A Charlie Brown Christmas A Charlie Brown Christmas A Charlie Brown Christmas is a 1965 animated television special based on the comic strip "Peanuts", by Charles M. Schulz. Produced by Lee Mendelson and directed by Bill Melendez, the program made its debut on CBS on December 9, 1965. In the special, lead character Charlie Brown finds himself depressed despite the onset of the cheerful holiday season. Lucy suggests he direct a neighborhood Christmas play, but his best efforts are ignored and mocked by his peers. After Linus tells Charlie Brown about the true meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown cheers up, and the Peanuts gang
What a Cartoon! Burbank, as the rightful Hanna-Barbera successor to produce original programming for the network and future projects. Two "What a Cartoon!" shorts, "Wind-Up Wolf" and "Hard Luck Duck", were the last cartoon shorts directed and produced by co-founder and co-chairman William Hanna. In addition, "What a Cartoon!" and spin-offs were the final original productions released by Hanna-Barbera. Creator of "The What a Cartoon! Show", Fred Seibert, left Hanna-Barbera in late 1996 to open up his own studio, Frederator Studios, and has persistently continued in the tradition of surfacing new talent, characters, and series with similar shorts "incubators", including (as of 2015)