USA Today had a good article for the 40th anniversary of "A Charlie Brown Christmas". I had not realized that, at its 1965 debut, the show was considered risky and even flawed for many of the reasons that it was and remains exceptional. The jazz soundtrack, the extended reading from the Bible, the absence of a laugh track - it's easy to point to these kinds of differences today and say, "Boy, things were different back then." Well yes, they were different, but not on those counts. Perhaps anything truly excellent will always seem anachronistic.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
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Here's a link from a blog post that I did a while back about that:
http://www.factmonster.com/spot/cbrown1.html
I mostly agree with your take, except on the laugh track. I know its in some shows, but those shows are almost universally reviled by critics (the same group that would have been critical of their absence in the past)
I would also venture to say that you are downplaying Schultz's penetrating insight into nature of the problem with "civilized" man (we are considered a success when we are phony on the outside and mean on the inside) that in the last 40 years, seems to have gotten worse in absurb proportion (especially on the phony part) this "there are a lot of mean phonies out there rant" is a bit worn out, but you normally don't see animation where children are as brutal as those girls are to Charlie Brown. For a varition on this theme, also look at how Linus is persecuted for his beliefs in "Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown"
I guess what I am saying is that Charles Schultz, at his best, was not anachronistic, so much as he was timeless
All it takes is a little Charlie Brown. My feelings towards Chirstmas had been quite null and void until I watched CBC the other night. If you don't get a lump in your throat during Linus's bit, you're just plain cold!
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