I was born in an era when there was a thing known as the holiday special, something that every kid expected each year. It was the herald of Christmas and the instance that the Halloween specials started, we knew that there were more to follow. It would culminate with The Wizard of Oz showing yet again and then a ton of stop motion animation just before that faithful night when we’d visit relatives, open packages with socks and other things we didn’t care much about, and then lies restlessly in our beds hoping that Santa Claus would actually bring us the things that we hoped for.
Depending on who you asked that grew up during this time, you’re bound to get a different response regarding which special they thought was the best. At that young age, I remember watching all of them and I don’t really recall having a favorite. All of the Rankin-Bass holiday specials were a part of my viewing schedule as well as A Charlie Brown Christmas. Now back in those days, I regularly read the Peanuts comic strip from the legendary Charles Schultz, oblivious to the fact that he was really trying to push religion on everyone. Regardless of your belief in faith however, A Charlie Brown Christmas still remains a holiday classic and one that everyone knew and loved long before modern classics like A Christmas Story were aired for 24-hours straight.
The concept behind the special is one that’s rather simple and is meant to teach about the spirit of Christmas, at least in terms of religious faith instead of actually looking at the true origins and connections to Greek and Roman paganism. Charlie Brown is depressed about Christmas coming and no one giving him any cards and Lucy, in her typical psychiatrist guise, has a solution for him. She suggests that he be the director for their Christmas play and he eagerly accepts. His intent is that the play isn’t too commercial, something he’d probably be sicken by if he could see just how the holiday is done now, but despite his best efforts no one seems willing to work with him to make the play a success. In order to set the right mood, he and Linus leave to get a Christmas tree and the one that he picks, the only real tree in the lot, isn’t appreciated by anyone. Linus though decides that with a little love, the tree might be perfect and with the help of the gang, the pathetic looking tree becomes perfect, as does the play and the holiday.
The special constantly makes jabs at commercialism, something that none of us probably notice when we’re young be we see it more and more as we grow older. There’s never any mention though as far as what has become so commercial about it, something that today is the fact that you can start finding Christmas merchandise in stores around July in some cases, and right now even though Halloween hasn’t even come, I’m already seeing Christmas decorations. A Bible passage is worked into the special as well as a hymn, both of which are short and shouldn’t offend most but I’m sure there are those who will feel these are some sort of “micro-aggression” and the Peanuts gang is somehow offending them.
A Charlie Brown Christmas works in all of the main characters that fans of the comic strip know and love. Charlie Brown of course is the main focus but his faithful dog Snoop shows up doing everything from decorating his dog house for a contest to showing his acting skills for the play. Lucy belittles Charlie Brown as much as possible and worked in is her usual dislike of dog germs. Schroeder works in some Beethoven, Pig Pen somehow manages to create a dust cloud even when it’s snowing and Linus at times acts as the voice of reason.
What some of you might not know about A Charlie Brown Christmas is that the version that so many of us grew up with isn’t the same version that aired on television. The blu-ray release also isn’t the original version and I don’t know if it even exists. The special was sponsored by Coca-Cola and created over the course of six months. During certain points, there were Coke logos found such as Linus crashing through one of their signs or kicking a Coke can. But, the FCC says you can’t use advertising in a children’s cartoon which doesn’t explain why it’s okay to make an animated series that’s based on a toy line aside from the rules stating that it needs to have educational merit.
The special coming to blu-ray shows quite a visual improvement over what most of us have seen before. There have been quite a few comments I’ve read across the Internet or even heard from people who believe that any form of animation can’t be improved with a high definition release and those people would be wrong. After popping the disc in you’ll see trailers for upcoming Peanuts releases hitting DVD and the standard definition presentation shows the quality of the animation to be a bit blurred and the lines aren’t nearly as defined. With the high definition version of A Charlie Brown Christmas the picture looks smooth, crispy, and is a definite improvement over what was originally seen. There are a few issues that I have with the release though. This wasn’t originally done as a widescreen presentation and no effort was taken to fill in the black on either side of the image, the unfortunate curse of releases like this presently. Also, I recall when seeing this in my childhood that there were issues with the audio tending to fade and drop here and there. Although the release has been remastered in 5.1, you will still hear those audio problems.
There are two additional features included on the disc. The first of these is a making of that really has a lot of great information on the humble origins of this special that didn’t exist when the sponsors were looking for something, even though they were told about its existence. There was a mad rush to get it completed in time for the holidays and completing something in a mere six months that has become a holiday classic is quite impressive. There is also an additional special, It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, but this really lacks the appeal of the original. It feels more like a compilation of the comic strips in an effort to create a cohesive story, but it doesn’t accomplish this at all.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is a definite classic holiday special that deserves to be a part of your high definition library. Fortunately the premise of the holiday special hasn’t completely faded from the television landscape and over the past few years networks have in fact decided that perhaps it was time to revive the classic animated shorts which some many of us grew up with an anticipated each and every year. However it’s still not a bad idea to have this as a part of your collection so you’re not at the whim of that once or twice a year broadcast and instead can simply view it at any point.
Mike is the resident reviewer for Couponing to Disney and his own site Underland Online. He has a toddler daughter and is obsessed with Haunted Mansion and all things Disney. You can read Mike’s complete bio here.