A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired on television
On this day · 9 December 1965
Network executives braced for a flop; instead nearly half of America's TV sets tuned in to a jazz-scored cartoon.
On December 9, 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted on CBS, the first television special built around Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip. Produced by Lee Mendelson and directed by Bill Melendez, it nearly didn’t survive its own network.
CBS executives were unhappy with the finished cartoon and braced for a flop. They balked at the slow pacing, the absence of a laugh track, the choice of real children as voice actors, Vince Guaraldi’s melancholy jazz score, and a climactic reading from the Gospel of Luke. They expected it to air once and vanish.
Instead, roughly 15 million households, nearly half of all American TV sets in use, tuned in on premiere night, placing it second only to Bonanza.
The “flop” won an Emmy and a Peabody Award in 1966.
Six decades on, it still returns every December as a holiday fixture.
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