A Charlie Brown Christmas

And the politics of Peanuts

Greetings everyone from Pueblo, Colorado where things are finally getting back to normal and yes, I have approximately 1 billion emails to return since my trip to Oklahoma (I’ll have more on that later).

Tonight I’m thinking about the pantheon of Christmas television specials. For me the on question champion of them all is the stop motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from 1964. There is, of course, something to be said about the Frosty the Snowman special, as well as 1974’s A Year Without Santa Claus.

But you can’t talk about Christmas specials without talking about A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s just too iconic and I would say that it’s maybe the second best cartoon Christmas special I ever made. Plus, it has the benefit of having one of the best Christmas soundtracks of all time.

So this year we decided to invite pop-culture historian Blake Scott Ball on to talk about not only the special but the history behind the Peanuts in general. Blake would know since he literally wrote the book on it. One of the things I didn’t know was that A Charlie Brown Christmas almost didn’t happen, and only came to fruition as a result of none other than the Coca-Cola Company.

Blake and I get into all of that and more in this week’s podcast. This is very family friendly episode so please do feel free to listen in the car with the kids. I hope you like it.

I hope wherever you are, you’re having a terrific day.

Jason