CBS Originally Hated 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' Because Of Its 'Anti-Consumerism'

By | December 19, 2019

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The show was hardly an endorsement of the Christmas-tree market. Source: IMDB

Though beloved today, the TV holiday classic A Charlie Brown Christmas was disliked by CBS and might not have seen the light of day. With a meandering story, a strange jazz soundtrack, and a message deemed anti-consumerist, the program seemed unlikely to succeed -- yet it has been airing annually for over 50 years.

Thankfully, no one listened to the know-it-all executives who conspired to sink A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Tough Crowd

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CBS executives may have hated 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' but whoever said TV executives know anything? (sinclairclarion)

When the show’s producers, Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, first showed A Charlie Brown Christmas to CBS executives, the network suits were disgusted. “They just didn’t like the show when I brought it to them,” said Mendelson. To be fair, executives actually hated the show and just about everything in it.

Mendelson went on to say, “I remember them saying it will probably be the first and last Charlie Brown show. ... They thought it was too slow, they didn’t like the jazz music so much on a Christmas show -- in other words, these were all creative things that they didn’t like.”