Today in 1965, the first CBS broadcast of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
Even though Charlie Brown was a hugely popular character on the comics page, and even though the show has gone on to enormous acclaim, pretty much everyone who put the TV special together thought it was going to be a big failure.
At the very least, it was not intended to be a big deal.
The special only came about because Coca-Cola wanted to sponsor a holiday show, and the company reached out to TV producer Lee Mendelson to come up with one.
Mendelson had just produced a documentary about the comic strip “Peanuts” and its artist, Charles Schulz, so he proposed an animated special featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang.
Fortunately Schulz was on board with the idea; the cartoonist proposed a show where the “Peanuts” gang end up stumbling upon the true meaning of Christmas as the world around them focuses on presents and decorations and commercialism.
Schulz wrote jokes, of course, but he also said no to a laugh track, and he insisted on including a reading from the Bible to emphasize the “true meaning of Christmas” part of the story.
Mendelson wanted actual children to voice the characters, and a soundtrack of jazz played by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, not pop music.
None of this was in line with how network TV made specials at the time.
And CBS might have insisted on some big changes, except that Schulz, Mendelson and animation director Bill Melendez had a relatively small budget and very little time to put the special together.
It was only finished about a week or so before its air date.
The creators kept their expectations low before the special premiered; Mendelson was convinced he’d killed Charlie Brown.
But “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was a hit with both audiences and critics.
Viewers appreciated the special’s humor and its heart; millions of fans tuned in that year, and each year after, to see the special, plus the dozens of other “Peanuts” specials Schulz, Mendelson and Melendez would make in the years to come.
It was almost exactly the opposite of what its creators thought would happen; as Charles Schulz said in accepting an Emmy award for the special, “Charlie Brown is not used to winning, so we thank you.”
Today in 2004, a basketball comeback for the record books.
The Houston Rockets were trailing the San Antonio Spurs by 10 points with about a minute to play.
Rocket Tracy McGrady used about 33 of those final 60 seconds to score 13 points, including a three pointer at the buzzer to put his team head 81 to 80.
That’s why you keep playing until the final buzzer.
Life After Snoopy (Stanford Magazine via Archive.org)
The Christmas classic that almost wasn’t (USA Today via Archive.org)
McGrady’s Big Finish Sends Rockets Past Spurs (NBA.com via Archive.org)
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