Posted on 12/25/2017 2:29:20 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas has been a tradition for millions since it first aired on December 9, 1965. While many love the iconic Vince Guaraldi score, the humor and the animation, one part of the special has always stood out and made it unique: Linus’s recitation of the Gospel of Luke.
In 2015, The Washington Post published a retrospective on A Charlie Brown Christmas. Michael Cavna explained Peanuts creator Charles Schulz’s mission in making the special:
Charles Schulz insisted on one core purpose: A Charlie Brown Christmas had to be about something. Namely, the true meaning of Christmas. Otherwise, Schulz said, “Why bother doing it?”
To Coca-Cola’s credit, Mendelson says, the corporate sponsor never balked at the idea of including New Testament passages. The result — Linus’s reading from the Book of Luke about the meaning of the season — became “the most magical two minutes in all of TV animation,” the producer says.
Schulz stood strong, despite efforts to talk him out of quoting from the Bible. On December 5, 2005, USA Today recounted:
[Executive producer Lee] Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez fretted about the insistence by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz that his first-ever TV spinoff end with a reading of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke by a lisping little boy named Linus.
"We told Schulz, 'Look, you can't read from the Bible on network television,' " Mendelson says. "When we finished the show and watched it, Melendez and I looked at each other and I said, 'We've ruined Charlie Brown.' "
According to a recounting on MentalFloss.com, CBS executives told Schulz: “You can't read from the Bible on network television.”
Mental Floss writer Kara Kovalchik recounted what happened next:
But CBS had made a commitment to their sponsor, so they aired the special as scheduled on December 9, 1965. And, as often happens in the world of entertainment, the original gut reaction of the suits was completely wrong. A Charlie Brown Christmas drew in 15.4 million viewers, placing it second in the ratings that week after Bonanza. A few months later, Charles Schulz and Lee Mendelson found themselves onstage accepting an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program.
And so, the Charlie Brown creator persevered and created a Christmas classic that endures 52 years later.
In case you don’t remember the iconic moment, here it is:
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace and goodwill towards men.’
“That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
Clarification: that “A Charlie Brown Christmas “ might still be aired today on TV only because it has been grandfathered in. I don’t think that anything analogous to it would be allowed.
Linus’ recitation of Luke and Gueraldi’s sound track are (IMHO) the only 2 redeeming qualities of this borderline psychotic animation.
Snoopy might be the only other sane character, besides pigpen.
To expand a little on what you say, most of those who had a problem with it are and were secular, liberal Jews.
Most Orthodox Jews would have no problem with it, nor would any of the world’s 400,000 or so Christian Jews. My guess is that the majority of Messianic Jews are Americans, but I don’t know that.
my husband’s ex has ZERO mercy...she’s remarried ti a six figure guy. NONE of the CS goes toward the children. Just got another letter from youngest’s school. Skipping and 13 lates this semester—9th grade. Blue states can go to age 26.
All 3 have been systematically poisoned by the ex shrew and family. Hubs hasn’t seen them for almost 10 years now. Thirteen 1/2 years down and if we’re lucky, 3 to 6 more years to go.
Sorry to highjack thread.
There are plenty of liberal gentiles who would object
vehemently to reading the bible on the air; and plenty of Jews who would not object.
Hollywood in the 1940s, with the studios mainly headed by Jews, did everything it could to preserve the family unit and be patriotic.
Hollywood in the 1960s changed.
Merry Christmas.
p.s. Here's how you don't get accused of hijacking the thread.
When I was a kid, Pigpen freaked me out with his dirt cloud floating around him.
Charlie Brown Christmas is an awesome show that we all know today would have all stops pulled out against making such a show. And of course the Linus scene in not only on point but a classic.
However Ann Barnhardt pointed this out the other day and I think it is a point worthy of consideration:
Most Bibles today read Luke 2:14 as:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”
The last clause is mangled, as anyone who knows the Gloria in Latin (as one should, because it is said at a plurality of Masses throughout the year) can see.
The Vulgate Latin, which is St. Jerome’s synthesis of the original source texts commissioned by Pope St. Damasus I, triple cross-referenced against each other in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew in preparation for the eventual setting of the canon of scripture at the Councils of Rome in ARSH 382, and Carthage in ARSH 397, reads thusly:
“…gloria in altissimis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis”
In English, in the Douay-Rheims translation thus reads:
Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.
These are two completely different ideas. Radically different. The first translation has peace and goodwill together as co-subjects, as unqualified universals: “peace, goodwill TOWARD men”. The Vulgate clearly has goodwill not as the COMPOUND SUBJECT along with peace, but as the QUALIFIER. To men OF GOOD WILL. Good will isn’t the subject, it is the OBJECT OF THE PREPOSITION.
The Peace of Our Lord is a massively qualified, and extremely rare and precious thing. When the priest says at Mass, “Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum” (The peace of the Lord be always with you), he isn’t just saying “nice things” as filler. This is a profound and precious prayer.
Why would God, in His Perfect Justice, wish good will towards those men who are at war with Him, and thus His Church? Is not the Second Person, God Incarnate in the Manger in Bethlehem, the Judge of mankind? Is not the Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes He who will sort the sheep from the goats? Is He not the One who is come to sift the wheat from the chaff? Did He not say:
“Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.”
Cornelius of Lapide says in his commentary on Luke 2:
But all the Latins, and, among the Greeks, Origen, S. Chrysostom, and Cyril, read, and with better reason, for good will, —of good will, making the hymn consist of two members. For as glory is given to God as to Him who is glorified, so peace is given to men of good will as to those whom the peace of Christ belongs and befits; and in this way the concatenation of the whole sentence hangs better together. The peace on earth cannot be supposed to be other than that which belongs to men of good will.
And this was way back in 1965.
In 1968, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman from Apollo 8 read from Genesis while gazing at the earth from space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEmn0uaQCYc
NASA was threatened with lawsuits from atheist groups, and the astronauts were told to never do that again.
I believe both of these events were inspired by God Himself.
Awesome post!
Merry Christmas bagster.
Merry Christmas right back atcha.
Even back then they had people in the entertainment business who were so tone deaf about their audiences that they fabricated controversy where none existed. Lee Mendelson sounds like someone who’d be comfortable in the NFL front office today.
Correct.
The NIV version has the translation as: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
The ESV version has: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
A fascinating thread. Thank you.
Never noticed the blanket drop. A wonderful catch, Ciaphas.
You’re kidding?
Such an iconic Christmas show
Linus is right.
ff
Agree. I am old enough to remember those days. I remember when the complaints about Christmas trees in the office started and who was doing the complaining.
Three years later the Apollo 8 astronauts read from the Bible. Now I know where they got the idea.
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