"I don't know what possessed me. I didn't ask the animator. I didn't ask Schulz," says Mendelson.

He immediately called Schulz and told him: "I just sold 'A Charlie Brown Christmas,' and we're going to have to write it tomorrow."

"All the thoughts we had, it never changed. That outline became our show," he says.

Quoting scripture in a cartoon was revolutionary. Mendelson recalls: "I had two or three seconds of `Wait a minute!' And then I said, `Why not?'

"The first thing Schulz had said was, 'If we can talk about what I feel is the true meaning of Christmas, based on my Midwest background'--he was a real student of the Bible-- 'it would really be worth doing.' If we hadn't had gone that way, we wouldn't have done the show."

the CBS executives hated the cartoon. If it hadn't been for a favorable review from Time Magazine's TV critic, the show would have never aired. This year will mark the 37th consecutive showing of what has become for many a Christmas tradition. And why did this Christmas Cartoon become a tradition when so many other came and went ? It can best be summed up by the words of Linus Van Pelt when Charlie Brown asked "Doesn't anyone know what Christmas is all about?" Linus said:

"And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid ... And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings o great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord."

"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men."

"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

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