Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales
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Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales is one of many prime-time animated TV specials, based on characters from the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts. It originally aired on the ABC network in 2002.
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[edit] Synopsis
The special consists of a series of vignettes, each one starring a different member of the Peanuts gang in various Christmastime situations. The installments are as follows:
[edit] Happy Holidays from Snoopy
Snoopy unsuccessfully tries to get Lucy to ask him to join her in the skating show, but she's only interested in Schroeder. Later, he dresses up like Santa Claus to work as a bell-ringer. At one point, while dressed as Santa, he plays "Oh! Susanna" on the accordion, which Lucy comments "isn't very Christmasy." Upon hearing that, he quickly switches to "Christmas Time is Here". He also attempts to make peace with the ferocious cat who lives next door.
[edit] Yuletide Greetings from Linus
Linus tries to decide what kind of letter he should write to Santa and toys with the affections of the strange girl at school who keeps changing her name. Like "Jessibelle", "Susan", "and Rebaca".
[edit] Season's Greetings from Sally
Sally decides to give everyone paper airplanes for Christmas and she discovers that "Samantha Claus" is actually "Santa Claus", embarrassing herself at school. Later, she decides to "fall down" a tree for Christmas. When Charlie questions her about her plan, she says "I don't know how to cut down a Christmas tree. When I look at, I hope it'll just fall down." Later, just such an occurrence happens.
[edit] Peace on Earth from Lucy
Lucy struggles with being nice and tries to get Schroeder and Linus to buy her presents.
[edit] Merry Christmas from Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown and Sally prepare for Christmas together.
[edit] Voice Cast
Wesley Singerman: Charlie Brown
Hannah Leigh Dworkin: Sally Brown
Corey Padnos: Linus van Pelt
Bill Melendez: Snoopy and Woodstock
Lauren Schaffel: Lydia
Christopher Ryan Johnson: Schroeder
Tim Deters: Rerun van Pelt
[edit] Origin
Since airtime versus commercial has decreased since the creation of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965, in part due to a change in the delivery of closing credits for most shows in the 1990s, it became impossible for all of A Charlie Brown Christmas to be aired in a half-hour time slot (in 2007, the special ran, with commercials, for 32 minutes).
CBS made several cuts to the program to keep it in the half-hour time slot, including standardizing the closing credits and cutting out the closing song of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Fans of the special were angered by the cuts and thus, in order for it to be possible for all of the original special to be aired, ABC gave the special a full hour block when it acquired the rights to the special after creator Charles Schulz's death. However, this left about eighteen extra minutes. When the show moved to ABC, for the first two years the station aired a "retrospective" special featuring the voice cast and producers of the special; however, two years later, this program was created to fill the rest of the hour.
This special is also included as a bonus feature on the DVD for I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown.
[edit] Writers
Happy Holidays: Bill Melendez
Yuletide Greetings: Corey Padnos, Lauren Schaffel & Tim Deters
Season's Greetings: Hannah Leigh Dworkin & Christopher Ryan Johnson
Peace on Earth: Serena Berman
Merry Christmas: Welsey Singerman
[edit] Trivia
- "O Tannenbaum" is played on the soundtrack when Sally goes out to "fall" down a tree. "O Tannenbaum" was played twice in the original A Charlie Brown Christmas, first when Charlie Brown and Linus went out to get a Christmas tree and later when Charlie Brown carried the scrawny tree to Snoopy's doghouse. As in the original special, the song is played on the piano.
| Preceded by “A Charlie Brown Valentine” |
Peanuts television specials | Followed by “Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown” |
