Obama Bumps Charlie Brown
In the great 1947 Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street, Judge Harper (played by Gene Lockhart) is all set to rule that there is no Santa Claus, until his shrewd political adviser Charlie Halloran (played by William Frawley) convinces him that such a ruling would be political suicide. Obama could have used a Charlie Halloran before scheduling last night's speech on Afghanistan. I am referring not to the substance of Obama's speech, which I will leave to the analysis of keener minds than my own, but to its timing. Obama's speech completely preempted ABC's broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas, much to the dismay of the many families all set to watch this other Christmas classic.
Just as Miracle on 34th Street dates from the golden age of Hollywood Christmas movies, made within two years of John Ford's Three Godfathers, The Bishop's Wife, and It's A Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas dates from the heyday of network children's Christmas specials, premiering in 1965, one year after Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and one year before The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Significantly, all of these films and TV specials predate the full flowering of the War Against Christmas, which has made the very mention of Christmas controversial and harmed the creative impulse that used to try to add to the celebration of this matchless holiday.
It is impossible to imagine a television network today making a show like A Charlie Brown Christmas. Just think about it: The plot revolves around the production of a Nativity play in a public school, there is no mention of any holiday other than Christmas, it ends with all the Peanuts singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and its dramatic highpoint is Linus' recitation of Luke's account of the angels appearing to the shepherds on that first Christmas Eve.
Even in 1965, Charles Schulz had to battle network executives who wanted to delete the recitation of Luke's Gospel. A Charlie Brown Christmas is not the only children's television special of that era to focus on the religious core of Christmas—as a kid I remember watching both The Little Drummer Boy and The Night the Animals Talked—but it is the one that has remained a fixture on American television, with Linus' recitation of Luke airing every year without fail since 1965.
Despite a storyline that would horrify any ACLU lawyer or proponent of multiculturalism, A Charlie Brown Christmas was embraced by both the public and critics in 1965: half of American televisions were tuned in to watch the premier, and the show won an Emmy and a Peabody Award. The music has also become a classic, with any playing of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy," the jazz number the children dance to while ignoring Charlie Brown's attempts to direct their play, a certain gateway to warm nostalgia for anyone of my generation. Harriet Van Horne, one of the leading liberal columnists of the era, wrote that "Linus' reading of the story of the Nativity was, quite simply, the dramatic highlight of the season." That's probably not how a Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow would react to a student reading from the Bible in a public school today.
Of course, the reason A Charlie Brown Christmas endures is not because it is didactic, but because it tells its story in a wonderful and memorable way. It is a reflection of a culture that, by and large, saw nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas and everything right about trying to add to that celebration. And once the celebration of Christmas in America again becomes as natural and innocent as it was for the children of Charles Schulz' imagination, we will know the War Against Christmas is over and the good guys have won.
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An excellent piece and, if memory serves, a few years ago Dr. Fleming watched this special for the first time which prompted something of a conversation on the show's merits. Revisiting the topic is most welcome. When Linus comes out on stage and recites part of the Gospel as it was recorded by St. Luke, it is one of the few, perhaps the only, reminder on American television as to what Christmas is all about. Come to think of it, it may be the only time when our faith is shown in a positive light on one of the lead television specials through out the year.
From the 1st through the 12th grades, we celebrated Christmas in our little "public" school.
Each year, we had a Christmas pagent with the entire school involved. As a first-grader, I was a "Christmas card" with "Hark the Herald" printed on the poster board which made up my costume. As a senior, I was among the FFA boys who built a manger scene; the FFA girls painted it. It was placed on the lawn of our school for nearly two decades after our graducation until it became politically incorrect.
Our principal and teachers made up bags of candy and fruit for every student in the school. In the bag was always a Christmas card with a biblical message.
Our high school math teacher went from room to room and recited the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew. Each child heard it every year.
Such are my Christmas memories from "public" school.
Excellent article.
Broadcast television has become an open sewer. As far as I can tell, prime-time TV is mostly filled with obscene reality shows, disgusting and denigrating crime-shows, or sensationalistic "news" programs. Late-night talk show hosts with the apparent intelligence and wit of your typical high school class-clown seem to try to outdo themselves in "vulgarity-lite" using words like p*ss, cr*p, *ss, b*tch, etc. while snickering at every possible sexual contrivance.
Since TV producers have no intention of ever making another show like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" couldn’t they at least have arranged to preempt something else?
Over here in Finland, the children in our (public) school still set up the nativity play every year, here too reading from Luke. The school Christmas celebration also includes singing, the Star Boys singing procession, and a visit by Santa Claus, of course. This festivity goes back longer than anyone can remember and is heartwarming for the parents and grandparents who attend.
Other Christian holidays noted in school include Easter and St.Lucia (Dec.13). They also say grace before and after school lunch, every day. This is how it is done in most public schools here.
On a related topic, it seems many commenters in these pages (in other threads) have a rather gloomy view of life in Northern Europe. There are, however, many millions of us here living in a rural setting, living and working in ways our ancestors might still recognize. So the rumours of our demise are (somewhat) exaggerated.
This truly is a wonderful piece Mr. Piatak. I have always been quite fond of A Charlie Brown Christmas and make a point to watch it with the missus and family every Christmas season. The message that the birth of Christ and not secular consumerism is the true meaning of Christmas is more relevant today than ever. God bless Charles Schulz for reminding us of this important fact every year in this timeless classic.
The fact that the network executives wanted to remove Linus’ recitation of scripture because they found it to be "too religious" and was only kept because Schulz was unwilling to compromise the integrity of his vision illustrates that the war on Christmas has been going on for much longer than we have thought; it is just far more glaring in today’s post-Christian America.
Great points, Mr. Piatak. Charlie Brown Christmas is a multiple viewing event in our household every Christmas season (on DVD so the government cannot pre-empt its viewing).
It’s sad that Christ has become verboten and replaced with black friday and cyber monday. What more can we expect of a nation that invades the world to spread global democratic capitalism?
Sorry to inject this into an otherwise positive post at Chronicles. Thank you for reminding us of what a real nation is Mr. Piatak.
Mr. Piatak -- Excellent work, as always. What a breath of fresh air "Charlie Brown" truly is, especially at Christmas.
"Merry Christmas" everybody!...and God bless us everyone.
Trenchant symbolism in all this: a classic show celebrating the most sacred holiday in all Christendom is supplanted by a call to arms in the unending crusade to bring diversity and secular enlightenment to the world.
It almost brings a tear to my eye.
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" was good but my all-time favorite was, and will always be, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
A great post. I, too, remember the The Little Drummer Boy and The Night the Animals Talked. I think it was in that second one that the little donkey's mother died keeping her baby warm in the cold.
With kids of my own, I've found the current TV shows for kids are utterly void of any moral content. For example, on Dora and Little Einsteins, I've seen remakes of fairy tales in which Goldilocks is welcomed by the bears after her breaking and entering, the Big Bad Wolf is really a nice guy, the Boy Who Cried Wolf is ignored by indifferent adults when he was right a long. Sick stuff.
Just a few years prior to the first airing of Charlie Brown, as I was entering 1st grade in a city in southwestern Connecticut, the new public school in which I was to attend was under construction. So for the first part of the school year they had us attending school in a building on the property of and owned by a local Methodist Church. That same year, the newly established Catholic parish church in which my family belonged was under construction as well. So we had to attend Sunday Mass at a local public school auditorium.
Thus, I attended public school in a church building and Sunday Mass in a public school.
This was just prior to the Madeline Murray O'Hare decision. Linus doesn't have a chance today.
I suspect that, in this day and age, Linus would be charged with a hate crime, with the NEA raising the most stink.
@3 Paul F. "Broadcast television has become an open sewer." Yes, they seem to want to keep up with cable. When we're in waiting rooms, we have to shield the childrens' eyes and ears from the commericals for these crime shows. Utterly disgusting. We didn't get the new digital converter so we can't watch broadcast. We watch Charlie Brown on DVD. Still, my wife thought it was neat to watch it when it was broadcast because it felt like an experience you were sharing with millions of other people.
@4 Dan W. That's very good to hear Dan. I've always admired the Finns. God bless y'all.
The Rudolph cartoon is "sexist." Rudolph's father tells the female reindeer to stay home because going out in a dangerous blizzard is "men's work."
Wonderful piece, Tom. On the inversion of fairy tales, it is interesting to look at one of feminist Carol Gilligan's books. She and her students and colleagues interviewed girls and young women and one of their techniques was to tell the story of the sick hedgehog taken in by a family of bunnies who get tired of being pricked by quills and ask the hedgehog to leave. The girls were asked to interpret the story. If they gave the standard view--it's the bunny's home and charity has its limits--they were patiently and gently corrected to understand that the real solution was to share the burrow. Amnesty for hedgehogs, anyone?
Tom, it is indeed a fine essay, with a point that we must pass on this month and forever.
I must, however, remind us all that Charles Schulz had a dark side. As a college kicking coach I twist up inside and cry Arrrrrggggghhhhh! every time I think of Lucy pulling the ball away as Charlie tries to kick it. The cartoonist knew that we are fallen creatures.
This is the right place so, I'll say it early, Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Anyway, the true purpose of television is not entertainment, but amusement designed to keep us fearful, shocked and docile, all the while expecting us to buy the drugs they're pushing. Ask your doctor. But for those in search of Christianity on TV there are Christian channels. EWTN, the Roman Catholic one is the best - where I live it's channel 68. The others (segregated at the top of the 900 channel dial) are mostly tepid fundraisers, buy they occasionally have their moments.
He was born in the Spring, Etienne.