A Charlie Brown Recap

 

 

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" will not be shown on broadcast television, this year. However, you can stream it on Apple +.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" starts out like most Christmas specials-young children skating on a pond with no adults in sight. I grew up in the sixties and seventies and I can assure you that adults were somewhere, probably smoking a cigarette.

Charlie Brown who is a blockhead, confides to his six year old friend, Linus, that he has clinical depression despite it being Christmas. Charlie Brown blames it on Christmas being "too commercialized." A good child psychiatrist would blame Charlie Brown's condition on a chemical imbalance and prescribe some drugs to him pronto.

Charlie Brown then seeks psychiatric help from Linus's bipolar sister, Lucy. I don't think Lucy is on Charlie's PPO plan, but she charges only five cents, so even back in 1965, a kid could scrounge up a nickel if he had to

 

Lucy suggests Charlie Brown direct the Annual Children's Christmas Pageant, like she owned the thing.  Of course, get a kid to direct the other kids direct a Christmas pageant.  

Again, I was living back in the sixties and seventies  and I can assure you adults directed Christmas pageants.  I was in several and even wore a white beard in one because I was a shepherd.  My mom and the director had it out because the director didn't want me to wear my glasses.  They didn't have glasses back in First Century Israel. You can look it up.

My point: it wasn't the helicopter parent life that we are living now, but it wasn't the Wild West either where children could just come in and announce they are the director because they are clinically depressed.  

As they head to the rehearsal hall, Lucy tells Charlie Brown that she wants real estate for Christmas.  She may be bipolar but she is a good investor.

They walk past Snoopy's house. Snoopy is Charlie Brown's dog who lives somewhere near his house, I think. Anyway, there is a Christmas Decoration Contest and Snoopy has entered it.  Snoopy does a really good job considering he is color-blind and has mental issues himself, like his delusion of being a World War I fighter pilot.

At the rehearsal hall, it is chaos. The kids are dancing the latest dance craze including one that looks like it is called "Stick Out Your Arms And Walk Like Frankenstein".

(Incidentally, my wife says I dance like Linus.)

This freaks out Charlie Brown because he has this artistic vision of a Christmas  Pageant that doesn't include a dog playing the guitar.  To make the Christmas Pageant something that sort of looks like a Christmas Pageant, Charlie Brown announces he is going to a Christmas Tree lot to find a Christmas Tree.  Lucy says this is a great idea because: a) It gets Charlie Brown out of the building and b) she can sexually harass Schroeder.

 

At the Christmas Tree lot, they have only one real Christmas Tree left.  Actually, it is more like a twig, but Charlie Brown believes that if you decorate it just right, it will look like a Christmas tree.  

I don't know how much Charlie Brown paid for the tree, but it was a rip-off.

At the rehearsal hall, everybody laughs at Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree, because, to be honest, it did suck.  Charlie Brown then asks if anyone knows "what Christmas is all about".

 

 

Linus steps forward and tells the ACTUAL CHRISTMAS STORY FROM THE BIBLE. Yes, that BIBLE. Even in 1965, shows were not quoting The Bible. "Jeb, I want you to read from the Good Book, the KING JAMES VERSION, not one of these hippie versions"

It is a moving scene and probably one of the few times in a year the Bible shows up on TV. 

Charlie Brown takes the Christmas Tree home to decorate it because, you know, the pageant can take care of itself. He walks by Snoopy's dog house and Snoopy has won FIRST PLACE, which shows you the creative skills of the humans in Charlie Brown's town. They lose to a color-blind dog.

 

Of course he is not happy about this, but he takes an ornament from the dog house and puts it on the tree.  Of course, this kills the tree.

This puts Charlie Brown into a deeper depression that can only be solved by alcohol which they would probably sell to a minor in that town.

Meanwhile, the other kids follow Charlie Brown because they realize they were mean to Charlie Brown. Plus, Pigpen really needed to take a bath, you know

Linus uses his blanket to give the tree some support and they take the rest of the decorations off of Snoopy's doghouse and make the crummy little tree beautiful.

The kids then began to sing one of the classic Christmas Carols: "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer".  Check that, it was "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing".  Charlie Brown hears it and walks back and sees the now beautiful Christmas Tree.   

"Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!" they exclaim and they all continue singing the hymn, which included the singing technique of holding your head back and sticking your nose in the air.