A Charlie Brown Christmas after the special first aired, they were no longer being regularly manufactured. The "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" has been used to comedic effect with people familiar with the special and has become synonymous with poorly executed or minimalist Christmas decorating. A model of the tree is offered by various retailers. Three lesser-known Christmas specials were produced decades after the 1965 original. 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
Peanuts picked up by United Feature Syndicate, they decided to run the new comic strip he had been working on. This strip was similar in spirit to the panel comic, but had a set cast of characters rather than different nameless little folk for each page. The name "Li'l Folks" was very close to the names of two other comics of the time: Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" and a strip titled "Little Folks", so to avoid confusion, the syndicate settled on the name "Peanuts", after the peanut gallery featured in the "Howdy Doody" TV show. The title "Peanuts" was chosen by