Was "A Charlie Brown Christmas" cut for TV broadcast?
A friend just sent me a post from dorktower.com entitled "An Open Letter to ABC from my friend, Leon." According to Leon, ABC's Tuesday broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas cut a number of classic moments (I'm quoting him here):
- Gone was Sally's materialistic letter to Santa, which finally sends Charlie screaming from the room when she says she will settle for 10s and 20s.
- Gone was Schroeder’s miraculous multiple renditions of "Jingle Bells" from a toy piano, including the one that sounds distinctly like a church organ.
- Gone was Linus using his blanket as an improvised slingshot to knock a can off the fence no one else can hit, complete with ricochet sound effect.
- Gone were the kids catching snowflakes on their tongues and commenting on their flavor.
- Gone even was poor Shermy's only line. He thought he had it bad because he was always tasked to play a shepherd. He had no idea.
Is this true? I didn't watch the broadcast myself, but if I look at the DVD and Blu-ray details, both list the special as having a run time of 25 minutes. Then I watched the Hulu stream below, which lists a run time of only 21:45. And sure enough, all those moments are missing. I guess I shouldn't complain about a free broadcast and a free stream, but what about people who don't have this classic on home video? Will those kids grow up thinking this is the real version? Leon goes on to say:
And why were all these classic scenes cut? To plug more ads into the show, of course. To sell burgers and greeting cards — and to relentlessly plug the insipid-looking new Disney "soon to be a classic" show immediately following. (I didn’t watch the new show, by the way. I was laid far too low by what had just happened.)
Cramming all of these ads into the 30-minute broadcast of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" required major edits to a cartoon that has spent 44 years now trying to remind us that Christmas is supposed to transcend crass commercialism.
Do you have no sense of irony?
Did you see the broadcast? What do you think? --David
Brent on December 11, 2009 at 06:35 AM
I don't know where Leon has been for the last twenty years. Every year the Charlie Brown Christmas program gets shorter and shorter to make more room for commercials. This is also the case with a lot of the other classic Christmas cartoons, including the Grinch and Rudolph. The only way to go is to buy the DVDs.
Mythilt on December 11, 2009 at 06:39 AM
Wasn't the can that Linus knocked off a Coke can? I don't know about the other parts, (And agree that if they cut them its a travesty.) However I seem to recall reading that the can on the fence was cut a long time ago when Coca-Cola stopped sponsoring the special, along with a number of other similar in scene parts.
Douglas2 on December 11, 2009 at 06:44 AM
And the sad thing is that cutting scenes is so 20-th century. They could be using "time compression" instead.
http://everything2.com/title/time+compression
Amelia on December 11, 2009 at 07:17 AM
We didn't even get to see it on TV at all. Our local station (Dallas) decided they'd rather air something else. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" will instead be aired around 3 Saturday morning.
David Pinto on December 11, 2009 at 07:17 AM
I almost know the show by heart, and it was jarring not to hear those lines. I first noticed it on Hermie's line, but the whole "Jingle Bells" on the piano is by far the funniest bit in the show. ABC should be ashamed. I don't ever remember it being cut like this before.
memomachine on December 11, 2009 at 07:24 AM
Hmmmm.
Why did they cut the show on Hulu? Frankly that doesn't make any sense.
Dale on December 11, 2009 at 07:28 AM
Yes, it is true. They also cut Schroder playing Fur Elise which is my favorite song from the Vince Gualardi soundtrack.
I won't watch it next year on ABC and when I have kids the annual CB X-Mas watching party will be from DVD.
Amused in SC on December 11, 2009 at 07:37 AM
I'm Jewish, I haven't glanced at "Charlie Brown" in over 20 years, and I STILL think this sucks.
Then again, I remember seeing the "racist" Bugs Bunny and other non-PC cartoons on children's TV when I was a kid, and those have apparently been disappeared too.
Shawn on December 11, 2009 at 07:43 AM
It's a tomato can, not a Coke can.
Beemer on December 11, 2009 at 08:01 AM
I have never missed "A Charlie Brown Christmas" since its first airing as it is by far my favorite Christmas special. This editing was an absolute disgrace.
And the truly sad thing is you could not get "A Charlie Brown Christmas" made today without deleting the scene where Linus explains what Christmas is truly about.
tim maguire on December 11, 2009 at 08:12 AM
Amazing, now kids won't get the Charlie Brown homage in the South Park Christmas. We're used to scenes getting cut to fit in more commercials, but I can't believe they showed such total disrespect to these classic scenes. They couldn't have done better? Is Ted Turner working for ABC now?
Bob on December 11, 2009 at 08:14 AM
Obviously, it was to reduce the show's carbon footprint.
rbj on December 11, 2009 at 08:18 AM
Wow.
I do remember when the Linus sling shot scene was cut a long time ago, then "restored" a number of years back.
But cutting all those other scenes is malicious. Glad I have the DVD now. I won't be watching it on the networks.
As well, I have an analog tv and where I am (Toledo OH) Directv seems to not provide the local network stations anymore. So I had to go out and buy an HD antenna. This makes more work to watch the networks, leading me to not watch them at all outside of the World Series, football (if a good game) the Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. It appears that the networks need to be on suicide watch because they are doing everything possible to get people to not watch them.
superduck on December 11, 2009 at 08:21 AM
To Amused: Phew.. thanks for your comment. For a minute there I was afraid that none of the comments to this post would include any unnecessary and smarmy points of view with a class envy and racial overtones. Man that was SO relavent to the conversation. Thank God! You came along just in time.
GSW on December 11, 2009 at 08:41 AM
Errr...superduck I didn't read ANY class envy or racial overtones with his remark. Sounds like you're the one with a smarmy, unnecessary POV.
drjohn on December 11, 2009 at 08:41 AM
Maybe next year they'll call it
"A Charlie Brown"
and fit even more junk in between.
Jeff Grimshaw, The TV News on December 11, 2009 at 08:44 AM
We at "The TV News", the only daily video newscast about the TV industry, for the TV industry - have been following ABC's "A Charlie Brown Christmas-Gate" for the last couple of days. We have broadband-cast a couple of editorials ABC's way regarding their butchering of "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Our responses have been running 100% anti-ABC in this matter. http://thetvnews.tv
Brookdalepark on December 11, 2009 at 09:10 AM
It's a Travesty, Charlie Brown!
JD on December 11, 2009 at 09:36 AM
Yes, someone else noticed!! I first caught it when I didn't see Sally's letter to Santa. Then Schroeder/Lucy was missing.
Previously, ABC was running the original CBC for about 40 minutes, then used the filler material. This time, it was edited to fit in a half-hour hole. That's got to be the explanation - 40 years ago, there weren't nearly as many commercials, so first the show was lengthened and now cut.
I guess nothing is sacred. We should thank God (can we?) that the ACLU hasn't shut down the broadcast entirely.
MiHi on December 11, 2009 at 09:42 AM
Obama TRIED so hard to spare you all of witnessing this hacked-up tragedy. He tried to leave you with just one more precious week with your sweet memories of an intact holiday special, but NOOOOOOOO!
MiHi on December 11, 2009 at 09:44 AM
Oh, and PS:
Isn't there some epic hypocrisy about a guy like Charles Schulz, who is best known for a holiday TV special condemning the commercialization of Christmas, yet he himself was one of the biggest hucksters and exploiters of Christmas since 1965?
Think about that for a moment, would you please?
Texas Pete on December 11, 2009 at 09:46 AM
Uh, remind me again: what is "ABC"?
Matt on December 11, 2009 at 09:58 AM
The original was made to fit what was then the amount of commercials aired on a half-hour show. It's really sad that we now have to sit through 8:15 of commercials for a half-hour of TV watching instead of 5:00. That is, we used to spend about 16% of the time watching ads on TV, and now it's about 28%. And back then TV was free but now you have to pay a monthly cable bill for the privilege of watching those extra ads. But if this gets more people to stop watching TV, that will be a plus.
Lummox JR on December 11, 2009 at 10:29 AM
When I was a kid most of the above scenes were intact on TV, except the bit with Linus hitting the tin can and responding to Lucy that he would probably make his blanket into a blazer someday. I never realized those existed until I saw the special on video for the first time. I suppose of all the scenes in that special, that's the best one to cut, but the others are so classic it's downright criminal to remove them. Of course, networks traditionally did the same thing with other specials. I never heard the full Grinch song until I was an adult. Rudolph was missing several scenes including the elf song (first performance).
The dumbest thing about this is that because these are special once-a-year shows, it only makes sense for the network to line up higher-quality advertisers and stick with the more limited commercial window originally planned for those shows. Either that, or they could line up a 2-hour window of classic Christmas specials and pad a little with some shorts (maybe classic cartoons--surely ABC has access to the Disney vault), and show their normal ratio of commercials without having to cut anything from the programs.
This savage pruning was only done because some network goon didn't have the brains to think of any other option, out of dozens of better choices. Whatever idiot was responsible should get out of the TV business forever and go into politics where he belongs.
Gullyborg on December 11, 2009 at 01:49 PM
The sad irony is that the central theme of the show is that we should reject crass commercialism and remember the true meaning of Christmas - and 3 minutes were cut out for more commercials.