Charlie brown christmas trivia questions and answers

Cathy Steinberg, who did the voice of Sally Brown, had not yet learned to read at the time of production, so she had to be fed her lines, often a word or syllable at a time, which explains the rather choppy delivery of the line "All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share".

When viewing the rough cut of the show, both Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson were convinced that they had a flop on their hands. After it premiered, they were happily surprised and shocked at the high ratings and excellent reviews that the show received. Today, the show remains the second longest-running Christmas special on US network television (the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) premiered one year earlier and is still broadcast every year on US network television).

Broke many of the rules prevalent for animated holiday specials during the 1960s: it didn't make use of a laugh track; real children were used for the character voices instead of adult actors imitating children's voices; and Biblical references were used to illustrate the true meaning of Christmas.

Just before her remarks about Christmas being a big commercial racket, Lucy refers to Charlie Brown simply as Charlie. This is the only time she does this in any of the TV specials: every other time it's Charlie Brown.

First animated Peanuts special.

When they first saw the show, CBS executives were horrified at the idea of an animated Christmas special with such a blatant message. They also strongly objected to the fact that the show had no canned laughter. In addition, they greeted Vince Guaraldi's jazz score as an intrusion in the special that audiences would never accept. However, when CBS learned to their astonishment of the special's spectacular ratings earned on its initial broadcast and the glowing reviews for it, the network promptly contracted the producers for more specials.

A version with a laugh track was produced but later discarded after the success of the broadcast version.

Snoopy's dog house is blue in this special. In subsequent specials it is red.

Producer Lee Mendelson wrote the lyrics for Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here" music, and his son Glenn, along with his then sixth-grade class, sang the vocals.

Production ended ten days before it premiered.

Over the decades, with American TV networks making more broadcast time for commercials, this special was increasingly cut for time until there was a storm of protest from fans. When the special was acquired by the ABC TV network, a compromise was reached to both answer those complaints and to take advantage of the opportunity to sell more advertising time for a reliably high-rated annual rerun. This consisted of broadcasting an uncut version of the special in an hour timeslot, and using the remaining time after the special to run a companion piece, Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales (2002).

The original broadcast included some brief animated sections which included the logo of Coca-Cola, the show's original sponsor. These have been edited out of subsequent broadcasts and the video release. Right after the opening title, Linus crashed into a sign advertising Coca-Cola after being tossed by Snoopy. (Look at current versions and you'll notice that we never see where Linus lands!) The closing carol originally included the complete verse (instead of fading out) with a final on-screen "Merry Christmas from your local bottler of Coca-Cola" right after the United Feature Syndicate credit at the end.

None of the children who voiced the characters received credit at the end.

When "A Charlie Brown Christmas" won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program in 1966, only Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez were called up to accept the award, but they made sure that Charles Schultz was with them to give the acceptance speech. Schultz's speech simply went, "Charlie Brown's not used to winning, so we thank you."

Not long after the animation was finished Tracy Stratford's voice broke, which is why she never voiced Lucy in another Peanuts special.

When the completed special was first presented to the CBS executives, they promptly hated it. Their major complaints were that the pace was too slow, the jazz music didn't work with the special's tone, and that the animation was too simple, among other things. However, the special had to air, as CBS had already scheduled and promoted it. As Lee Mendelson later said, "I really believe that if it wasn't already scheduled to air the following week, there was no way they were ever going to broadcast that special."

(1 October 2015) The US Postal Service issued a set of ten postage stamps with various scenes from the TV special, to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The short was watched by over 15 million viewers when it first premiered in 1965.

This special helped bring to an end the brief fad of aluminum Christmas trees, which had been going on since 1958, when it portrayed them in a negative light as part of the over-commercialization of the holiday.

The rock music group Jefferson Airplane wanted autographs from all the kids who voiced the characters.

In 1993, Knott's Berry Farm gave out free VHS copies of this special during the holiday season to kids during a special event. The VHS tapes did not contain any previews, promos, studio logos, or even FBI Warnings; it was just the full (unedited) special.

At one point, Lucy mocks Linus' security blanket, asking him what he plans to do with it when he's older, to which Linus smugly replies, "Maybe I'll turn it into a sport coat." In one Peanuts strip series, Linus tried to kick his blanket habit by giving it to Snoopy to keep it away from Linus, and Snoopy ended up turning the blanket into a sport coat.

Apple TV+ bought the rights to the Peanuts specials in 2020, and therefore 2020 was supposed to be the first year since A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered that it would not air on free television. However, after an outcry from the public for removing the programs from free television, the specials (beginning with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and later this special) were offered to public television stations in November and December 2020, sponsored by Apple.

Patty in this special is not Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt. The latter first appeared several years later in the strip. The former was phased out gradually, disappearing completely by the end of the 1970s, despite being one of the four original Peanuts characters.

The version of the special broadcast on CBS-TV from the late 60's until 1997 and older video releases are edited: they leave out a scene where the gang throws snowballs at a can on a fence. This caused a false rumor to spread that the scene was cut due to the can being a Coca Cola can (In reality it was actually cut to squeeze in more commercial time). The Paramount and Warner video releases are complete and unedited.

The idea was given by John Allen, who worked for an ad agency for Coca-Cola, as he called Lee Mendelson. He originally saw the documentary that was canceled to be broadcast, because he was unable to sell it. He asked Mendelson if the producers of "Peanuts" thought about making a Christmas special. Mendelson admittedly lied, saying "Of course we have." Allen then asked for an outline of the special to be presented in four days. After this conversation, Mendelson promptly called Charles Schultz and said to him, "I just sold 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'." Schultz asked, "What's that?", and Mendelson said, "That's a new show you and I have to come up with this weekend." Mendleson later recalled a long pause of silence before Schultz responded, very casually, "Okay, we can do it."

First Peanuts special produced and directed by Bill Melendez.

This was the first of several holiday themed Peanuts specials produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez. It's still their most famous special. The least famous is probably 1976s "It's Arbor Day Charlie Brown". Or 1984s abysmal effort, "It's a Flashbeagle Charlie Brown", which futily attempted to steal some of the magic from the 1983 breakdancing musical film "Flashdance". The success of this Emmy winning special opened the door for their first feature film; the 1968 classic "A Boy Named Charlie Brown."

Charlie Brown's "director speech" was based on a Sunday "Peanuts" strip published around 1960, which can be found in the "Peanuts Every Sunday" collection. Instead of explaining his directorial signals for the Christmas play, Charlie is explaining his managerial signals to the baseball team in his living room. It ends similarly, with the team going off to watch television before he finishes.

Charlie's Brown's "session" at Lucy's psychiatry stand was taken from a Sunday strip that can be found in the Peanuts collection "We're Right Behind You, Charlie Brown," which was first published in 1964. In the strip, it is Linus, not Charlie Brown, seeking help and after he remarks that "the only thing keeping me going is my blanket...I need help," the exchange about phobias between him and Lucy is virtually identical to the one in the TV special.