It's going to be on television tonight. You may even watch it with your kids. But here are some things you probably didn't know about what went into the making of it.
Most of the voice actors were cast from kids in the director's neighborhood
Charles Schulz (known to friends and colleagues as “Sparky”) wanted to bring believable voices to the characters he created, so the producers cast real children to give life to the 'Peanuts' gang instead of adult voice-over artists. Professional child actors were cast in the roles for Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy since they were required to recite most of the dialogue. The rest came from children who lived in director Bill Melendez’s
Schulz actually hated jazz music
Musician and composer Vince Guaraldi's ensemble of holiday infused jazz for 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' became just as famous and as much of a yuletide favorite as the cartoon that popularized it. Sparky, however, wasn't a big fan of the catchy tunes. In fact, according to his biography, Schulz told a reporter two months after the special aired that he thought jazz music was “awful.” Despite his feelings about jazz, Sparky insisted that they use Guaraldi's music again for 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' with a mix of traditional Christmas hymns because it created the perfect “bubbly, childlike tone” for the show.
The producers thought it would be a flop and that they “ruined Charlie Brown forever”
If the network executives were a tad bit too hard on their first screening of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas,' the show's producers were downright cynical. They were more pleased with the final product than the network, but they feared the public would not embrace it, let alone watch it. They also thought it would forever tarnish Charles Schulz's characters and comic strip. “We kind of agreed with the network. One of the animators stood up in the back of the room – he had had a couple of drinks – and he said, 'It's going to run for a hundred years,' and then fell down. We all thought he was crazy.”
Find out more here!
