Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales
 |
| Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animated TV special |
| Created by | Charles M. Schulz |
| Written by | Charles M. Schulz |
| Voices of | Wesley Singerman (Charlie Brown, Ugly Kid) Megan Taylor Harvey (Sally Brown) Serena Berman (Lucy van Pelt) Tim Deters (Rerun van Pelt) Lauren Schaffel (Lydia) Christopher Ryan Johnson (Schroeder) Bill Melendez (Snoopy and Woodstock) |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 18 mins |
| Production company | United Feature Syndicate |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | December 8, 2002 |
Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales is one of many prime-time animated TV specials based on characters from the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts. It originally aired on ABC December 8, 2002. It has since been broadcast each Christmas season after that as a companion segment in an hour-long slot featuring an unedited version of A Charlie Brown Christmas. It is the only TV special to credit Charles M. Schulz posthumously for writing. Other TV credits do not credit Schulz writing it.
Synopsis
The special consists of a series of vignettes, each one starring a different member of the Peanuts gang in various Christmastime situations. The installments are as follows:
Happy Holidays from Snoopy
Snoopy tries to get Lucy to ask him to join her in the skating show, but she's only interested in Schroeder. Later, he dresses up like Santa Claus to work as a bell-ringer to raise money. He is briefly confronted by an angry Rerun, who chastises him for failing to deliver the toys promised to him the previous Christmas. At one point, while dressed as Santa, he plays "Oh! Susanna" on the accordion, which Lucy comments "isn't very Christmasy" as she and Linus walk by. Upon hearing that, he quickly switches to "Christmas Time is Here" (with Woodstock whistling along). He also attempts to make peace with the ferocious cat who lives next door but it takes a ferocious swipe again.
Yuletide Greetings from Linus
Linus tries to decide what kind of letter he should write to Santa and toys with the affections of the strange girl at school who keeps changing her name, like "Jezebel", "Susan", "Rebecca", "Lydia", and "Rachel".
Season's Greetings from Sally
Sally decides to give everyone paper airplanes for Christmas and she discovers that "Samantha Claus" is actually "Santa Claus", embarrassing herself at school. Later, she decides to "fall down" a tree for Christmas. When Charlie questions her about her plan, she says "I don't know how to cut down a Christmas tree. When I look at, I hope it'll just fall down." Later, just such an occurrence happens. She is bullied by the kid living in the house whose yard the tree was standing in and enters a bet with Sally for who will keep the fallen tree.
Peace on Earth from Lucy
Lucy struggles with being nice and tries to get Schroeder and Linus to buy her presents.
Merry Christmas from Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown and Sally prepare for Christmas together.
Voice cast
- Wesley Singerman: Charlie Brown/Ugly Kid
- Serena Berman: Lucy van Pelt
- Megan Taylor Harvey: Sally Brown
- Corey Padnos: Linus van Pelt
- Bill Melendez: Snoopy and Woodstock
- Lauren Schaffel: Lydia
- Christopher Ryan Johnson: Schroeder
- Tim Deters: Rerun van Pelt
Origin
When A Charlie Brown Christmas was created in 1965, the program was designed as a 30-minute time program. By the 1990s, changes in the delivery of closing credits and increases in advertising minutes on the networks made it impossible for all of A Charlie Brown Christmas to be aired in a half-hour time slot. In 2010, the special ran, with commercials, for 35 minutes.
CBS made several cuts to the program to keep it in the half-hour time slot, including standardizing the closing credits and cutting out the closing song of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Fans of the special were angered by the cuts. In response, ABC increased the special to a one-hour block when it acquired the rights to the special shortly before creator Charles Schulz's death. However, this left about eighteen extra minutes to be filled. During 2001, the first year ABC aired A Charlie Brown Christmas, the show was followed by a retrospective (hosted by Whoopi Goldberg) featuring the voice cast and producers of the special. Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales was created to replace that retrospective in rounding out the hour for subsequent airings. It first aired December 8, 2002 and has aired annually on ABC each year since.
From 2010-2012, a portion of the special was cut to clear a spot for Prep & Landing: Operation: Secret Santa, a seven-minute short produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Only "Happy Holidays from Snoopy," "Yuletide Greetings from Linus," and "Merry Christmas from Charlie Brown" aired in these years, though the special has again been shown in its entirety since 2013.
Home video releases
This special was also included as a bonus feature on the original Paramount Home Entertainment US DVD for I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown, although not on the UK release or the later Warner Home Video US re-release. Warner Home Video released it on its own DVD, with Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? as a bonus feature, released on November 3, 2009 as a CVS Pharmacy exclusive and then expanded to the wider market in 2010. It was re-released as part of the box set Snoopy's Holiday Collection on October 1, 2013.