A Charlie Brown Christmas is the first prime-time animated TV special based upon the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It was produced and directed by former Warner Bros. and UPA animator Bill Meléndez, who also supplied the voice for the character of Snoopy. Initially sponsored by Coca-Cola, the special aired on CBS from its debut in 1965 through 2000, and has aired on ABC since 2001. For many years it aired only annually, but is now telecast at least twice during the Christmas season. The special has been honored with both an Emmy and Peabody Award.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is also one of CBS's most successful specials, airing annually more times on that network than even MGM's classic motion picture The Wizard of Oz. Oz was shown thirty-one times on CBS, but not consecutively as the Charlie Brown special was; between 1968 and 1976, NBC aired the 1939 film.
The story touches on the over-commercialization and secularism of Christmas, and serves to remind viewers of the true meaning of Christmas: the birth of Jesus Christ, continuing a theme explored by satirists such as Stan Freberg
during the 1950s.
BLAST FROM
THE PAST - REMEMBER ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREES?
The aluminum Christmas tree is a type of artificial Christmas tree that was popular in the United States from 1958 until about the mid-1960s. As its name suggests, the tree is made of aluminum, featuring foil needles and illumination.
The first aluminum trees could not be illuminated in the manner traditional for natural Christmas trees or other artificial trees. Fire safety concerns prevented lights from being strung through the tree's branches; draping electric lights through an aluminum tree could cause a short
circuit. The common method of illumination was a floor-based "color wheel" which was placed under the
tree. The color wheel featured varyingly colored segments on a clear plastic wheel, when switched on the wheel rotated and a light shone through the clear plastic casting an array of colors throughout the tree's metallic
branches. Sometimes this spectacle was enhanced by a rotating Christmas tree stand. Each tree took about 15 minutes to assemble.
Aluminum Christmas trees have been variously described as futuristic or as cast in a style which evoked the glitter of the space
age. A Money magazine article published on the CNN website in 2004 called the design of aluminum Christmas trees
"clever". The same article asserted that once the trees overcame their cultural baggage, as icons of bad-taste, that aluminum Christmas trees were actually beautiful
decor. The Space Age-feel of the trees made them especially suited to the streamlined home decor of the time
period.
An aluminum Christmas tree on display in Washington state During the 1960s, the aluminum Christmas tree enjoyed its most popular period of
usage. As the mid-1960s passed, the aluminum Christmas tree began to fall out of
favor with many thrown away or relegated to basements and attics. The airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965 has been credited with ending the era of the aluminum
tree, and by 1967 their time had almost completely passed.
BLAST
FROM THE PAST - ADS
BLAST
FROM THE PAST - QUIZ .
1. After the Lone Ranger saved the day and rode off into the sunset, the grateful citizens would ask, Who was that masked man? Invariably, someone would answer, I don't know, but he left this
behind _________.
Answer
02. When the Beatles first came to the US in early 1964, we all watched them on The ___Show.
Answer
06. After the Twist, The Mashed Potato, and the Watusi, we 'danced' under a stick that was lowered as low as we could go in a dance called the
'______.' Answer
Can You
Name This Animated Character From Past Or Present?
.
Last Month's
Character
Sherman
Congrats
to: Gina, Mike, Eric, Gary
Sherman
appears in this cartoon with his bespectacled dog Mister Peabody
(in a twist on the hackneyed concept of "a boy and his dog"). Peabody is a genius who adopted Sherman for company. Sherman is a naive but fairly bright, inquisitive, earnest and energetic lad who's always one step behind getting his friend's dreadful puns. In appearance, Peabody is a small white dog with floppy ears. Sherman is always in need of having his hair combed. He wears a white tee-shirt and dark shorts. Each character wears a pair of oversized horn-rimmed glasses.
