How the Creator of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' Got the Gospel Past CBS Execs

Media executives usually get it wrong because they neither know nor understand the people.
I still get teary-eyed watching A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Schultz made a stand on solid bedrock and refused to budge. The world could do with a lot more people using his example.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Newsbuster.org

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Explaining the true meaning of Christmas in a network television special broadcast to millions was a controversial move, even 55 years ago. 

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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...

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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. 

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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

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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.

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