First of all, the Charlie Brown Christmas show might never have happened if not for the shared love of baseball between Charles Schultz and television producer Lee Mendelson. Schultz was a devout follower of baseball and when Mendelson called to talk about creating a TV show using the Peanuts comic strip, the two men quickly found common ground. Lee had recently produced a documentary on Willie Mays, "A Man Named Mays" and this fueled the early good will between these two men.
Schultz and Mendelson finished their meeting with a vague agreement about a 30 minute TV special featuring the Peanuts gang with maybe one or two minutes of animation. Mendelson was quoted in later years as saying he was drawn to the idea of following up on his recent Mays documentary with the world's worst baseball player in Charlie Brown. However, despite the Peanut comics national popularity the Big 3 TV networks were not interested. All parties agree that this view changed when Time magazine featured the Peanuts gang on its magazine cover in April of 1965, and Coca-Cola contacted Mendelson to pitch an idea for the Peanuts gang to star in a Christmas special. With less than one day to prepare, Schultz and Mendelson prepared an outline for a special that remarkably didn't vary greatly from the finished product!
After receiving the green light from Coca-Cola, they started assembling a team to produce the special, with a deadline of less than six months! Schultz's main purpose was to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. He remained adamant about the climatic scene with Linus reading the Bible despite much opposition. Schultz finally proclaimed, "If we don't do it, who will?" At this time in history less than 10 % of all television Christmas episodes contained a substantive reference to religion. And Schultz made sure to frame the Linus scripture scene in such a way that it couldn't be edited out in the future.
Of course, this wasn't the first or last time that Charles Schultz included the Bible and topics about Christianity in his strips or future specials. And because of his unrelenting stand and creativity, The Charlie Brown Christmas Special has proudly proclaimed the true meaning of Christmas for over 50 years!
