A Charlie Brown Christmas (1 Viewer)

... will air tomorrow (Tuesday) at 8:00 PM EST. Last year ABC edited it down to fit into a modern 30 minute slot and paired it with the CG animated elf special "Prep & Landing". The network got so much heat that they aired it a second time in its entirety closer to Christmas.

This year they've addressed that issue by commissioning another "Prep & Landing", this one a 7-minute short designed to fill out the hour so that "A Charlie Brown Christmas" can air in its (post-Coca Cola sponsorship) entirety. Count me as very happy about this. While I enjoyed the "Prep & Landing" special, the Charlie Brown Christmas special is the king of holiday specials, and it presents a message that isn't presented anywhere else these days.

Thanks for the heads up. I watched the Thanksgiving special for the first time in years this year (Little Birdie!), and I'll do the same with this.

Schroeder's Jingle Bells "mashup" for Lucy MAKES the Holidays!

I havent seen it on network TV in years - do they still do that Bongo Drum opening?

(this openingL )

I'll put the DVD in soon - probably next Saturday or something.

Unfortunately not, because ABC inhereted the rights from CBS in 2000.

I missed it. Is that going to be the only airing?

Damn, that's a shame - the Bongo Drums opening was as much a part of the special as - oh, say the 20th Century Fox opening was a part of the Star Wars credits. The two were inseparable in my mind.

Very cool behind the scenes info:
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/12/18/A-Charlie-Brown-Christmas/

Neat.

They are all on Blu-Ray along with those behind the scenes about the show. The Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas ones are a MUST watch for me every year. Also, I would highly recommend the behind the scenes book for a Charlie Brown Christmas which has a great deal of history about Charles Schultz, his sketch work, etc. I just love all those shows as they simply don't make them like that any more.

Jeffery_H said:

They are all on Blu-Ray along with those behind the scenes about the show. The Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas ones are a MUST watch for me every year. Also, I would highly recommend the behind the scenes book for a Charlie Brown Christmas which has a great deal of history about Charles Schultz, his sketch work, etc. I just love all those shows as they simply don't make them like that any more.

Click to expand...

What I really miss about that is when I watched it with the Dolly Madison commercials.

JohnS said:

What I really miss about that is when I watched it with the Dolly Madison commercials.

Click to expand...

Using editing software, you can always rip the special from the DVD and then put in ads for current products (you'll have to dub in an announcer for that, and compiling all of the ads will take time.)

The "CBS Special Presentation" bongo drums leader was no more a part of the program than this was a part of the Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve.

I'm sure everyone has heard of Charlie Brown voice actor being arrested on stalking charges...

Tony J Case said:

Damn, that's a shame - the Bongo Drums opening was as much a part of the special as - oh, say the 20th Century Fox opening was a part of the Star Wars credits. The two were inseparable in my mind.

Click to expand...

For those that don't know, the bongo drum music was taken from a track on the original Hawaii Five-0 soundtrack from the late sixties. The complete track (titled "Call to Danger") runs 1:50. The very first time I heard it I thought of the CBS Special Presentation music. Since Hawaii Five-0 was (and is) a CBS production, the music becomes a part of the vast CBS music library and can be used for any purpose by CBS. And it was.