The family had its first foray into holiday programming on television last night. ABC booked an hour of Peanuts specials at 8pm (ET). A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was the first to air in the one-hour block. Originally airing in 1969 this special is a classic that pretty much all Americans have watched and incorporated into their holiday agendas. It pretty much signals the beginning of the holiday season.
Round 2 of Peanuts was a new cartoon called He’s a Bully Charlie Brown. Even though Charles Schultz came up with the original concept, this one was hard to watch. The animation, the character styles, voices, pretty much everything was different. Even my kids voted to turn the channel five minutes into the program as Linus was discovering the marbles in the attic. Poor Linus, he looked more like a rug rat than anything else. There’s nothing like the classics.
This got me thinking of my top 5 holiday cartoons:
- A Charlie Brown Christmas. This has to be number one simply because of the music which I believe sets the tone for the entire season. When listening to Christmastime is Here I can’t help having visions of falling snow outside my window while sipping on hot chocolate as I enjoy the Christmas tree. Actually the whole soundtrack is great.
- The Year Without a Santa Clause comes in at number two for me. Santa catches a cold and almost cancels Christmas. God forbid! I like this one because of Heat Miser and Snow Miser, a classic duel that results in what every kid down south wants for Christmas – snow.
- Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer surely is a classic. We collect the ceramic ornaments every year. CVS sold them many years ago and we never got the whole collection. Each year I scan eBay to find the ones we don’t have. They normally are the first ones to hang from the tree.
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas. No holiday season is complete without watching the Seuss cartoon classic. We actually served a roast beast last year at our house that we feasted on for weeks – our first standing rib roast. I think each person has a little Grinch in them that flattens out during Christmas.
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town. This is a great story of how it all got started so it has to make the top 5. Thank God for the Kringle’s or we may have never had a Christmas!?
There’s my top 5 cartoons as I remember them this afternoon. I may have left a favorite or two out. If so, drop me a line or post your favorites in the comments below.
Gobble, Gobble!
