A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965 TV Movie)
9/10
A moment captured in time with a timeless message
4 October 2020
Peanuts will always exist in middle class mid-century America. It's exclusively a child's world that is presented, with all adult voices just coming across as a "mwah mwah mwah mwah" sounding drone, which is no doubt what you heard when adults spoke and you were a child and no doubt what your own children really hear when you speak.

Charlie Brown is a child everyman with dreams who exists in a world with a sometimes cruel pecking order. Lucy is always besting him, but Charlie Brown's own dog bests Lucy with nothing more than the threat of a slobbery kiss. The episodes teach lessons that in many cases, sadly, could not be taught today. For example, , A Charlie Brown Christmas has Charlie Brown wondering what Christmas is all about. In the end, as an answer, Linus presents the simple Biblical tale of Jesus' birth. The moral comes across as "Christmas is not about getting more stuff", and in the 60's did not ignite a firestorm - as it would today no doubt - of people claiming they were offended by the "exclusivity of the message" so that you had to water down the message to the point where there is no message at all.

I was a kid in the 60s, so it's about the nostalgia for me, but I think most people will find this simple tale of childhood charming.
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