I had been laboring under the working assumption that the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas was planned as a one-off, with people willing to do more specials if it was a success, but with that seeming unlikely to most involved. In his book A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition, producer Lee Mendelson notes that after viewing the special the week before it aired, network suits specifically told him that they wouldn’t be ordering any more. It creates the sense that Charlie Brown’s All-Stars was produced on only slightly less rushed a schedule than A Charlie Brown Christmas, being set in motion after that show’s huge and unexpected success.

Then I stumble across this UPI story which ran a few days before that fateful airing, in which Schulz was already saying “we’re doing a second show for June or July on baseball, and if the first two are a success we may have to come up with another for Halloween with Linus and the Great Pumpkin.”

(Got to love that headline:

‘Peanuts’ And His Pals In Christmas TV Special

That Peanuts; he’s my favorite character!)

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