A Charlie Brown Christmas review: Even better than it was 50 years ago

Charlie Brown Christmas The first Peanuts This special capitalized on the popularity of the comic strip from 1965. By this point, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts This business had existed for over 15 years and was based on the following basic concept: There are two children. One of them owns a dog. In a typical household, not much happens. Peanuts plot. It is difficult to imagine a larger universe for children.

Its appeal is Peanuts It’s in just being there with them and learning their rhythms. Umberto Eco wrote about it in The New York Review of Books in 1985, “over this basic scheme” of watching children and a dog go about daily life, “there is a steady flow of variations, following a rhythm … thus you could never grasp the poetic power of Schulz’s work by reading only one or two or ten episodes: you must thoroughly understand the characters and the situations, for the grace, tenderness, and laughter are born only from the infinitely shifting repetition of the patterns, and from fidelity to the fundamental inspirations.”

The perfect medium to allow infinitely changing repetitions was a daily cartoon strip. This is the first ever ongoing Peanuts Charlie Brown’s fall season football missing is the most famous gag. While its first iteration wasn’t a trick, it soon became a routine: Lucy van Pelt holds out a football for Charlie Brown and comes up with some excuse to convince him to kick it. Charlie Brown accepts her excuse and begins to tackle the football head-on. Charlie Brown is about to launch himself into the air as Lucy distracts him.

As Sarah Boxer has noted in The Atlantic, Lucy was, for Schulz, “in essence, society itself.” She was manipulative, cruel, and seemed more interested in transactional help, as seen in her psychiatric booth where she’ll see any patient “who has a problem and a nickel.” Described in a jokey essay published in the medical journal The Lancet as the “best-known psychiatrist of the 20th century,” Lucy’s advice is at times more concerned with getting five cents than any actual help.

That’s how things start in Charlie Brown Christmas. Charlie Brown is depressed, even though it’s Christmastime. After failing to knock a can down with snowballs, he goes to Lucy’s booth and drops in a nickel. He is unable to get the can down with snowballs. She then rattles about her can, revealing how she enjoys hearing nickels rattle around. Charlie Brown is eventually set on his path by her. Lucky enough, she has a director for her Christmas play.

Apple

Prior to airing on CBS Animation, Bill Melendez (animater) and the network executives worried about several aspects. Charlie Brown Christmas. Everyone thought it was too slow, the plot seemed threadbare, the music didn’t seem to match the setting, the animation was stilted, and the children’s voices sounded like amateurs.

These criticisms can be taken to mean that the show is less than perfect. It’s disjointed and loosely centers around Charlie Brown learning the meaning of Christmas. Snoopy thinks it’s decorating his doghouse, Lucy thinks it’s about getting a big shiny aluminum tree she can paint pink. Linus explains the real meaning of Christmas very simply: It is the birth of Jesus as described in The Book of Luke.

Apple

Yet the special’s stilted nature simply adds to the charm half a century later. Maybe it was the three television channels that were available. Charlie Brown ChristmasIt was a hit when it first aired. But even today, as one Apple TV Plus’ exclusives, and in a sea of family-friendly content, it stands out. These children are just as real-life children. As real children, the children spend their free time creating worlds for themselves. Like real children they also feel sad.

There’s also Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack, which has a richness that carries the special. The haunting vocals of “Christmas Time is Here” let the viewer into Charlie Brown’s head as we watch the children skate (Pig Pen’s dust clouds following him on the ice is a wonderful touch), and on the flip-side, the bubbling optimism of “Linus and Lucy” seems to encourage warmth and camaraderie.

As individual panels within a strip. Charlie Brown Christmas The smallest moments are what matter. They dance when they shouldn’t be. The elegant style of the aluminum Christmas Tree Lot (a popular fad from the Sixties, which this special has helped to kill). Charlie Brown leaves his little, sad tree when an ornament causes it to droop. The rest of the group then get together and fix it.

Charlie Brown agrees with Linus at the end. Christmas is all about Jesus’ birth. Yet he doesn’t make his way to a church. Instead, he realizes that his cruel, irresponsible friends have seen something that was broken, and they’ve given it the love and support it requires to thrive. Such earnestness transcends any culture and can be seen by any viewer at any point in time.

You can stream A Charlie Brown Christmas on YouTube Apple TV Plus.