Details

Release year: 1965

Storyline

Depressed at the commercialism he sees around him, Charlie Brown tries to find a deeper meaning to Christmas.

Top credits

Directors

Bill Melendez

Writers

Charles M. Schulz

Cast

Ann Altieri — Frieda
Chris Doran — Schroeder, Shermy
Sally Dryer — Violet
Bill Melendez — Snoopy

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Awards

1 win & 1 nomination

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Did you know

• When viewing the rough cut of the show, both Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson were convinced that they had a flop on their hands. After it premiered, they were happily surprised and shocked at the high ratings and excellent reviews that the show received. Today, the show remains the second longest-running Christmas special on US network television (the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) premiered one year earlier and is still broadcast every year on US network television).

• Cathy Steinberg, who did the voice of Sally Brown, had not yet learned to read at the time of production so she had to be fed her lines, often a word or syllable at a time, which explains the rather choppy delivery of the line "All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share."

• Broke many of the rules prevalent for animated holiday specials during the 1960s: it didn't make use of a laugh track, real children were used for the character voices instead of adult actors imitating children's voices, and Biblical references were used to illustrate the true meaning of Christmas.