review: a charlie brown christmas: the making of a tradition by lee mendelson

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A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition is a splendid look at the holiday special that still airs nearly 50 years later. The book details how the special came to be when Lee Mendelson, who had a production company, called Charles Schulz to discuss making a documentary about the life of the Peanuts creator. That collaboration combined with some publicity about Peanuts led to the McCann Erickson Agency and Coca-Cola wanting to make a Christmas special; however, they wanted it in a matter of days. The speed at which they put together A Charlie Brown Christmas makes for an amazing story. In addition to that story, the book includes interviews with key people involved in the special and gives many behind the scenes details such as the difficulty in animating flat characters. The book concludes with a gorgeous illustrated script originally created after the initial airing of the special which was before the days of VCRs.
5/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, It Books.