Producer of A Charlie Brown Christmas
LEE MENDELSON 1933-2019
Wrote lyrics for iconic holiday television special
Lee Mendelson, a television producer who persuaded Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz to do A Charlie Brown Christmas, and wrote the lyrics of its plaintive theme song, died Dec. 25 at home in California. He was 86.
He had lung cancer and congestive heart failure, a son said.
Along with Schulz, animator Bill Melendez and composer Vince Guaraldi, Mendelson was part of a team that produced dozens of animated specials.
Charlie Brown was the beleaguered Everyman who failed at everything but never gave up. He was particularly hapless at baseball.
It was baseball that brought Schulz and Mendelson together. In 1963, Mendelson produced a documentary about Willie Mays.
Mendelson told Animation magazine in 2006 that “it popped into my mind that we had done the world’s greatest baseball player, and we should now do a documentary on the world’s worst player, Charlie Brown.”
The program, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, was never aired, but Mendelson showed it to studio executives and ad agencies. In 1965, he received word that Coca-cola wanted to sponsor a Christmas special.
According to the Animation article, Mendelson said, “I called Mr. Schulz and I said ‘I think I just sold A Charlie Brown Christmas, and he said ‘What’s that?’ And I said, ‘Something you’re gonna write tomorrow.’”
In two days, Schulz came up with the storyline, Melendez animated the stumpy-legged characters, and Mendelson asked Guaraldi to write the music.
One of their major innovations was to have all the characters voiced by children. And Schulz was adamant there be no laugh track.
Mendelson jotted down the words for Christmas Time Is Here on an envelope in 15 minutes. The song has become a holiday classic.
The show aired Dec. 9, 1965, and almost half the U.S. households watched. It has appeared every year since, as have his other Peanuts seasonal specials.
Mendelson was the last living member of the Peanuts team.
Survivors include his wife, Ploenta Inthapruksa; four children; a stepson; and eight grandchildren.
All of Mendelson’s children voiced Peanuts characters when they were young.