The events of the Peanuts TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas feel ingrained in the memories of everyone who’s even seen it a single time over the past 60 years, as the iconography of the special has permeated all corners of pop culture. Whether you’ve caught it on network broadcasts, PBS screenings, home video releases, or streamed on Apple TV, many of us can recite a number of scenes from memory, with most of us also not realizing that the version we’ve seen isn’t the original special in full.
The Peanuts special was developed in the early ’60s, and even though Charles Schulz’s comic strip was popular at the time, networks weren’t particularly interested in the 30-minute Christmas special. That’s when Coca-Cola stepped in to sponsor the production, and like many TV shows and specials of the era, there was direct mention of the sponsor.
In the 1965 broadcast, the scene that features the Peanuts gang ice skating included a scene where Snoopy twirls Linus and the boy ends up flying through the air, as Linus crashes into a sign that reads, “Brought to You by the People Who Bottle Coca-Cola in Your Town.” Additionally, during the special’s end credits, there’s the message, “Merry Christmas from the People Who Bottle Coca-Cola.”
Why Was ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Changed?
A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered on December 9, 1965, and only made the Peanuts gang all the more popular. In 1966, snack cake manufacturer Dolly Madison began using Peanuts characters on their packaging and partnered with Coca-Cola to sponsor the special Charlie Brown’s All-Stars!, with both Dolly Madison and Coca-Cola earning sponsorship spots in the special. Understandably, when CBS was preparing to air A Charlie Brown Christmas later that year, Dolly Madison wasn’t entirely thrilled that Coca-Cola appeared as the only sponsor, resulting in the opening message being edited and a voiceover about Dolly Madison being added to the end credits. These in-special advertisements were also changed due to FCC regulations that required commercial material and program material to be distinctly separated. Not only did subsequent TV broadcasts omit these original scenes, but so have home video releases.
In the 60 years since the special debuted, a variety of other edits have been made to the special. Currently, most sitcoms have a run time of 22 minutes, allowing for 8-9 minutes of advertising time to be sold to sponsors. The runtime of A Charlie Brown Christmas is 25 minutes, so in some cases, select scenes have been trimmed down or excised completely to meet the 30-minute time slot. A common edit is the removal of a scene in which Linus throws snowballs at an empty can, with some having speculated this was removed due to it being a Coca-Cola can, though this has since been disproven. Some broadcasts, however, instead added more animated content to the end of the special so that it could occupy an hour-long time slot as opposed to trimming the special for a 30-minute slot.
The advancements of animation in the years since the special’s debut also mean that select scenes have been revisited and upgraded over the years, not only to meet HD and then 4K expectations, but also to just improve some of the more rudimentary elements of the special. Sound effects were also cleaned up, and while Snoopy’s bowl was originally white in the special, it was repainted red.
Even though these original versions of the special have been virtually lost to time, archival versions of the special have been found and uploaded to various corners of the internet. Currently, A Charlie Brown Christmas and the rest of the Peanuts catalog are available on Apple TV.
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