Have You Seen?! The Movie Podcast

We Revisit Charlie Brown To Find Out What The Holidays Are Really About

• Roll Credits Studios • Season 1 • Episode 13

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The holidays get loud, but one small special still quiets a room. We’re taking a heartfelt tour through A Charlie Brown Christmas—how a tiny budget, a six‑month deadline, and a few bold choices created a tradition that still feels honest. Our conversation starts with those living-room memories lit by tree lights and the TV glow, then moves into the craft: real kids’ voices, hand-drawn animation by Bill Melendez, and Vince Guaraldi’s jazz that somehow sounds like snow falling on a familiar street.

We dig into Charles Schulz’s personal imprint on Charlie Brown, the way vulnerability and dry humor turn a simple plot into something that lingers. You’ll hear the backstory of the Coca‑Cola sponsorship, why the team resisted flashy trends, and how the color palette and stage choreography make each scene instantly recognizable. And yes, we face the moment many of us rushed past as kids: Linus’s reading. With grown-up eyes, that pause reads like a creative north star—clear, gentle, and brave enough to say what the season means without lecturing.

From Snoopy’s guitar antics to the melancholy lift of Christmas Time Is Here, we map the details that transformed a modest TV special into an evergreen classic. If you’ve ever wondered why the sad little tree matters, why Guaraldi’s piano feels like home, or how authenticity beats spectacle, you’ll find good company here. Press play, cozy up, and then tell us your story: which scene shaped your idea of the holidays? Subscribe, share with a friend who needs some quiet joy, and leave a review to help others find the warmth.

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Dylan:

Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest. Grief.

Joe:

Welcome to Have You Seen the Movie Podcast, where every movie is a premiere.

Dylan:

This week we're doing something a little different. Both of us have seen a Charlie Brown Christmas, but it's one of the most iconic holiday specials ever made. It's simple, it's sincere, it's surprisingly deep, and we wanted to give this classic the full deep dive treatment it deserves. This week's film is rated G.

Joe:

Gentle, heartfelt, and perfect for all ages.

Dylan:

That's right. Since this is our Christmas week episode, we wanted to do something a little different. There are big movies, flashy movies, and holiday blockbusters. But a Charlie Brown Christmas is something else entirely. It's simple, honest, and quiet in a way that still cuts right through the noise, especially this time of year. We both grew up with this special, and it shaped what a Christmas felt like for us. So today isn't just about a first watch or a big cinematic debate. It's about slowing down, taking a breath, and revisiting a story that reminds us what the season is really about. We're really glad you you're spending your part of the holiday week with us. Wow. Where do we start with this one?

Joe:

I think it's something that I have watched every year and I can't even remember how far back I I watched it. It just uh Peanuts and uh Charlie Brown and Snoopy, those cartoons just I think they just kind of have been around for me.

Dylan:

Yeah. Um yeah, um it's one of those things that like remembering back on it, I remember um like having my grandparents over and watching it all together, the whole family.

Joe:

Yeah. Yeah, this one in particular is just um yeah, just an every year thing. Yeah, it just easy. It was shown on regular broadcast TV um and now I'm sure it's on cable and you know you can get it streaming. Yeah. I have the physical media. So how do you think it stands out from other holiday content?

Dylan:

It definitely uh is not big and flashy like a lot of the other holiday movies and stuff. And it definitely uh kinda makes you pause and slow down and uh think about more of what this time of year is supposed to represent and stuff. Right.

Joe:

Yeah. I mean, we'll get into it later, but there's definitely a halt in the whole thing where it's like boom, yeah, this is it.

Dylan:

Right. Definitely puts the brakes on. Uh quick plot setup. Uh Charlie Brown feels disconnected and is asked to direct a Christmas play where he learns the meaning of the holiday through sincerity, simplicity, and lightness. Exactly. So do you have like first memories of watching Man?

Joe:

I really have to dig back. Um, I mean somewhere you know, probably well my upbringing was was a lot different than most because most of our family had had um lived with my grandmother. Yeah at grandmother and grandfather at their house at some point and and so like it was just kind of a revolving door of family, and so just being in the living room with blankets and um going to sleep and this coming on at night, yeah, and and you're just kind of cozy, uh-huh, you know, and you know, at that point the tree would have been set up, and so you have the Christmas lights in the back, and she used to have these mirrors, these kind of like funky mirrors on the walls, yeah. And so you would just see the reflection of all the Christmas lights in there too, and so it's just the f reflection of the TV and watching it, and just that cozy, nostalgic feeling, you know.

Dylan:

So yeah, but I think for me, like what I had said before about like the grandparents coming over to watch it, uh that's the the earliest I can kind of think back and remember of seeing it or um you know, maybe flipping through the the channels at night and edit it just being on. So then you just watch it. Yeah. Do you have a particular scene that like stuck out to you as a kid?

Joe:

Man, there's so many like that jump out. Yeah. Um what I always love, and I think it's it goes into most of the specials, is the kids dancing on stage. And you know, you see all of them having different moves and they all have different, you know, and then the one the part where Lucy and Snoopy are together and he she she you know he's Oh, I've been kissed by a dog.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

Dylan:

I think mine was all of the funky uh Christmas trees.

Joe:

Oh yeah.

Dylan:

All the all the different ones.

Joe:

Yeah, and it's you know, I think it I think most people would say the the Charlie Brown tree, as it were, that doesn't look the greatest. Yeah, you know. And and so, yeah, I mean they even sell that boxed and ready to go. Yeah.

Dylan:

What of the scenes like kind of hits you different watching it as an adult? The one that I can think of is growing up, the the pause in the middle of it that we'll get into later. Yeah. Um I did not like that part because it was a kid, yeah. Um, because it was like slow in a break from the action, yeah, if you will. Yeah.

Joe:

Yeah, and now right.

Dylan:

Now you definitely learn to appreciate it and stuff.

Joe:

Yeah, those yeah, that that's probably one of the biggest ones. I think even as an adult, looking at the detail of things, yeah. They do, you know, uh piano, um, the music, uh even I love seeing Snoopy rock out with a guitar. You know? Um, and then even in the beginning when he's uh ice skating and how he's just so free and he kind of throws his head back, and yeah, it's just like the animation that it took for that.

Dylan:

Just um one thing that I really noticed watching this is like the colors that they use. Yeah. Like I feel like it's just very um like warm. And um but it's like warm, it's warm colors, but it's still quite muted, yeah, color-wise. Um so um it definitely has like the the bright flashy moments, yeah, but as an overall design choice.

Joe:

So yeah, there's a Christmassy palette to it, you know. But it's yeah, it's not like it's um pastels or something, it's more of these bright like uh Charlie Brown's red coat. Yeah, yeah. It just really sticks out. So yeah, um with going back to the beginning, Charlie Brown um was created by Charles Schultz. Um and he he had been drawing since he was you know really young. Um his first uh award was when he was fourteen for uh drawing his dog. And so yeah, which would eventually become kind of the beginnings of Snoopy. Yeah. Over time. Um so he was drafted in the army and so 1941 he goes to war and he was still drawing. Yeah. And so he has he would draw things about war, but he also started drawing the the peanuts and Snoopy and Charlie Brown and all that. Um and so you know, again, Charlie Brown was like a more detailed character, um, and he created a whole comic strip that was like I think it was like Charles Schultz Kids or something like that. Yeah. And so there was more like like more detailed cartoons of of the characters. Um and so he eventually went to art school and had all these friends at art school, um, and he ended up naming a lot of the characters after that's so special. Yeah. So his his life personally wasn't he didn't always feel like the greatest about his life. And so the character of Charlie Brown was really him, but he also did have a friend named Charlie Brown that he named Charlie Brown after. And so all the like mishaps and shortcomings and all those things were just kind of him uh kind of writing his sort of life story or what he depicted as his life story, and so as um as those went on, the older comics um or the comics that he was working on didn't go anywhere, and so he just continued to to draft and draft, and then he came up with um so Snoopy was named after from his mom. Um she had the idea of naming his dog Snoopy, yeah, and I guess in German it just means to Snoop around, like kind of how we use it now. Yeah, um, he's Snoopy. So so she um she named him that, and his first dog was named Spike, um, and that was the dog he got a prize for you know drawing. Yeah, and he Spike would eventually become a character in Peanuts as well. So as his as the comic book started to get more famous, or comic strip actually, it was comics that were in the newspaper, so whether it was black and white on a regular week or Sunday comics were usually in color, yeah. Um, and so he started doing that, and Charlie Brown and Peanuts became um more famous and more popular, and so then Ford uh wanted to make an ad and put them in a Ford ad. Oh, really? And so he didn't know like who could who like he never really wanted to do uh animated um peanuts, like yeah, he didn't want ever want them to do that because he was like I I see them as this dimension, like this one, you know Oh yeah, you know like the 2D. Yeah, the 2D. And so he he just couldn't picture it being any more than that. So he ran across an animator named Bill Melendez, and Bill Melendez was like, Okay, I can do this, you know, and I'll I'll look at what you have and and and I'll create these things. And so he was able to he he was one of the people who was able to uh make them jump off the page and all the little like dancing and the way even Charlie Brown moves, like the way his hair moves when he shifts, yeah, all that kind of thing. He put those layers in there and and with Charles Schultz they collaborated and created what would become this special. Um so after the Ford um thing happened, there was kind of nothing going on. And there was a producer named Lee Mendelssohn who had produced um some kind of short or some kind of uh documentary on like Mickey Mann or and uh and so he uh you know he kind of had some clout and so he connected with um Charles Schultz and kind of helped with the Ford thing. Then Coca-Cola had contacted Lee Mendelson and said, Hey, do you guys have uh a Christmas special? We're we're trying to we wanna sponsor a Christmas special.

Dylan:

Oh, okay.

Joe:

And so Lee Mendelssohn being the business guy um and producer, he said, um, well, yeah, we do. Uh let me let me talk to Charles about it. And so he went to Charles Schultz and said, Hey, I just I just sold Coca-Cola um a Christmas special for the peanuts, and he's like, What is that? What are you what are you talking about? So they had like a couple of weeks to put together uh the basic outline of what they were gonna do. Yeah. And so what they did was they had he had already because he had already made all these comic strips, they had kind of taken some ideas that were in comic strips already, yeah, and then put together a you know cohesive story of we're gonna have Charlie Brown do this and then we're gonna do that, and you know, so with with things that he had written and then coming up with new ideas, they connected it all into this Christmas special.

Dylan:

So interesting.

Joe:

So the the biggest thing about that is um like going back to the you know the different people, like so. You have Charles Schultz who's established, you have Bill Bill Mendelssohn was uh had already worked with Disney, had already had some success with um other animators and animation houses and things like that. And so um I think the coolest thing that I didn't know that I wanted to put on this podcast is that he's Mexican. That's the one thing that if I was a kid, because when I was a kid, um I used to draw Charlie Brown all the time. Yeah, yeah. Um, I used to I had this book and I don't even remember what it was, but um, I remember reading about Charles Schultz and him being in the war and coming up with uh you know uh Charlie Brown and Peanuts early on. Um and so I used to draw him all the time, and I just you know, as a kid, you're just like, I don't know if I'll ever be an animator, I don't know if I'll ever do anything. But like now knowing that so Bill Mendelssohn was the main animator, head animator for this whole project, yeah, and then from that became other projects, but he also voiced Snoopy, yeah. So it's like I don't know, it's just one of those things that kind of inspires me, like, man, that that was so cool. Um and so um uh Lee Mendelssohn, they were trying to put together how how to kind of make it all cohesive and what kind of music they would use and and all of that. Um, and so uh Lee Mendelssohn was um had already been a fan of Vince Giraldi. So he heard Cast Your Fate to the Wind by Vince Giraldi, and with you know the time ticking, because after they had gotten the first pitch uh done, they gave them six months to complete the whole project. Really? It was six months and 76,000 uh for the whole budget, and that's animation, staff, all that kind of stuff. Um, and they went over by 20,000. Yeah, yeah, which I mean, you know, this still a lot, yeah, right.

Dylan:

Especially for that time, yeah. I mean, it's what what did we say earlier? It's 60 years old now, yeah. Because it came out in 64.

Joe:

Uh four, yeah. Four. Mm-hmm. Um and so they got Vince Garaldi on. The first song was written was uh Linus and Lucy. Um and it's known as one of the most familiar jazz songs out there. Yeah. Yeah. So um Christmas Time is Here was the second one, and he had written it as an instrumental, but as they went along and you know, we're we're doing the show, they decided to add lyrics to it.

Dylan:

Oh really?

Joe:

Okay, wow.

Dylan:

Yeah.

Joe:

I mean it it's it's a beautiful song as as an instrumental, but yeah, that when the lyrics come in, it's just oh I'm tearing up. My eyes are watering. Yeah. And so at the beginning of the show, um then they're ice skating and uh Charlie Brown gets thrown to the tree. Um Linus in the original introduction was thrown towards a Coca-Cola sign. Really? Yeah, that's cool. Wish was still there placement. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like I'd be fine with that being there still, with just the historical you know, um, I'm sure you could find it online, but um, yeah, so uh yeah, so it was sponsored by Coca-Cola, and yeah, even at the end, uh when they're singing, uh it a Coca-Cola thing would come up. Oh, really?

Dylan:

I thought they would all crack crack a cold Coca-Cola. Right, yeah, yeah. And then the polar bear comes up.

Joe:

Um once they sold it, um, they were able to go on and continue. Yeah, and it was like so Vince Garaldi would write a new song for another episode, yeah. Bill Melendez was animating and you know, all that. So um but again, I he had to figure out how to do the hairlines, how to get the kids to dance, yeah, all the angles and and all that. Um in the biggest, like I don't know like it wasn't gonna be cut, but it was an idea that Charles Schultz had had initially and it was to read from Luke uh two fourteen. And and so when um Linus um reads the story of Christmas, you know, that long pause.

Dylan:

The abridged story.

Joe:

Yeah, the abridged story of Christmas. And Charlie Brown's like, What's Christmas about? And and he's like, Here it is. And you know he he he basically said to all the naysayers, if nobody's gonna tell the story, if we don't tell the story, who's gonna tell the story? Yeah, because it it just wasn't out there. The the you know the whether you say the it's the gospel or whether you say it's scripture, um, it just wasn't out there at the time, and he was like, Well, somebody has to do it, you know, and so that's kind of how he pushed that through. Yeah. And um and you know, when when the when it came out, um when when things came out, initially everybody was like, I don't know, I don't know if this is gonna fly, I don't know if that is gonna fly. Yeah. Um, and so it was just kind of one of those like, let's just do it, you know. Um one of the creative the I think one of the cool creative things that I think has been lost with animation, and even seeing how the modern Charlie Brown cartoons is are produced, yeah, is they just took regular kids and made those the voices. Yeah.

Dylan:

They weren't I was wondering.

Joe:

Yeah. I mean, they just it I mean they just have the cutest voices, yeah, you know, um and and it's just it just sounds so real. It just sounds like a bunch of kids talking. Yeah. Like that's even like a thing on Instagram where like the parents are talking and then you have kids talking, you know, the kids' voices. I don't know if you've seen those videos, but it kind of harkens back to that. Um like you'll have a uh a parent uh speaking about the story of Christmas or something, but then it's the kid's voice going going over. Oh yeah, okay. But they just said, let's just find some kids and and have them do that, you know, have them do the voiceover. So they just got got a bunch of kids, they tried them out and everything, but it they weren't professional voice actors, they weren't trained, yeah. Um, even with um with Christmas time is here, they used uh a local church, it was like a Presbyterian choir or something like that. And and they just went over there and like, hey, do you have a kid's choir? Yeah, sure. Okay, you know, we're doing this special, can't uh we're gonna set up a recording thing, and they just all kind of sang. So those kid voices that you hear are actual kids. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

Joe:

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Dylan:

Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah, you're a child.

Joe:

Yeah, I know, right? But I gotta say, I empathize with him so much. Yeah. Yeah. I yeah, I get it. I get I totally get it. And and with like Charles Schultz writing from where he was at, and I'm sure he felt like that since he was a kid.

Dylan:

I mean, it definitely gives a good background onto the why Charlie Brown is so emotionist.

Joe:

Yeah, he is the Charlie Browniest. And I mean it doesn't help with most of the people that are he calls his friends are just putting them down everywhere. Yeah.

Dylan:

And uh Lucy uh