starbucks, I was seized by an irresistible impulse to buy it. Since then, I’ve watched the DVD twice. Before the season is out, I wouldn’t be surprised if I watched it twice more--I liked the show so much.

Consider the opening song, “Christmastime Is Here.” The lyrics, by executive producer Lee Mendelson, speak of “happiness and cheer,” but Guaraldi’s melancholy melody stands in lonely opposition to them—in much the same way that Charlie Brown, virtually alone among the children, wonders what the impending holiday, with all its blatant commercialism, is all about.

(In fact, Charlie Brown feels like a younger version of the depressive who questioned “To be or not to be”--except that, instead of receiving obeisance as the Prince of Denmark, this angst-ridden little boy from Middle America is universally derided as a blockhead by the other, happier, but less thoughtful children.)

Amazingly, CBS executives hated virtually everything about the special when it was previewed for them a few weeks before broadcast: the lack of a laugh track, the use of actual children’s voices (often untrained), humor deemed too sophisticated for children (in a portent of our current economic crisis, after Lucy complains that she gets stupid toys for the holiday and Charlie Brown asks what she really wants, she responds: “Real estate”), Linus’ climatic reading from the Gospel of Matthew, even Guaraldi’s music.

Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed, and the animated special went on to become one of the baby-boom generation's beloved holiday perennials. Two years ago, the Paley Center for Media announced that A Charlie Brown Christmas, along with two other specials from the 1960s--Rudolph the Red-Nosed Raindeer and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, finished in its top four of favorite holiday specials. (The winner: The Star Wars Holiday Special, never repeated after its initial 1978 run.)

This Day in Cartoon History (“Garfield” Debuts)

June 19, 1978—Fat, caffeine-addicted, unrepentantly lazy, the orange cat Garfield debuted in 41 newspapers.

The comic strip’s creator, Jim Davis, latched onto the idea of a cat character after an editor told him that his initial inspiration, a bug, was not a creature that humans could relate to. Instead of the usual canines, Davis chose felines.

Currently, Davis’ creation is the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world, running (or, I should say, “appearing”—the energy-conserving cat never “runs,” of course) in thousands of papers worldwide.

The strip has made a ton of money over the years for its owner, Indiana-based Paws Inc. The cat likes to think he, not ostensible owner Jon Arbuckle, is lord of the manor, and he’s encouraged in this belief by his worldwide empire: licensing, TV, books, video games, movies, and more.

If all of this sounds reminiscent of Charles Schulz’ “Peanuts,” it’s no surprise. Davis admits that the creator of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, etc. inspired his clean, simple lines. By the time the cat had come on the scene, Schulz’ strip had lost zip of its joy de vivre, due not only to a level of creativity and philosophical sophistication nearly impossible to sustain over a prolonged period, but also due to Schulz’ bouts with depression. In contrast, Davis’ strip has not changed as radically over the years. The big cat is fully matured—perfect, he would say.

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small,” mad silent screen star Norma Desmond declaims in Sunset Boulevard. As a marketing phenomenon, at least, Garfield is about to become even bigger this year, with a brand-new direct-to-DVD feature, Garfield’s Fun Fest, due this August; the debut of 26 all-new TV episodes in France (coming to other parts of the globe early next year); even a free Website, http://www.professorgarfield.com/pgf_home.html , benefiting students, teachers and parents.

Though I’ve been a dog rather than a cat owner, I do feel one point of identification with Davis: like him, I suffer from asthma. (My experiences with it did not occur until adulthood.) Like Theodore Roosevelt, Davis’ medical condition pushed him, while still in childhood, into a lifelong avocation. In TR’s case, he not only, at his father’s urging, built up his puny body through boxing, but also, in the times in which he was confined to the house (all too frequently, because the future president was entirely home schooled until he went off to Harvard), took to reading and writing his thoughts down in journals—excellent preparation, of course, for a literary life.

On the other hand, Jim Davis’ mother encouraged him to draw—something that did not require much physical exertion. Perhaps without knowing it, the future cartoonist began to understand the thinking behind his exercise-averse creation. (“Some call it laziness. I call it deep thought.”)