Trage plus time equals comedy. It’s an ironic and oft-repeated axiom, ironized by comic characters like Steve Allen, Lenny Bruce, and Alan Alda (in Woody Allen’s film). Crimes and misdemeanors).
The cynicism inherent in this remark is both shocking and comical. But in the art of Charles M. Schulz, the cartoonist and creator of the Peanuts comic, there is some truth in that. In part of his fascinating new book, Charlie Brown’s Christmas Miracle: The Inspiring, Untold Story of the Making of a Holiday Classicauthor Michael Keane tells the sad story of Schulz’s failed relationship with Donna Johnson Wold, a young woman with “violent red hair.”
Donna was Charles’ first love, but she was torn in her devotions between Schulz and another man. Ultimately, as Keane explains, Donna left Charles and chose the other man, adding to a long string of childhood humiliations that he collected “in the same way that other people would collect stamps or shells.”
But this rejection bred creativity. As Keane observes, “the day his affections were scorned by the woman he loved was the day that forged the character of Charlie Brown.” » The sad, endearing little boy would always suffer from unrequited love for a little red-haired girl, and that suffering fueled the kind of comedy that causes most viewers to endearingly laugh, maybe even share what Keane calls a “grimace of recognition.”
Humor in sadness
The most effective moments in Keane’s book come from the pervasive underdog stories of those closest to the filming of A Charlie Brown Christmasincluding producer Lee Mendelson, director Bill Melendez, musician Vince Guaraldi and Schulz himself, the heart and originator of all things. Peanuts.
Before the Christmas special premiered, Mendelson’s underdog status had already been solidified for Schulz based on a project they had teamed up on the previous year. Mendelson had contacted Schulz to make a documentary about his life and work. Schulz immediately refused, until he learned that Mendelson had produced a film about one of his longtime heroes, baseball star Willie Mays. Schulz finally agreed to the documentary titled A Boy Named Charlie Brown. But the project, by all accounts, was a major failure. It was never picked up by a network and never aired.
After introducing Mendelson, Keane spends a lot of time on the against-odds life of Melendez, a Mexican immigrant who found success as an animator, voice actor and director. Another chapter is devoted to the improbable collaboration of Schulz (classical music lover) with Guaraldi (jazz pianist). Most of the creative pairings involved in bringing Charlie Brown to the small screen were improbable, atypical and perhaps even miraculous.
A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired in December 1965, becoming the second animated Christmas special to air on American television. Its predecessor from 1964, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeerwas much brighter and more commercial, with well-known adult actors (including Burl Ives), brightly colored stop-motion animation, a laugh track, a comfortably secular story, and cheerful Christmas music.
In almost every respect, A Charlie Brown Christmas offered a stark contrast to the Rudolph special. He employed child actors (Schulz insisted on this for the sake of authenticity); contained flawed, minimalist animation (Keane provides a list of errors); featured no laugh tracks; included atypical Christmas music (jazz); and stopped in the middle of the story for a long reading from the Gospel of Luke. When the finished special was previewed to three CBS executives, one of them warned the producer, Mendelson, that “the Bible stuff scares us.”
Not only was the special seen as dangerously “religious,” but it also dealt with difficult adult topics like depression. In the first lines of A Charlie Brown Christmasa little round-headed boy resembling Eeyore, shares his complicated feelings about the “most wonderful time of the year”:
I just don’t understand Christmas, I guess. I love getting gifts, sending Christmas cards, decorating trees and all that, but I’m still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.
Charlie Brown’s feelings of alienation and sadness still affect many people. Although Schulz often treated mental health issues in a gently humorous way – as in Lucy’s Psychiatry Stand – he deserves credit for giving them real attention. As Keane notes, the children in the story, especially Linus, are both adult and childlike, innocent and intelligent. A bit like Mister Rogers’ NeighborhoodTHE Peanuts cartoons in general, and A Charlie Brown Christmas in particular, made visible and talked about the invisible and unspoken topics of isolation, loneliness and depression.
Schulz’s struggle with anxiety and depression throughout his life provided a cohesive backdrop to the story of Charlie Brown. Highlighting this, Keane begins his chapter on Schulz’s life with a poignant quote from a commemorative collection of his comics: You don’t look like you’re 35, Charlie Brown! “Happiness does not create humor,” writes the designer. “There’s nothing funny about being happy. Sadness creates humor. …It’s funny because that doesn’t happen to us. Yet in the case of the Charlie Brown story, Schulz illustrated what he had known and experienced.
This focus on the real, emotionally authentic world is what makes A Charlie Brown Christmas arguably the best Christmas special for children. Through his satirical cast of offbeat characters, Schulz highlighted the true need for Christmas. Rejecting the consumerist promises of manufactured, falsely heavenly Christmas cheer so prevalent in other Christmas specials and commercials, A Charlie Brown Christmas reminds us that our fallen lives are painful and that we need a savior. As Linus states after reciting Luke’s account of the birth of Christ: “That’s Christmas, Charlie Brown.” » Just as Charlie Brown and his little Christmas tree are misunderstood, mocked and rejected, so was the Savior of the world, a Savior who came to save the very people who had rejected him.
In Keane’s insightful discussion of these sacred, still moments when Linus quotes Scripture, he notes that Linus drops his much-loved “security blanket” (a term popularized by the character Linus) when he recites the words “N ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Words like these or “fear not,” Keane writes, “are rich in biblical meaning.” He cites a remark by Andrew Stanton, director of The world of Nemo And Finding Dory, which linked Linus’ new courage to Schulz’s own courage in daring to place the Word of God at the center of the story. As Stanton explained to animation historian Charles Solomon: “They stopped everything: just a single spotlight on a kid standing on stage, saying this long line. It was very moving because of the calm, because of everything stopping for simplicity.
Disjointed sincerity
These and other highlights of the book reflect Keane’s warm and engaging storytelling. Although each chapter focuses on a different “player” in the story—including the Coca-Cola Company, Marion Harper Jr. of the McCann Erickson advertising agency, and Neil Reagan of CBS (and brother of Ronald Reagan)—the non-linear narrative ends up tying it together in a very satisfying way.
In each chapter, Keane delves deep into the background of each “player”, and most of the information is not directly related to the Christmas special and its making. Nonetheless, Keane is a masterful storyteller and the details are often captivating. (For example, Neil and Ronald Reagan’s father, Jack, refused to allow his sons to attend the first screening of DW Griffith’s racist propaganda film, The birth of a nation– even though they were the only two boys in town who didn’t go.) As I read, I often found myself googling for images of (and additional information about) these fascinating individuals who lived for a equally fascinating period of history. On occasion, I was frustrated by the amount of extraneous detail, which can seem tedious. But the profoundly human character and against all expectations of the production of A Charlie Brown Christmas was enough to convince me, making me want to know more.
To his favorite , Charlie Brown’s Christmas Miracle reminds us that the birth of Jesus is a story that testifies to the sacred value of the oppressed. The disjointed sincerity of A Charlie Brown Christmas combines gentle reminders of childhood hurts with enough subversive sarcasm to remind us that Christmas is a time of both joy and lament. Keane’s work also shows how creating and engaging with art can be both therapeutic and spiritually formative. We could even talk about incarnation.
Mary McCampbell writes and teaches on contemporary fiction, film and popular culture. She is the author of Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy.
