Just saw the newest Charlie Brown Chrstmas Special: “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tales”…what a train wreck. I sat motionless for 25 minutes, no laughs and hardly any smiles.
How can the 1965 be such a classic? They tried again in the late 80’s with “It’s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown” another dull , lifeless special. Same music, same basic animation, same subject matter, same writer (Charles Shultz), but no life or humor.
What gives with a winner like the first one and two crummy follow ups?
The first one was the very first Peanuts TV special, IIRC. It was done on a shoestring budget. The creators put more of themselves into it without regard to potential financial gains. The other two were too calculated.
Where to start? The orginal version, like Schulz’s comic-strip itself, blazed a few trails:
Use of jazz music in a cartoon.
No adults depicted.
Addresses the genuine religious origin of the holiday, besmirches commercialism.
In short it is everything a Christmas special usually isn’t…and the crude animation only makes it more endearing.
It’s Christmastime Again and Christmas Tales took a route that was often used by Mendelson and Melendez (even more so after Schulz’s death): just putting together animated versions of stories from Schulz’s strips. Of course, some gags from A Charlie Brown Christmas were taken from Schulz’s strips as well, but the story was original.