There's another "making of" book about A Charlie Brown Christmas, but this one has a novel tack: tracking the different personalities who combined to bring the unconventional special to the screen: of course the creator of "Peanuts," Charles Schulz, a quiet man with unresolved fears who didn't believe an animated version of his strip would work; Bill Melendez, the head of a small animation studio who had trained with Disney and worked at Warner Brothers; Lee Mendelson, the producer, fearful of the reception of a special presentation that was worked up in only six months; and more, including Neil Reagan, the older brother of Ronald Reagan, who worked for the advertising agency that envisioned a Christmas special for Coca-Cola, and Frank Stanton, the head of CBS, who, along with his other executives, didn't know what to make of this thirty minutes of odd animation, strange jazz music, and inexperienced children's voices.
Sometimes there's almost too much detail of all these people in the background, like Marion Harper at McCann-Erickson—I would have liked to have seen a lot more about the child actors—but there are some great details I didn't know, such as Vince Guaraldi's work with an Episcopal cathedral that helped him be chosen to do the music (along with a chance close encounter listening to music in the car). (I also didn't realize one of the nominees running against A Charlie Brown Christmas for an Emmy award for Children's Special in 1965 was my beloved Gallegher!)
Despite the almost minute details losing the thread of the narrative occasionally, this is a neat book for anyone who loves A Charlie Brown Christmas and doesn't realize how ground breaking it was for 1965.
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