Radio Lux Lucet 73

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You're listening to Radio Luke's List and I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 73 and the title of this episode is

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Christmas Eve Eve 2021. Well Merry Christmas to everyone. I'm coming to you here on December 23rd 2021 so I suppose you could call this

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Christmas Eve Eve. I hope everybody's enjoying themselves and has had a good week.

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I'm doing this a little bit early this week. I'm going to be busy tomorrow evening on Friday and of course

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Saturday's Christmas so I didn't really want to do a live stream on Christmas.

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That's the normal day that I did this so that I normally do the the live stream. So I thought I'd go ahead and give it a shot here tonight on a

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Thursday. I don't know for some reason I've been messed up this whole week. I keep I keep thinking it's one day behind what it is.

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I've been thinking all day that this is Wednesday but I know it's Thursday but part of me just keeps telling me it's

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Wednesday for whatever reason. I don't know somehow I lost a day in there. Anyway so happy or Merry Christmas Eve Eve to you and I hope you enjoy the the program

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I have here tonight for you. You know I finally did get around to doing my my own kind of lame

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Christmas decoration. I think if you can see here behind me this is like the sum total of my Christmas decoration.

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See if I can move my moving the wrong way here. Yeah there we go. You can see it right there. There's my Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

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That's the that's the sum total of my decoration here for for 2021. But you know I really like that that Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

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And it's yeah I like the of course I like the the Charlie Brown Christmas as well.

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That that's what that's from of course. And I'm going to talk about that in just a minute but it was kind of funny how I got that tree.

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A number of years ago there was a Walgreens close to where I worked. I remember went in there at lunch to get something and they had a whole stack of these these boxes with the

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Charlie Brown Christmas trees in them. And I wanted to buy one but I don't know I just I didn't do it for whatever reason.

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And then a couple weeks later I wanted to go back and get one and they were gone. And I couldn't find any.

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So anyway the next Christmas rolls around I'm thinking to myself oh yeah you know I I really wanted to get one of those

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Charlie Brown Christmas trees last year and I didn't do it. So I'm going to go out and get one now. Well I couldn't find one anywhere.

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And it isn't that just the way things work. You know like if if you don't do something there's a lot of times if you don't do something right away if you don't strike while the iron's hot then when you you finally decide to get around to doing it it's it's you it's it's too late.

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So you can't get back and do the thing that you want to do. I have that problem a lot like when I'm you know doing research on the web you know maybe

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I'll see a story or see a tweet by somebody and I think oh you know I'd like to to save that and and maybe use it on the program.

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But for whatever reason I don't save it then I try to go back and get it later and I can't find it. So I've trained myself to if I see a story if I see something that I want to use on on the program or on maybe in a blog post or something

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I try to get it right away because if I don't it it seems like I can't find it. Well anyway when that next year came around and I went to try to find the

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Charlie Brown Christmas tree I couldn't find it anywhere again and I looked and I looked at a look at it it kind of became a quest.

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You know it's kind of like an Indiana Jones style quest you know for the Lost Ark or something like this and and I went on this quest to find it.

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I was driving everywhere all over the place and I finally found a place that had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

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It was at a CVS actually not too far from me CVS drug store and I went ahead and I bought it there and I've jealously guarded it ever since then.

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Nobody's gonna take my Charlie Brown Christmas tree away from me and so anyway that that's how

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I got that I've actually had it for I don't know I mean I guess maybe not quite 10 years but pretty close to it and I actually had to go out and get it fix it up a little bit this year because some of the ends of the the branches are falling off.

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I kind of had to tape them on there you probably can't see that the picture because it's too far away but yeah I've kind of had to tape together my my

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Charlie Brown Christmas tree. So anyway there's that that's that's my Christmas decorations for the year which

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I know is kind of lame but you know I like it and well I guess we'll just have to go with it. It's the 23rd of December I'm not doing anything more right now.

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What I did want to mention you I've been talking the last several weeks I've talked some about Christmas light displays and of course our neighbors got this big ginormous

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Christmas light display. Let me see I went ahead and actually took a picture of it here tonight let me see if I can get this do a screen share and show you the picture of this thing here let's take a look.

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Okay there you go yeah there's the window that that's the the Christmas light display. I did that as a using the panoramic shot on my on my phone and it actually worked out pretty well.

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You can see they've actually got some new things here this year compared to what they had last year. They have these

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I think these are new they're they're sort of a oh it seems like an LED kind of kind of a

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Christmas tree there and you know I made kind of a big deal a few weeks back talking about this ginormous

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Frosty the Snowman. You can see that Frosty the Snowman kind of way back here it doesn't look nearly as big as what it is it's got a top hat that comes up to about here too but it's that the just the way that panoramic shot goes it it doesn't really give you the full size of it.

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Now here's something else they added new this year this is if you look over here it's kind of in a bit of a distance but you can see it's a

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Grinch and that's a pretty big Grinch. That Grinch is about the same size as the Frosty and the top of his hat goes right up here to the like the second story window of the house.

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Here we go so here's a picture an up -close picture I did of the Grinch and you can see

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I mean I come up to maybe about about here or so here or so on the Grinch. I'd say this thing is probably a good maybe 15 feet high from top to bottom so that's a pretty good pretty good sized inflatable pretty big and then next to it and I didn't get a real great picture of it here but this is the the

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Christmas duck and I think that's that's mom's favorite she always likes to talk about the Christmas duck and it's just like a rubber duck with a kind of like a

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Santa hat thing on it. So anyway that's our neighbor's Christmas lights display this year it should be

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I mentioned that one of the television stations they came in second place last year for best

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Christmas light display in the city and I don't know maybe they're trying to raise their game here and and see if they can go for number one.

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So we'll see what see what the ranking is here this year when all is said and done and that brings me to another topic it's a topic of the the best

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Christmas light display that I've personally ever seen. Now you know maybe somebody else is I'm not saying it's the best

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Christmas light display ever but I am saying it's the best Christmas light I personally have ever seen and this was goes back to 2004 so it goes back

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I guess what that's 17 years now that's hard to believe it's been that long but I had a friend of mine who showed me this video it was a

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YouTube video and she said you know you gotta see this light display and so I looked at this thing and it was an amazing light display it was you know it was really pretty pretty impressive and I just kind of assumed and she assumed and and whatnot that it was you know at some far distant location what have you well a few days later we came to find out that it wasn't far away at all in fact it was about 15 or 20 minute drive from my house here in a local

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Cincinnati neighborhood so we had to go up and go see this thing so piled in the car one night went up to see this and it really was amazing now what these these people had done is they they did a a

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I don't know how you would describe it I guess a a synchronization I guess you would say they they synchronized a light display with the with a tune by the

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Trans -Siberian Orchestra called Wizards of Winter and it was the most and still remains you know the not only just the best and most creative Christmas lights display

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I've ever seen and that's true whether you're talking about a a professional display you might see out somewhere in public or at somebody's house

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I mean this thing was really really well done in fact it was so well done it even got featured on a a commercial that year

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I recall on television and to this day you can actually go out to YouTube and it is the official video

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I guess the band liked it the Trans -Siberian Orchestra they liked it because they featured it featured it out there it's on YouTube and it's it's even labeled the official video for this particular song called

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Wizards of Winter by a Trans -Siberian Orchestra and I don't know if I can

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I probably can't play it I don't know I think probably that it's probably my guess would be that it's there's probably copyrighted so I'm not going to go ahead and play it but what

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I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and put a a link in the show notes and you can go ahead and click on you can go out there and watch it for yourself and it's really impressive it's about three and a half minutes long so it's not a long video

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I think you'll really enjoy it if you've never seen it before and you know what's kind of interesting about the

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Trans -Siberian Orchestra is is the work they did I a lot of the the stuff they did was in the late 90s or early 2000s and I remember

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I was working at a music store at the time when I first heard their their stuff and a lot of my my colleagues at the music store they didn't really they liked the

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Trans -Siberian Orchestra they thought it was kind of cheesy kind of I don't know not very authentic etc but I had a very different opinion and I still do

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I I think the music the Trans -Siberian Orchestra did is really pretty interesting stuff and and what they did is they they combined elements of of rock music in particular like heavy metal kind of music with the classical genre and you know when when

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I say that you know I mean it sounds kind of weird and maybe it wouldn't work but it actually does work and and some of the stuff on their albums is is really stunning really striking even in some cases glorious which

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I know sounds really weird but but it is and that that particular tune that was used in the light display that Wizards of Winter if I had to describe it to you and as far as I know it's an original tune with it was done by the the

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Trans -Siberian Orchestra the way I would describe it is it's kind of a cross between Metallica and Tchaikovsky which again

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I know sounds really weird and you might think to yourself well that just isn't going to work and if somebody had said that to me and described it to me

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I said wow that's just not going to work and then I listened to it and it works amazingly well so anyway

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I'd encourage you to go out there listen to the you know watch the video listen to music it's pretty interesting stuff and I enjoyed it and I still do enjoy going back and and watching that video the thing about the the original display that they did this was this was another thing that's really impressive is the the way that you listen to the music because when we drove up there and went to the display of course the street was packed with cars the the music that was being played that was synced to the light display they actually had some kind of a low power

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FM station so when you went to the house you know you would tune your radio to the particular frequency and the music would play over your car your car's radio while you're watching the the lights

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I mean the whole thing was really amazingly sophisticated and well done and and again this was something that was just a at a house or somebody's house and I don't know a lot about the the fellow that did that originally but obviously he was was pretty technically sophisticated and was able to uh to set all that up so again it was it was very impressive stuff and it's really impressive even going back and looking at it 17 years later

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I think it's still very impressive and remarkably creative uh one thing I did want to talk about here

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I wanted to mention the the Charlie Brown Christmas special of course that's one of my my favorite

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I guess Christmas films if you will in fact I think you could probably say that of any of the

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Christmas films and this is true whether you're talking about a live action movie or you're talking about a a cartoon

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I think you could make the case that it's it's maybe the that it's the most Christian of all of them because of the message and because of the fact that there's actually an extended passage where Linus reads from of all things the

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King James version of the book of Luke I mean good grief how did it ever get past the censors right you know it's it's really it's amazing stuff and there was a an article

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I found here on on Newsweek it's dated from December the 8th 2021 so this is a new item here and it's got a headline how a

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Brown Christmas came to be and almost didn't and it's very interesting to read through this

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I'll just read through some portions of this article America fell in love with the show when it first aired on TV back in 1965 and it's been part of our lives ever since but the story of how

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Charles Schultz's a Charlie Brown Christmas special uh Charlie Brown Christmas came to be is itself an

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American classic so is the story of how it almost didn't come to be but first things first things first the 30 -minute

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Christmas special wasn't birthed by the creative urge it was commissioned by a commercial sponsor looking to turn the nation's most beloved newspaper cartoon into an animated

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TV special we got a call from Coca -Cola Lee Mendelsohn who produced the special recalled and they said have you and Mr.

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Schultz ever considered doing a Charlie Brown show and I lied and said absolutely we've been thinking about it and this was on a

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Thursday and they said we have to make a decision on Monday can you send us an outline of the show so I called

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Mr. Schultz and I tell him I have good news and bad news the good news is

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I think I just sold a Carly a Charlie Brown Christmas the bad news is we have to write it tomorrow

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Mendelsohn said the creatives got to work Schultz pulled together Mendelsohn the legendary animator

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Bill Melendez put an outline together and quickly locked down the sale the rest was history the team worked fast it had only three months to create a script record it and make a soundtrack and create 30 ,000 animation cells from scratch all before the days of computer animated design now that's amazing to me

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I didn't realize that you know that they put this thing together in a period of about three months that's uh that's remarkably fast and the story here in Newsweek continues it says when the special was finished it wasn't a hit with network executives the first problem was the laugh track or lack thereof back in the 1960s it was unimaginable to produce a

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TV comedy without one Schultz thought more highly of viewers he didn't believe they needed to be cued to laugh at predetermined moments another disagreement involved the voice work

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CBS executives wanted to use adult actors who pretended to be kids Schultz believed that using children gave the characters more authenticity the

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CBS executives also had a problem with the jazz soundtrack by Vince Giraldi the music was too sophisticated for a children's program they worried they wanted something younger

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I'm going to pause there you know I mentioned before about the uh the music that for Trans -Siberian

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Orchestra well the the music for a Charlie Brown Christmas special is classic stuff and if you've never heard that the the there's a soundtrack out there there's actually a soundtrack uh album that was put out a long time ago and you can get it

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I mean it's for instance it's available on on Amazon or probably any of the other music services out there the music is absolutely classic it was done by the the

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Vince Giraldi trio as a jazz trio it's just some beautiful work they they did some traditional

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Christmas songs in that and also did some original music for the for the special as well one of the

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I think maybe the maybe the most memorable of all the original tunes they did was a tune called

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Christmas Time is Here and there's an instrumental version and there's a vocal version of it it's just a beautiful song it's one of my absolute favorite

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Christmas songs you know again it's kind of funny you know looking back on this you know these CBS executives oh we don't know about that that that that jazz soundtrack well it's an absolute classic and when uh when

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I was working in in the music store I mentioned before it was always one of our biggest sellers and rightfully so because it's it's really great stuff so if you're looking for a good

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Christmas album still and you don't have one check out the the Charlie Brown Christmas special uh album it's uh it's well worth it it's uh it's some just outstanding music that I've I've always loved and I think that you'll really love it as well so anyway back to the the story here they that is the the let's see the executives wanted something younger the

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CBS executives also thought the show was too slow they didn't think there was enough action in a show dedicated to children with limited attention spans there's a picture actually that in that screen share that I have there's a picture that's actually

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Charles Schultz there drawing uh drawing his uh his cartoon Charles Schultz was a he was a

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Sunday school teacher for many years and the article continues here last the CBS executives worried about the scene where Linus recites the story of the birth of Jesus Christ from the gospel of Luke it was too long they believed and too literal the

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CBS executives assumed Americans especially kids wouldn't want to sit through a spoken passage from the King James Bible now it's kind of interesting when you go through that you know when you you read through some of the exec the objections of these these executives you know they they talked about you know the lack of a laugh track they talked about yeah they were concerned about having child actors doing the voices they were concerned about the music they were concerned about Linus reading from the gospel of Luke and you know and you read through some of that you can think okay you know

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I can kind of maybe see why they would would have some of the concerns that they did but it's just funny looking back on this in in retrospect because again you know this this is this is a this is a

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Christmas classic and and yet there are all these objections to it coming into you know during a while it was being made and when

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I guess I suppose it was being screened before it was released and here's a comment from the gentleman who did the did the animation

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Bill Melendez they were freaking out about something so overtly religious in a

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Christmas special Melendez said they basically wrote it off so they you know Linus gets up and you know and he reads you know there were shepherds abiding in and I guess the the

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CBS executives had a meltdown they didn't know what to do with it yeah

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Bill Melendez says they were freaking out about it so I guess they had some pretty strong reactions and it continues here it says

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Schultz didn't get pushed back just from CBS executives members of his team were skeptical too

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Melendez himself was hesitant I was leery of the religion that came into it and I was right away opposed to it he told reporters luckily for Schultz he was a beneficiary of a tight production schedule moreover the network the advertising agency and the show's sponsor

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Coca -Cola had already promoted the show in TV Guide well I guess once you promote it in TV Guide I guess you kind of got to go through with it you can't can't back out at that point the story continues here

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Schultz had leverage but wasn't about to capitulate on key creative elements especially the bible reading the network executives finally caved and aired the special intended that's why

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Charles Sulch was Charles Schultz he intuitively knew the things Americans cared about the things that gave their lives meaning the longtime

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Sunday school teacher also knew the reading from the gospel of Luke was the centerpiece of the show and a centerpiece of American life it's a scene we'll always remember as Charlie Brown sinks into despair while trying to find the true meaning of Christmas Linus walks stage center and under a narrow spotlight quotes

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Luke 2 8 through 14 after Linus finishes he walks across the stage and says and that's what

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Christmas is all about Charlie Brown I guess today we probably call that uh maybe a mic drop moment right you know where he he goes out he quotes the the the uh quotes the bible and says and that's what

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Christmas is all about well you can't really say well I don't I don't think so I mean that he kind of nailed it

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Linus did and that was his mic drop moment the reading lasted less than a minute and with those words from the bible

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Charlie Brown realized he didn't have to let commercialism ruin his Christmas he picked up his fragile tree and walked out of the auditorium renewed

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Linus had saved the day I love this next paragraph here CBS executives were certain the show would be a ratings disaster programmers are equally grim in forming the production team we will of course air it next week when are afraid we won't be ordering more on December 9th 1965 the half -hour special aired pre -empting the

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Munsters and following Gilligan's Island to the prize of the executives in New York 50 percent of American television sets were tuned in the cartoon was a critical and commercial hit winning

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Emmy and Peabody awards Linus recitation was hailed by critic Harriet Van Horn of the

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New York World -Telegram who wrote Linus reading of the story of the nativity was quite simply the dramatic highlight of the season

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Coca -Cola was inundated with letters from fans on the special here's one gentlemen

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I'm writing the first fan letter in my 52 years of a rather full life to compliment you on sponsoring a

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Charlie Brown Christmas television program I don't know when any when the pro I don't know when any program has delighted as many adults as well as children and writing to express the hope that you might be able to sponsor additional

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Charlie Brown programs Grand Rapids Michigan and you know it's interesting too when

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I was was going through this reading through the article in preparation for the program here today

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I got to thinking to myself you know this Charlie Brown Christmas special was sponsored by Coca -Cola in 1965 now do you think in you know we fast forward to 2021

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I guess that's what 56 years later we fast forward 56 years later to 2021 do you think

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Coca -Cola would sponsor any program remotely like that today I would say probably not in in the reason

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I say that is because Coca -Cola has over the past year especially has acquired a bit of a reputation as not being so much

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Coca -Cola as as it is now Woka -Cola at least that's what I call it I call it Woka -Cola because of the the wokeness that the the company is now pushing you know there was that thing where I guess it was this past year maybe back in the spring where some employee leaked this

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I guess it was a training session that was being used a required training session if I recall correctly it was being used by Coca -Cola where they were just berating people for their whiteness and telling them to be less white you know they were pushing all this this critical race theory stuff and and that's what

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Coca -Cola has become here in the year 2021 but it wasn't wasn't like that back in 1965 or at least not so much anyway and I think that goes to show you how far the company has come and well as how far the country has come and and not in a good way not in a good way you know it's it's really remarkable how corrupt businesses have gotten and how filled with some really

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I guess I would just just say it I mean evil philosophy that dominates so much of corporate

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America today so that's that's a bit about the Charlie Brown Christmas special it's it's very interesting to to read through that I hope you enjoyed that article and again

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I'm going to put a link to that on the the blog as well now I mentioned or at least

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I put in the show description notes here that I'm going to have a Grinch of the Year award you know the Grinch of the

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Year award that's actually a pretty easy award to give out in fact I think I would say this I would give

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I would give this person not only the Grinch of Year award for his recent comments but I would also give him a

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Grinch of the Year award just for his overall body of work in 2021 and I'm talking about the remarkably awful performance turned in by one

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Dr. Anthony Fauci and I'm giving him the the Grinch of the Year award especially for his comment actually fairly recently it was earlier this week in fact where he basically told people that if they have unvaccinated friends or relatives well they should just not invite them over for Christmas and I'm going to play the play the video here just a moment and that test is negative if someone in your family isn't vaccinated should you ask them not to show up uh yes

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I would do that I mean I think we're dealing with a serious enough situation right now that if there's an unvaccinated person

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I would say I'm very sorry but not this time maybe another time when this is all over well there you have it there's

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Anthony Fauci so if if you have an unvaccinated family member or friend or something well we're sorry you just can't come over for Christmas and yeah it's every every holiday you know whether it's

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Thanksgiving whether it's Christmas whether it's 4th of July they trot this guy out and he plays the part of the the ultimate wet blanket and kill joy and that seems to be his

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I guess his primary goal in life is just sucking all the joy to the degree that he can and have everyone's life you know and it reminds me of something that Rush Limbaugh used to say

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Rush Limbaugh used to have a saying that he would use in his program and he often said that liberals were out there to spread the misery while conservatives wanted to spread the prosperity and you can really see that with this whole

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COVID thing you know my whole life I've had to listen to how Christians you know Christians oh you know you're just a bunch of bible thumping puritanical prudes and you just delight in taking all the fun out of everything and you know while everyone else wants to go out and and enjoy their liberal ideas and these sorts of things you know you people just want to sit there and and tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk you know and and take everybody's fun away well

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I would say how's that working out now you know the most liberal areas politically and otherwise in the

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United States are also the most locked down I mean New York's been turned into a prison camp

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LA pretty much the same thing in in Chicago you know they can't wait to I guess just right after the new year they're going to have something take effect where if you're not you're not vaccinated you can't go to a restaurant or a bar or any kind of public facility

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I guess like a gyms or anything like that you can't you won't be able to do that the progressive liberal city of Chicago the big sophisticated city of Chicago you know they're running scared from a cold virus essentially you know in I think it's in Oregon I think they have a statewide mask mandate

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I mean you you read about these things in other municipalities states cities this kind of thing and they're always these very liberal you know what they call blue states now that want to to lock everybody down mask everybody else and force vaccinate everything that moves you know this is how these guys want to roll and this is called freedom this is called liberty this is you know this is this is the the the liberals out there enjoying their freedom well

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I don't know it doesn't seem terribly free to me in fact it seems downright oppressive you know it's not bible -believing

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Christians who are demanding lockdowns it's not bible -believing Christians who are demanding forced vaccinations it's not bible -believing

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Christians who are demanding everything be shut down and everybody have to mask up in fact it's bible -believing Christians who are fighting against this stuff and I hope that maybe people are taking notice of this because all these people that go around and constantly boast about how freedom -loving they are they don't seem to love freedom very much at all you know in fact they seem to be they seem to out puritan the puritans and I personally

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I always try to avoid using the term puritan or puritanical in a pejorative way because everybody does it you know they want to make the puritans out to be the the worst people in the history of the world which they were not they were

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Christian people you know they had a lot to do with the shaping of our country they had a lot to do their ideas had a lot to do with the fact that we are a that we were founded as a as a free republic you know