Overview
- Debuting on CBS on December 9, 1965, the special drew roughly 45% of the national TV audience and finished as the week’s No. 2 program.
- Network executives had expected a flop after a disappointing test screening that faulted the jazz score, child voices and pacing.
- The production broke TV norms by casting real children, using minimalist animation, dropping a laugh track and leaning on Vince Guaraldi’s jazz.
- Creator Charles M. Schulz insisted on a New Testament passage despite executive concerns about including explicit religious content.
- The success yielded an Emmy and a Peabody in 1966, a multi‑platinum Guaraldi soundtrack later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and decades of Peanuts programming and licensing.