When CBS bigwigs saw a rough cut of A Charlie Brown Christmas in November 1965, they hated it.

"They said it was slow," executive producer Lee Mendelson remembers with a laugh. There were concerns that the show was almost defiantly different: There was no laugh track, real children provided the voices, and there was a swinging score by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi.

Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez fretted about the insistence by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz that his first-ever TV spinoff end with a reading of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke by a lisping little boy named Linus.

"We told Schulz, 'Look, you can't read from the Bible on network television,' " Mendelson says. "When we finished the show and watched it, Melendez and I looked at each other and I said, 'We've ruined Charlie Brown.' "

Good grief, were they wrong. The first broadcast was watched by almost 50% of the nation's viewers. "When I started reading the reviews, I was absolutely shocked," says Melendez, 89. "They actually liked it!"

And when the program aired Monday on ABC, it marked its 40th anniversary — a run that has made it a staple of family holiday traditions and an icon of American pop culture. The show won an Emmy and a Peabody award and began a string of more than two dozen Peanuts specials.

Last year, 13.6 million people watched it, making it the 18th-most-popular show on television the week it aired; CSI was first.

Source: USA Today

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Posted by Lawren at December 7, 2005 07:28 AM | Trackbacks (0)

You Said

These execs rarely see genius when first exposed to it. It is not until something has down well in the indie or underground realms that they will take a "chance." Oh, yeah, and the stuff that sucks. It seems like they are always willing to put that on air.

Says: reverend at December 7, 2005 07:57 AM

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Loved it as a kid in the '60s and I still watch it with my girls ages 15 and 4. Although I'm not exactly "religious", Linus's reading is one of my favorite parts.

Says: Nanc' at December 7, 2005 08:13 AM

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Crap, I missed it.

Says: Kelly at December 7, 2005 06:17 PM

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