Exactly 50 years ago, a Christmas tradition was born!

The very first animated Peanuts character movie was made for TV.

It was almost never made and after it was made, it almost never aired.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Here's some trivia:

the TV studio executives wanted a laugh track.

Good Grief!

Charles M. Schultz objected and over-ruled them!

the now world famous familiar Jazz tune was almost never made!

the producers cast children (and not all of them were actors) to voice the characters which at the time was unheard of. The TV studio executives almost didn't make that happen.

A Charlie Brown Christmas has aired on TV like clockwork every year since for the past 50 years.

The December 9th, 1965 premiere was viewed by 45% of the households watching TV that evening, putting the number of viewers at a then unheard of 15.49 million homes.

A Charlie Brown Christmas was instrumental in killing the sales and production of aluminum Christmas trees which has been popular from 1958 until then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQeKdvXliIU

Christmas would not be Christmas without A Charlie Brown Christmas animated special.

It would be like having Christmas without a tree, family, gifts and eggnog,

p.s. After 50 years, I just have one question:

Did Charlie Brown ever kicked the football, finally?

Maybe he should kick Lucy for tormenting him these past 50 years!

Good Grief!

Edited December 9, 201510 yr by j7wild