A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) - Classic Christmas Archive

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Charlie Brown is really depressed and can not understand why. He's talked into directing a play by Lucy with his fellow neighborhood school friends which results in quite a difficult undertaking. With neither director or cast in sync with one another, Charlie decides to include a Christmas tree in the play while trying to keep things from being as "commercial" as possible. When Charlie chooses a puny tree with very little green, his cast angered at his inability to do anything right, laughing as they walk away, it seems that a decent play seems hopeless. But thumb-sucking, blanket-clutching Linus will inform Charlie of the real reason for the season and perhaps lighten that burden which ails him. While this cartoon does carry a Christian message that might turn off the non-believers, I think the humor that will appeal to the adults might draw an audience in. The commercialism points in the dialogue had me grinning quite a bit as does the scene where "Charlie visits his therapist"(Lucy who offers various phobias that Charlie might have). Of course Pigpin earns some giggles particularly when Charlie proclaims, "Pigpin, you are the only person I know who can raise a cloud of dust in a snow storm." As you'd expect Lucy is as authoritative as ever, certainly voicing her opinions as to how the play should be conducted(in actuality, she's as much the director as unfortunate Charlie, who seems to lose his actors almost immediately).

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December 12|2010