50 years in, 'Charlie Brown Christmas' remains timeless

For many of us, A Charlie Brown Christmas is as synonymous with the holidays as ice skating, school pageants and finding the perfect tree.

It's a gift that TV viewers have been unwrapping since Dec. 9, 1965, when the animated special premiered to boffo ratings on CBS, its perennial home until 2000, when ABC acquired the Peanuts classic (along with other long-running specials: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving). That the special has endured for half a century is unsurprising, given Charles Schulz's comic-strip creations' stature in popular culture (revived on the big screen last month in The Peanuts Movie, which has earned $116.8 million).

"Charlie Brown has always been part of the fabric. It doesn't seem dated. You wouldn't know when it was made, really," says TV historian Tim Brooks. Like other holiday movies made between the 1940s and 1960s — including Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer — "it's a reminder of constancy and tradition. If you think about it, we don't change the ornaments on the Christmas tree every year, and these are the ornaments on America's Christmas tree. These things are comforting around this time of year and it's hard to make new ones."

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Created 15 years after the first Peanuts comic strips were published in 1950, Christmas picks up as Charlie Brown bemoans the holiday's over-commercialization and questions its true meaning. After a visit to Lucy's psychiatry booth, he decides to direct the school play and goes in search of the "biggest aluminum tree" he can find — only to be jeered by the other kids when he returns with a much smaller, sparser sapling.

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Featuring Vince Guaraldi's now-iconic jazz score and an overt religious message from the blanket-carrying Linus, who quotes the Bible, Christmas continues to resonate because of its cross-generational appeal, says executive producer Lee Mendelson, who created it with Schulz and director Bill Melendez. (Schulz died in 2000, and Melendez in 2008.)

"Schulz said there's always a market for innocence in this country," Mendelson says. Viewers' "love for the show (is) passed down to their children and grandchildren. We still get letters where people say it's the one time a year when the whole family can get together and watch."

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Fans also can relate to the glass-half-empty leader of the Peanuts gang. "Schulz always said he felt like Charlie Brown was a kid you'd like to have as a next-door neighbor," Mendelson adds. "Everybody identifies with him. He has struggles and problems, and we all have struggles and problems. But you get up the next day and you keep moving on."

When Christmas returns on Monday (9 p.m. ET/PT), its milestone year will be commemorated with an anniversary show, It's Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown! (8 p.m. ET/PT). Hosted by Kristen Bell, the retrospective features Guaraldi's classic tunes as well as performances by Sarah McLachlan, Boyz II Men, Pentatonix, and Kristin Chenoweth, who won a Tony Award in 1999 playing Charlie's little sister, Sally, in the Broadway revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Performing the song Happiness from the musical, Chenoweth wanted to be a part of the celebration because of her history with the Peanuts characters on stage and at home, watching Christmas every year with her family.

"It's part of tradition — not just for my family but for so many," Chenoweth says. "In fact, I'm pretty sure that is why my dad called me Peanut my whole life, even to this day. Maybe he saw the future!"