“All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share,” says Lucy in this little animated film on the dangers of a materialistic view of Christmas. Though there are some chuckles over Charlie Brown’s direction of the school pageant and his search for a suitable tree, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) is more of a morality play than a light-hearted romp.
CBS apparently had misgivings about the religious content of the show — one of the few explicitly Christian animated films about Christmas — but this Charles Schulz creation won an Emmy for Best Children’s Program and went on to become an enduring holiday favourite.
The score was written by Vince Guaraldi who boldly chose to do a jazz-flavoured set of compositions instead of the more juvenile music that usually accompanied children’s cartoons. The show was produced by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson who were to collaborate on further Charlie Brown specials. A sequel, less profound but more amusing, was the 1992 television special It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown.