Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3295 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-09-12
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 25 minutes

Amazon.com
This half-hour Christmas show is one of the truly lovable animated specials in TV history, a status proved by its annual network telecast since 1965. A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first, and best, of a series of programs based on the Charles M. Schulz cartoon strip "Peanuts." Hapless hero Charlie Brown finds himself depressed at Christmastime, searching for the true meaning of the holiday amidst the glitz and commercialism of the modern age. Appointed director of the school holiday pageant, Charlie Brown ventures out with Linus to buy "a great, big, shiny aluminum Christmas tree." Instead they bring back a miserable tree--a real one. A Charlie Brown Christmas shows off the "Peanuts" gang doing what they do best: Lucy is bossy, Snoopy is crazy, Linus is sweet, and Pig Pen is, well, filthy. Instead of using adult actors trying to sound like kids, the production features real children providing the voices, an endearing effect. The jazz music score, composed by Vince Guaraldi, has become a classic in its own right; like so much about this program, it's an unexpected but perfectly right choice. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Christmas Cheer
A classic Charlie Brown story you need to add to your collection. Nothing else like it out there. Happy viewing!

Good Grief! This Beloved Classic Needs Some TLC!
Maybe the reason Charlie Brown was feeling depressed around Christmas was because he saw this DVD. While I'd give "A Charlie Brown Christmas" 6 stars if I could for the show itself, the poor quality DVD that's on the market is another story: it rates 2 stars at best. Surely a program that's so loved by so many deserves the TLC of a proper remastering, and it's hard to understand why it hasn't happened.

This year I bought my three favorite Christmas classics on DVD: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Charlie Brown. The first two were recently remastered and the results were stunning--better in every way than I've ever seen them look and sound on television. And I'm not talking about a "modernizing" of these shows that turned them into something different in character than they were--no, these remasters are loving and faithful restorations of these classics to their original glory. By comparison, A Charlie Brown Christmas was a huge disappointment. The video is passable, but having seen what restoration did for the Grinch animation, I'm also aware of how much better the Charlie Brown video could be. The audio, however, is atrocious--an embarrassment, really, especially considering all the great Charles Schulz dialogue and the incomparable Vince Guaraldi score. It's hissy, it's muddy, it's mixed poorly and sound levels can vary widely.

The size of the fan base for this show would virtually guarantee financial success for a remastered DVD-I'm not sure who owns the rights to do something like that, but I hope they're reading this review!

22 minutes of Christmas joy!
Hard to believe this special has stood the test of time and it will for many more Christmases to come! "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is a classic for families that share the real meaning of Christmas for which I can agree with! If you have never seen it,maybe you will get something out of it! I enjoyed this!!