A Charles M. Schulz November

Comments ⁵

1. Mike Tiefenbacher

   Okay, the Mental Floss article, while otherwise fine, stretches things by its implication that the special had ANY effect on aluminum tree sales. As part of a family which had at least a couple from 1959 on, they fell out of favor because they were replaced by other artificial tree representations. The aluminum trees had stark, easily crumpled single strands of aluminum “needles.” The first iteration of the next generation were dark-green paper/cardboard branches with more lifelike needles. Those were followed by a fabric version, then finally by the end of the century, then trees with even more lifelike needles that themselves tended to shed over the years, then finally vinyl trees which never lost any needles at all. The whole point was not to avoid the messy shedding of needles by formerly live trees, nor was it because we were saving trees from being felled. It was pure cost–the artificial trees were used annually for close to a decade, and our vinyl trees. For the price of one real tree, you could pay for at least half of the price of the artificial ones–and who wouldn’t rather instead get gifts with the money spent (and effort expended) on real ones? (We tried a real one one year in the ’90s, couldn’t even smell that wonderful evergreen smell, and went to the vinyl one the next Christmas. Charlie’s proclivities aside, I sincerely doubt the special affected a single viewer to alter their behavior.

2. K. White

   …I always wanted an aluminum Christmas tree thanks to Charlie Brown…

   Just have to settle for my fiberoptic tree (already put up!).

   As for Woodstock eating turkey, always figured him as an opportunistic omnivore just like Snoopy. 🙂

3. Mike Rhode

   The NorCal story is missing it’s link, I think.

   1. D. D. Degg  (admin)

      Good Grief!

4. Eddy Houchins

   in 1965, at the age of 7 my local Richmond Virginia CBS affiliate was touting the upcoming Christmas special on a local after school kid’s show, “Dandy Doodle and Sooper Dog.” The show had a contest asking the kids in the audience to draw “the best Charlie Brown Christmas Tree” and the winner would get a brand new, just released, full color paperback adaptation of the special. Mind you, NOBODY had seen the special, so, being a budding cartoonist even then, I drew a regular decorated tree with a Charlie Brown standing next to it. Well, I won and that book is on the shelf to this day, as a reminder of how I first profited from cartooning.

   I went on to have a nearly 50 year career in the animation industry, and guess what? in the later years of his life, I actually worked with Bill Melendez on the last few “Peanuts” specials his studio made before his passing at age 91. in 2015, after Bill’s exit from this world, I got a phone call. They wanted me to do a drawing for the 50th anniversary of the Christmas special. It would be made into a limited edition, hand painted 16 field cel with a high quality printed background to be sold in galleries! I did it, bringing the story full circle.

   Until the next year, when they asked me to do the commemorative cel for the 50th anniversary of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”