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News / Opinion / Columns

Lind: Sincerity powers Schulz’s success

By Stephen Lind
Published: December 25, 2024, 6:01am

It’s hard to imagine the holidays without “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The 1965 broadcast has become a staple of the season for many generations.

But this beloved TV special almost didn’t make it to air. CBS executives thought the 25-minute program was too slow, too serious and too different from the upbeat spectacles they imagined audiences wanted. A cartoon about a depressed kid seeking psychiatric advice with no laugh track, lo-fi animation and a Bible passage seemed destined to fail.

Yet against all odds, it became a classic. The program turned “Peanuts” from a popular comic strip into a multimedia empire — not because it was flashy or followed the rules, but because it was sincere.

As a business professor who has studied the “Peanuts” franchise, I see “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as a fascinating historical moment. These days it’s unlikely that an unassuming comic strip character voicing hefty, thought-provoking ideas would make it to air. The special came together out of a last-minute scramble. Somewhat out of the blue, producer Lee Mendelson got a call from advertising agency McCann-Erickson: Coca-Cola wanted to sponsor an animated Christmas special.

Mendelson called up comic strip creator Charles “Sparky” Schulz and told him he had just sold “A Charlie Brown Christmas” — and they would have mere months to write, animate, and bring the special to air.

Schulz, Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez worked fast to piece together a storyline. The cartoonist wanted to tell a story that cut through the glitz of holiday commercialism and brought the focus back to something deeper.

While Snoopy tries to win a Christmas lights contest, and Lucy names herself “Christmas queen” in the neighborhood play, a forlorn Charlie Brown searches for “the real meaning of Christmas.” He makes his way to the local lot of aluminum trees, a fad at the time. But he’s drawn to the one real tree — a humble, scraggly little thing — inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Fir Tree.”

Those plot points would likely delight the network, but other choices Schulz made were proving controversial.

The show would use real children’s voices instead of adult actors’, giving the characters an authentic, simple charm. And Schulz refused to add a laugh track, a standard in animated TV at the time. He wanted the sincerity of the story to stand on its own, without artificial prompts for laughter.

Most alarming to executives was Schulz’s insistence on including the heart of the Nativity story in arguably the special’s most pivotal scene.

Linus recites the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, with its story of an angel appearing to trembling shepherds: “And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

When they saw the proofs of the special, CBS executives were spooked by the Bible aspects. But there was simply no time to redo the entire dramatic arc and pulling it was not an option, given that the sponsor’s advertisements had already run.

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Fortunately for the “Peanuts” franchise, the special was a success. Nearly half of U.S. households tuned in, and the program won an Emmy and a Peabody Award. Schulz had tapped into something audiences were craving: A heartfelt message that cut through the commercialism.

When I was researching my spiritual biography of Schulz, one of my favorite finds was a 1965 letter from a Florida viewer, Betty Knorr. She praised the show for stressing “the true meaning of the Christmas season” at a time when “the mention of God in general (is) being hush hushed.”

Schulz’s work resonates across demographics and ideologies. Some fans find comfort in the show’s gentle message of faith, while others embrace it in a purely secular way.

Schulz’s art and gentle humor act as safe entry points for some pretty hefty thoughts — be they psychiatric, cultural or theological.

Today, both the “Peanuts” empire and the Christmas industry are thriving. Back in the 1960s, commercial realities almost derailed Schulz’s special, yet those same forces ultimately ensured its broadcast. The result is a lasting touchstone of innocence, hope and belief.

Stephen Lind is an associate professor of clinical business communication at USC’s Marshall School of Business and the author of “ A Charlie Brown Religion.” He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times in partnership with the Conversation.

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