A Charlie Brown Christmas

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a television special based on the popular Peanuts comic strip. In the special, Charlie Brown tries to find the real meaning of Christmas.

Synopsis
Charlie Brown thinks that Christmas has become too commercial: his little sister Sally has written to Santa Claus asking for cash, and his beagle Snoopy has decked out his doghouse in the hope of winning a Christmas decorations contest.

Lucy recommends that he direct the Christmas pageant in order to lift his spirits, but the cast is also self-involved and uninterested. When tasked with finding a Christmas tree for the pageant (Lucy would prefer a pink, aluminum one), Charlie Brown sets off with Linus to pick it out. But when he returns with a small, sickly pine tree that he thinks can use some love, everyone is disappointed. Frustrated, Charlie Brown asks if anyone can tell him what Christmas is all about, to which Linus eloquently responds by quoting Scripture.

After Charlie Brown leaves the rehearsal with his tree, he returns home to find that Snoopy's doghouse has won the first prize. But when he places a single ornament from the doghouse onto his tree, the whole thing bends over, and Charlie Brown is afraid that he has killed it. At that moment, the neighborhood children come to cheer him up, helping him clean up his tree and singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."

Ratings
The 1965 premiere of A Charlie Brown Christmas was the second-highest rated program of the week, reaching well over 15 million homes. Charlie Brown was second only to the blockbuster Bonanza; more people watched Charlie Brown that week than Lucille Ball, Walt Disney, Andy Griffith and the Beverly Hillbillies.

In the following years, A Charlie Brown Christmas reached an even larger audience. Two airings of the special appear on the "All-Time Top 10 Christmas Ratings" list -- 1969, which got a 34.8 rating, and 1967, which got a 34.3. The only other shows rated higher than the 1969 Charlie Brown Christmas are the annual Bob Hope Christmas Specials, a popular tradition in the late 60s and early 70s.

Broadcast history and availability
CBS held broadcast rights from 1965 until 2000. Afterwards, ABC took over broadcast rights to this and other Peanuts animated specials (including the traditional Halloween special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown) in 2000.

The special was first released to home video by Hi-Top Video in 1984. It was released on VHS again in 1990, this time being sold exclusively at Shell gas stations. When Paramount Home Video acquired the video rights to the Peanuts cartoons in 1996, the special was released on VHS once again, this time in a plastic case. At the same time, they also issued it to Laserdisc; this release also included the non-holiday Peanuts special .

Paramount later reissued the special on DVD in 2000, where it was accompanied by It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. Following Warner Home Video's acquisition of the video rights to the Peanuts specials, a "Remastered Deluxe Edition" DVD was released in September 2008, again with It's Christmastime Again as a bonus special, but also with a new behind-the-scenes featurette. A Blu-Ray edition of this release was released a year later. Warner also made the special available as an iTunes and a PlayStation Network digital download, also accompanied by not only It's Christmastime Again, but also the non-holiday special It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown. The special is also available on the 2-disc set Peanuts 1960s Collection.

The special has notably not been shown in its original form since the 1960s, due to having to cut out plugs for the special's original sponsor,. In the original airing, immediately following Charlie Brown crashing into the tree during the opening sequence, Linus got tossed at a Coca-Cola billboard, and the end credits used to close with a subtitle reading "Merry Christmas from your local Coca-Cola bottler." Also, from 1966 through 1997, subsequent broadcasts cut out the scene where the kids throw snowballs at a can on a fence (in the original broadcast, it was a Coca-Cola can). However, the scene with the can (now a generic tin can) was reinstated in the 1990 video release (and all subsequent video releases), and it later returned to the televised broadcasts of the special in 1997. The special has been shown this way every year since then, except once in 2009, when airing the special alongside the premiere of Prep and Landing; in that broadcast, several scenes - most notably Sally asking Santa for money in "tens and twenties" and Schroeder's "Jingle Bells" scene with Lucy - were cut to create space for more commercials.

Songs
A Charlie Brown Christmas features original music written by Vince Guaraldi, and performed by his jazz trio.
 * "Christmas Time is Here"
 * "Linus and Lucy"

A soundtrack album of the special's musical score was released in 1965 on Fantasy Records, which was a well-known jazz label, and Guaraldi's home label at the time. The album became an instant classic, and remains available to this day. A single of "Christmas Time is Here", backed with "What Child is This", was also released.

In addition to the score album, in 1977 Charlie Brown Records (distributed by Disneyland/Buena Vista Records) released a book and record set, with a catalogue number of 3701, containing an LP of the special's entire soundtrack, including songs, dialogue, and sound effects. It also included a 12-page booklet with pictures from the special. Charlie Brown Records also released a condensed version of the special on a 7" 33 1/3 RPM book and record set, with a catalogue number of 401.

Cast
Note: 3, 4, and 5 make appearances but do not have speaking roles.

Tributes

 * A Charlie Brown-like Christmas tree makes an appearance on the set of the Joker's TV special in "Christmas With the Joker".
 * During the song at the end of It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special, the line "If your Christmas tree's pathetic" is illustrated by a shot of Buster and Babs, drawn to look like Charlie Brown and Lucy, coming upon a tree like the one in the special, which then crumbles.
 * In the Futurama episode "Xmas Story", a group of kids appear skating similar to the opening scene. Bender, having just fallen off a cliff, crashes through the ice, causing them to fall into the water.
 * From 2002 through 2005, Nickelodeon ran a series of vignettes every Christmas, one of them a parody of A Charlie Brown Christmas starring the characters from Rugrats. Titled A Chuckie Finster Christmas, Channukah, Kwaanza, Winter Solstice, the spot features Chuckie in the Charlie Brown role. Tommy later attempts Linus's recitation of Luke 2:8-14 in The Bible, prompting Angelica to scream "You blockhead! It's about the presents! Lots and lots of presents!", which the rest of the babies agree on.
 * The Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Christmas episode, "A Lost Claus", pays homage to this special using a jazz musicial style in the soundtrack, and even a cameo appearance by Snoopy's decorated doghouse.
 * During the Kim Possible episode "A Very Possible Christmas", as Ron is foiling his plans, Dr. Drakken yells out "All I want is what's coming to me! All I want is my fair share!"
 * The Simpsons episode "'Tis the Fifteenth Season" ends with the cast singing "Hark, the Herald Angel Sings" in the same manner as the ending to A Charlie Brown Christmas.
 * In addition, the later Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror IXX" features a imitation of the dancing scene in the segment "It's the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse!" (which itself is a parody of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown).
 * The FoxTrot Sunday strip published on December 17, 2006, has Roger trying to find a Christmas tree, but all the ones at the lot are already sold. He then sees a little tree that hasn't been sold. The last panel reveals him screaming in horror when he finds Linus and Charlie Brown walking away with the tree (which looks just like the one Charlie Brown picks up in the special).
 * At the beginning of the American Dad! episode "The Most Adequate Christmas Ever", Haley states "I picked up all the Charlie Brown holiday specials, from the very first one where he learns the true meaning of Christmas to the one from the '80s where he meets the kid with AIDs." (The latter description is probably a reference to the 1990 Peanuts special Why, Charlie Brown, Why?, which featured a character with leukemia and had a sequence set during Christmastime.)
 * In the Wow Wow Wubbzy episode "O' Figgety-Fig Tree", there is a parody of the dance scene of the special. And in "A Great and Grumpy Holiday", Wubbzy goes past the tree from the special while looking for a tree to put in Wuzzleburg Square (and muttering "Oh, good grief" in response).
 * The end credits of Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation! has a shot with the kids mimicking the dancing scene.
 * Charlie Brown's Christmas tree can be seen in the background of Magee's office in Prep & Landing.
 * The title of "A Cleveland Brown Christmas" directly parodies this special's title.
 * In a real-life version of life imitating art, because of budget cuts, the city of Concord, California had a "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" for the 2009 holiday season in the city's Todos Santos Plaza.