I’ll be honest and tell you that I am in the minority who felt that [[[Peanuts]]] stopped being funny after 1972 and should have been retired long before Charles M. Schulz’s death. All its charm and whimsy had been drained out of it as witnessed by the 1970s material that has been reprinted since his passing. The world had changed and their innocent worldview ceased to feel at all relevant. But once Schulz found his characters and voice, the strip was brilliant for quite some time.
By 1965, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts had grown to become one of the most popular comic strips launched since the end of World War II if not the 20th Century. It made perfect sense that the characters would eventually find their way onto television. They were first licensed for use as pitchmen for Ford in 1961 and appeared in black and white commercials animated by Bill Meléndez. When Lee Mendelson tried to make a documentary on Schulz in 1963, he hired Meléndez to create a short segment while hiring Vince Guaraldi for the score. The proposed show never sold but sowed the seeds for what came soon after.
As we know today, that first holiday special, was something unique and heartwarming from Guaraldi’s amazing score to the characters being funny and poignant. While the holiday-themed specials have become television perennials, several of the others have not achieved the same attention.
That oversight is rectified in the Peanuts 1960’s Collection
, coming Tuesday from Warner Home Video. Those first six half-hour cartoons which set the standard for animated specials thereafter, are collected on two discs. In addition to [[[A Charlie Brown Christmas]]], there’s also [[[Charlie Brown’s All-Stars]]], [[[It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown]]], [[[You’re in Love, Charlie Brown]]], [[[He’s your Dog Charlie Brown]]], and [[[It was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown]]].
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