A Christmas gem returns … but only for two days

One of TV’s great half-hours will be available to the masses – but only for two days.
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” (shown here) has been tucked away in the streaming world, available only to subscribers of Apple TV+. Now it will be available to non-subscribers on Saturday and Sunday (Dec. 14-15).
The late Charles Schulz – creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip and cartoons – has described a sort of benign neglect: The show was ordered on a tight deadline, to be ready for Christmas; There was no time for the network or the sponsor (Coca-Cola) to second-guess.
So Schulz deviated from all the TV norms. He had children do the voices and a jazz man create the music theme. He used a simple art style. He quoted from Scripture and had a sort of anti-merchandising theme.
The result was an instant hit in 1965. It reran once or twice each December; then Apple bought all the Peanuts shows, even making some new ones.
After this weekend, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” will retreat to subscriber-only status. There, it will be joined by other Peanuts movies or TV shows.
That includes some with Christmas themes: “I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown”; “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tales”; “It’s Christmastime, Charlie Brown”; a “Snoopy Show” episode (“Happiness is the Gift of Giving”) and “Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne.”