A Charlie Brown Christmas: A Xennial Rewatch

Did you learn about the real meaning of Christmas from animated children?

Do you consider Vince Guaraldi's jazz the soundtrack for a real Christmas vibe?

If you'd be shocked (or not) to hear that your favorite childhood holiday TV special was sponsored by Coca Cola, you might be a Xennial who watched A Charlie Brown Christmas once a year on primetime. And so are we.

Join us this week as we re-visit the holiday classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.  From nostalgic childhood memories to the timeless themes of community, simplicity, and joy — we explore what still resonates, what’s aged awkwardly, and why Charlie Brown Christmas continues to be an essential holiday ritual for so many of us.

And don't miss our sister episode on A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, live now.

Leave us a glowing review wherever you listen to podcasts, and connect with Generation In-Between: A Xennial Podcast at all the places below:

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage And Series Context
• 0:30 Why Charlie Brown Christmas Mattered
• 3:41 From Documentary Pitch To Coca-Cola Deal
• 6:02 Making The Special On A Shoestring
• 9:27 Hand-Drawn Animation Challenges
• 12:22 Casting Real Kids And Iconic Voices
• 16:41 Jazz Choirs, No Laugh Track, Big Risks
• 19:16 Network Doubts And Overnight Success
• 22:01 Cultural Impact And Annual Tradition
• 24:21 Easter Eggs, Sponsorship Gags, And Goofs
• 27:01 Rewatch Reactions And Holiday Feels
• 31:24 Snow Stories And Seasonal Reality
• 36:13 Dance Scene Personalities And Music Nerd-Out
• 41:54 Dogs, Licks, And Lucy-Level Boundaries
• 45:36 Kindness, Bullying, And That Final Hymn
• 49:02 Do These Specials Still Hold Up
• 52:35 Representation, New Traditions, And Jingle Jangle

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hello everyone and welcome back to Generation in Between a Zennial podcast. I am Danny. I'm Katie. And we today are in our part two Charlie Brown episode series, I guess. A series of two other episodes. Yeah. Uh oh, I guess I should tell you what we do here. Welcome to Generation in Between is in the old podcast, where we remember, revisit, and sometimes relearn all kinds of things from the 80s and 90s. And you heard me say, Charlie Brown, today we are talking about the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Yay! On our last episode, we talked about the Thanksgiving one because it was Thanksgiving week. Well, not when we're recording, no, but when we are going to air. We are recording 80 bajillion episodes in one today. We are. Well, in one sitting, not in one non-stop recording because nobody wants that. No. Uh so Katie did some research on the Thanksgiving episode that was on 80 pieces of paper out of order. Don't if you missed it, go back and listen. And maybe take a peek at our YouTube for that one to see her throw paper after paper just onto the ground. It's entertaining. It's what we do here. It's what we do. Um, so I did some research on the Christmas one and a little bit of Charles Schultz himself. Can I tell you, I have misspelled and mispronounced his name uh always until today. How did you say it? I thought it had a ch in it. And it doesn't. It's an H, right? No, it does have, I mean, uh I spelled it with an H, not a C H. Okay. Right? It does have a CH. Right. Yeah. I don't know why. It makes no sense that I would not have the C, but I did. Because I have it typed wrong in a few spots. And that is incorrect. So, everyone, if in case you're wondering how to spell his last name, it is not the way I thought. Okay. So, do you remember watching this as a kid? No, but I feel like I've watched it recent years with my kids. But you remember watching the Thanksgiving one? Yeah. That's weird because I'm reversed. Okay. I don't I don't remember watching this Thanksgiving one much, but Charlie Brown Christmas, I remember watching because this was back in the day when Christmas specials only came on once in a holiday season. Yep. One night the night it aired, it was a big deal. You watched it. It was Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph. Sesame Street had one. I don't remember that one. Big Bird was ice skating. Oh my god. To Felice Navidad. Oh my god, get. It was really good. Okay, next year. We'll do that. Next year. I watched the Garfield ones. Did was it Christmas when they would play Wizard of Oz, or that was a different I don't think so. I don't think that was Christmas unless it was around Thanksgiving or something, but I don't remember that for Christmas. Okay. That was just some so you watched and you watched the Christmas specials when they came on, or you missed it. Right. Or you've been like my mom and she would VCR tape it. So VCR tape. I yes. And it was really like a family gathering. Yeah. Because you like you said, you had to be a certain place at a certain time watching it. And you'd have your little snacks or whatever. And then you had to watch all the commercials, which they probably made tons of money on. Tons of money. Because everyone's sitting there right then watching it. And it was it was an event. I know it was. It was an event. So I do remember um watching this a whole whole lot. So let's talk. We're just gonna jump right in because we got a lot of recording to do today. And I have a lot of notes, as always. Yay. So a Charlie Brown Christmas first aired on CBS, December 9th, 1965. My husband's birthday is December 9th. Oh. Not 1965. This actually was the first television special that had the peanuts. Okay. This was the first one. Um, Katie mentioned this on the last episode. The comic strip debuted in 1950. That's crazy. Yeah. Still around. And by the mid-60s, when this came out, it was like a worldwide phenomenon. Again, we mentioned that in the last episode. But in case you didn't want to listen to that one. Yeah, in case you're a Christmas fan, not Thanksgiving. I mean, me. Yes. Okay, so there's a producer by the name of Lee Mendelson. He got an idea to make a documentary on the success of Peanuts Comic Strip, and he called Charles Schultz to discuss it. Um, Schultz actually knew this producer or knew his name because he was an avid baseball fan, and Lee Mendelsso did a documentary on Willie Mays called A Man Named Mays. So uh Charles Schultz invited him to his house to talk about it, and the OG plan was to have a 30-minute documentary with just like one to two minutes of animation. Like, you know, they were gonna mostly be just talking about like the process of making peanuts, etc. Um, Schultz actually recommended an animator by the name of Bill Melendez, whom he collaborated with years before for a project for the Ford Motors Company. They did a commercial with little peanuts and superimposed on the oh cute. Yeah, it was really cute when I looked it up. Um, but here's the deal the networks weren't really interested in that documentary at all. Um, but like as was as we've seen happen, we talked about this in the SNCC episode. In April 1965, they saw that the peanuts were on the cover of Time magazine. And they were like, well, hold on. So they had this man named John Allen of the McCann Erickson Agency. He contacted Lee Mendelson and was like, hey, we don't want to do that documentary, but um, Coca-Cola wants to sponsor a Christmas special. So what if we made it a peanuts one? Cute. Okay, so that is how it came about. Capitalism at its core. Yeah. And so um, so Mendelssohn Charles Schultz, and they only had a few days to come up with an outline of what this Christmas special would be. So Schultz had tons of ideas, and the outline that they pitched to Coca-Cola actually remained unchanged throughout the whole production. So what they pitched is what they made. And this was a direct quote from an interview. It said it was gonna have winter scenes, a school play, a scene to be read from the Bible, and a soundtrack combining jazz and traditional music. Cute. That's lofty goals in one less than 30-minute special. It is, and also it completely encapsulates what the special is. Correct. Yeah. So they stayed true to their outline, which is pretty fun. Um, the plot of the special was mainly, if you've never seen it, was about Charlie Brown being depressed about the commercialism that was taking over the real meaning of the holiday, and he was searching for the real meaning of Christmas and getting mad at everybody because nobody cared about that. So that's just what the and now that I know that Coca-Cola sponsored this, that's kind of funny. I know, isn't it funny? Yeah. Um, and so anyway, uh, there's a book that Stephen Lynn wrote called A Charlie Brown Religion, which I'm like, I kind of want to read this. Um, he explained in his book that the 60s, as we know, was a tension-filled decade and they're going through the Cold War, the civil rights movements. Um, the United States was going through a lot of changes, um, and a lot of things, including the church, were challenged and kind of re-examined. Um, so including biblical scripture in this special was kind of a bold move. Hmm. Uh, because things were kind of murky and interesting. I think because I've always just thought, oh, it's an old special. Because even when I was a kid, it'd been around for quite a while. That I just thought, oh, they just like had more biblical, religious stuff in older things. Not, but think about what was happening at this time. Oh, I mean, it makes sense. Yeah. I think, you know, I never really thought about it until right now. Yeah. I think as a kid, I just thought, oh, the reason they have that is because it's an older show or whatever. Um, so like I said, the special was sponsored by Coca-Cola Company. It was written over just a few weeks. It was produced on a small budget in six months, and it was only completed in its entirety just 10 days before air date. Whoa. That's definitely right at the deadline. Yeah. They CBS initially wanted a whole hour of animation, like a whole hour animated special, but Melendez uh talked them down to half hour, saying an hour of TV animation was just too much. I tend to agree. Of course you do. I love the peanuts, but I don't know that I would wanted to watch any of those specials if they were an hour. A whole hour. Yeah. Um so having never done a half hour special before, Melendez phoned William Hannah of Hanna Barbera. Oh my gosh. For advice, but he did not give him any. He didn't want to. Why? I don't know. He just said no. He was just salty about it. Like, they didn't want the Flintstones for their Christmas special. I don't want to talk to you. He said no. He said, I'm not, I'm not trying to share my animated knowledge with you. How dare you? Bye-bye. What a gatekeeper. They were just fine, so don't worry about it, Hannah Barbera man. Okay, so the first step, I had to include this because, like I said in the last episode, I think cell animation is very cool and they don't really do it anymore. The first step in creating the animation for the special was to make a pencil drawing, which is what the animators did. Basically, they're copying Charles Schultz's comic strip style. Um, and then after they ink it and then they paint the drawing onto a cell. Okay. Which is so cool to me. That's really cool. Um, the cell then was placed onto a painted background. So have you seen them do this? Have you seen video? Okay. I used to love watching how they made the old Disney cartoons. It's the same thing. They'd paint the background and then do the drawing, then put it on. It's like um, what is that stuff that you used to put on overhead projector? It looks like that. Like the cellophane kind of the film. Yeah, and then they put that on top and then they film that. So it's just very it's a lot of stuff. So there are 13,000 drawings in the special with 12 frames per second to create the illusion of movement. Dang. Isn't that wild? Yeah. Yeah. 13,000 drawings. And you mean 13,000 hand drawings? Yeah. I mean, because this is hand-drawn animation. I mean, there's no computers doing it. Dang. That's so many. That's why I think it's so fascinating. Who even knows how many 13,000 is? That's so many. We do right now. A plot. Watch out the special, and then you'll see the special. Okay. So Melendez, who is the animator. Oh, did I say it's Melendez and Mendelssohn, right? It's like confusing. So Melendez is the animator. He was unwilling to stray from Schultz's distinctive character designs. He didn't want to go any, he wanted to stay true to his cartoons, as he should. Um, but they were never intended to be animated, which creates a little problem when you get movement. Right. Um, he found himself kind of in a battle with Charlie Brown's head.

unknown: 11:23

Of course.

SPEAKER_00: 11:24

Uh, because it's round, so it made it difficult to kind of depict him turning around because it's straight on, right? Yeah. Um, and his arms were too tiny to scratch his head. Did he need to scratch his head? Well, I mean, any kind of like upward motion or anything like that. I see what you're saying. You know what I mean? Um, and then Snoopy, in contrast, was kind of free of that ball-shaped head, and he became the show's easiest figure to animate. So Charlie Brown was the hardest, Snoopy was the easiest. Okay. So I just thought that was funny. Big head problems. That my family, um, Troy actually experiences knows that they would be hard to animate. Um, although they're not, they're not be hard to animate. And they're not a flat figure, so I guess they can move around. Anyway, he can scratch his head. All right, so let's talk about how they cast the voices because it's actually really fun. Okay. You're gonna love this. So, in casting the comic strip characters, um, they wanted to pull from the personality Schultz had created in the comic strip. So they wanted to hire child actors. Um, there are no adult characters in the special or the OG comic strip. And you might think, okay, well, duh, of course, they're gonna hire hire child actors to voice them, but they that was not a regular occurrence then for animated stuff. It was adult voice actors that would just put on a childlike voice. But they said, nope, we want kids. We want child actors to be the voices of these kids. So the lead character Charlie Brown, um, they wanted to be downbeat and nondescript, kind of like bluh, right? Because that's kind of how he is. Yes. Lucy, they said, should be bold in forthright, because that's how she is in the comic strip. Linus wanted to be. This was funny. They wanted to combine sophistication with childlike innocence. Cute. That's hard. How are you gonna find somebody who could do that? They did, but you can animate it and you can write it. Right. But how do you find the voice to do it? Yeah, the right sound and actor. Um, and then they said Mendelsen, the producer, recognized that Snoopy was the comic strip's most popular character who seemed to kind of get the best jokes. Um, but they realized they could not cast a voice for the dog. So what they said was they gained a canine harpo marks, which I thought was. Oh my god, buddy. Yes. Um, and what he suggested, Melendez, the animator, said, why didn't why don't they record him just talking gibberish for Snoopy's kind of mutterings, you know, where he's like, he's like, go over there, Snoopy. Um and then simply speed up the tape so viewers wouldn't know it was a human being like Yeah. So it's just literally him recording himself talking gibberish and they sped it up. Okay. Um so not only did they want child actors, they kind of wanted non-actors for the background voices, like just regular kids. Um, so he sent this is so funny. He sent tape recorders home with his employees for their children to audition. Cute. He's like, here, take this tape recorder and have them talk. Let me see if they're cool. Um, most of the background cast came from Mendelssohn's home neighborhood in Northern California. That's so fun. I know, I know. Pays to live next door to a producer, guys. Yeah, just saying. So here's the kiddos that got cast as the voices. Um, and most of them did more than one special. So eight-year-old Peter Robbins was cast as Charlie Brown. He was already known for some stuff on TV and on radio at the time. He voiced Charlie Brown in seven specials. Wow. Until he turned 14 and his voice changed. Well, I know it happens, guys. Um, his godmother, who was a Hollywood agent by the name of Hazel McMillan, such a great agent name. Love it. Um, discovered Christopher Shea, who would become Linus. He had a slight lisp, and they said that kind of gave him a youthful sweetness. Definitely. Um, because it was just it's not very pronounced, it's just a little bit, and they said it was just enough. Um, and they said his emotional script reading gave him power and authority. I love it. And if you think about it, his voice in the special, it it was perfect, I think. I think it was too. It was perfect. You could tell it was a kid, of course. But he like had that confidence, and yeah. That's tricky, I think. Um, Tracy Stratford played the role of Lucy. Um, they were impressed by her attitude and professionalism. She was a child actor, and guess what? What she was in one of the iconic OG Twilight Zone episodes about Talkie Tina called The Living Dollar, it was called Living Doll, but that was the Talkie Tina episode that killed the stepdad he goes down the stairs. Oh yeah. She was a little girl actor in that. Interesting. I know. I was like, oh my god, that's so crazy. Um, and then Kathy Steinberg was the youngest of the performers. She was only six when they recorded. Uh, she played Sally. She couldn't read very well yet. So what they had to do with her, they had to like tell her one line at a time, and then she'd record it. So you'd be like, okay, this is your next line, and they'd tell it to her and she'd say it. Oh. Which I read somewhere. There's a part, a longer part where she's talking, and that's why it's kind of broken up, is because they had to record it. It sounds kind of choppy. Yeah. And that's why. Um, so hold on. Oh, you guys, I'm on Katie's computer. Bear. She back. She back.

unknown: 16:56

I lost my brains.

SPEAKER_00: 16:59

Okay, you're back at the top. Well, I know, but your computer don't be like mine. You can t it's a touch screen. You can just go. I know, but I and you make that sound. I need a I need a slide whistle. Where was I? Child actors. Okay. Oh, yeah. So they said the recording sessions were chaotic. And they said they were as excited children running rampant, but I love it. But they recorded it all in one day. The the talkie voices. Wow. Now there's some other stuff coming in when they did the music recordings. I'll get that to that in a second. The fun thing is, Jefferson Airplane, the band, was recording next door and they came over um to obtain the kids' autographs because they heard what was going on. That is so cute. I know. Um, so the the program, the special soundtrack was on unorthodox because they were having jazz music combined with traditional music. Interesting for a kid's program. But they also Vince Vince is back. Gual guar guaraldi. Guaraldi. Guaraldi. I don't know. You sound like Fran Dresher. Guaraldi. I've heard that many times in my life, guys. Okay. Just right there. All right. Uh, anyway, he recruited children from a local children's choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California. And so they're the ones singing, you know, in the beginning. Christmas time. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Um, and so that took more than one day. And it said they were treated to ice cream after the recording was done, and they were giving five dollars each for every recording session. What? Yeah. Okay. Whatever. I don't know how I feel about that. I know. I listen, I'm just telling you the facts. Okay. So another thing that was unorthodox was not using a laugh track because that was very common in the 60s. Um, it was kind of a staple on American TV, and the network wanted to put one in, but Charles Schultz said, no, I don't want to tell people when to laugh. Yeah. And I love that. It's probably part of the reason it's even had such a lasting appeal. I think so. Because that sort of artificial sound has gone out of style. And so since it's not in there, it's just a non-issue. Yeah. Um, the thing about this special is CBS was thinking it was gonna be a disaster. They were like, it's they were not excited about it once it was finished. Things that they were concerned about was the tone, the pacing, the music, and the short animation. They were really worried about that. There's no laugh track, they're using kids. They were like, this is gonna be a disaster. I don't know about this. Also, they weren't crazy about the religious, direct religious message either. I mean, they read scripture in this cartoon. They do. Um, so they were wrong though, because Charlie Brown uh Charlie Brown Christmas received high ratings, and when it aired, more than half of America's televisions tuned in to the half-hour program. Dang. Program, sorry, yeah. Um, and letters poured into Coca-Cola to express the viewers' gratitude for the show. Wow. Okay. I mean, I guess it was a tension-filled time for a lot of people, and maybe it was just an the escape they needed or a reminder they needed to um remember the holidays' deeper meanings. I don't know. Yeah. Must have been who knows? It got an Emmy and a Peabody Award, just like uh the Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Yeah. And it became an annual presentation in the US. It aired on broadcast TV during the Christmas season for 56 years. Dang. Before it uh went exclusively to Apple Plus. So um this special paved the way for the rest of the peanut specials, including the Thanksgiving, also the Great Pumpkin. That one's probably a little more well known than Thanksgiving, which is weird. I don't know why, but it is. I think it's because it's the great pumpkin. That's it. Throw great pumpkin in there. Winner, winner. I didn't say that right. The concept of the great pumpkin. Explain. I just mean like I think it's an intriguing concept that, like, kind of like you wait for Santa Claus, you're waiting for the great I don't know. Okay. I just think it's more interesting than like than Thanksgiving. Well, I yes, I get okay. I just mean the concept of it. I was like, it's the great pumpkin Charlie Charlie Brown. Oh my god, hilarious. Okay, we're gonna do that one next year, too, because we we bypassed that guy. We missed our opportunity this year. Um, yeah, it paved the way, and also the jazz soundtrack also achieved commercial success, selling five million copies in the US. What? Yeah, that's so many. You know what? My mom had this soundtrack on on tape, on cassette tape. I remember it. Um, live theatrical versions of Charlie Brown Christmas have been staged uh in recent years. We actually have several performer friends who went on tour doing that show. Um, and I I have some just little random facts, and then we'll talk about our thoughts. In this special, Snoopy's house is blue. You're right, but in all the other ones, it's red. It's red. Oh my gosh. But this was the first special, so I don't know what happened, why it changed. But um, okay. The 1960s broadcast of this one actually did have brief animated sections at the top, at the beginning of the show, and the end of the show, which included the Coca-Cola slogan or logo. So in the opening sequence where Charlie Brown slams into a tree, revealing the show's title, which may not have been on the streaming one. I didn't see it on the side. I know what you're talking about though. Uh Linus also used to crash into a sign that was advertising local bottlers of Coca-Cola. And then um, the closing song, you can look these up because I saw I found them. The closing song used to have an on-screen Coca-Cola message superimposed over the singing children, like in the credits. Stop.

unknown: 23:10

No. Capitalism.

SPEAKER_00: 23:12

Singing children who got paid five dollars in ice cream and ice Coca-Cola logo over you. I mean, I know they're animated, but over the voices. Um, another crazy thing on just how like things in the pop culture can uh really impact what we buy. Yeah, this special helped bring an official end to the brief fad of aluminum Christmas trees, which had been going on since like 1958. I think I wrote down. So this this squashed it. That's no more. After everybody's like, oh yeah, who wants that? I agree. Although I'm always like a pink aluminum tree. I want that. That'd be really cool. Cool. Yeah, that'd be really what that'd be really cute. Remember last week you said Hoomer? I can't believe I re-listened to that. I was like, what is happening? That was our episode on decor. Oh, home decor. That was a that was a crazy trip, guys. We talked about dolphin bullies, concrete geese, whatever. You don't ever know what you're gonna have here. Um, okay, there is a continuity error in the animation. Oh. Can you guess what it is? Has it do with Charlie Brown holding something? Does the tree look different from one to the next? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So the branches appear to grow from moment to moment. Like, and that used to bother me as a kid because, like, in one scene, the needles were all gone, and then you see them walking and they're back. And I'm like, hello, like that. I never noticed that. I don't know why. I remember that when I was watching it this time, how that used to drive me nuts as a kid. Um, and the goof annoyed Charles Schultz, who blamed the mistake on two animators who didn't know what the other one was doing. So it does sound too like it was a little bit rushed, like the project. So they probably like maybe someone would have caught it if they had more drawings there doing it. And 13,000 drawings, and it's multiple people, right? So yeah, it makes sense. It's okay. We give you a pass. Yeah. And my last little fact that I just zoomed past because I am dumb and use Katie's computer. Uh, this is a Xennial fact. In 1993, uh Knott's Berry Farm gave out free VHS copies of the special during the holiday season to kids uh during a special event. You know like they had like a Christmas party or whatever. The VHS tapes did not have any previews, they had no promos, they had no studio logos or even FBI warnings. It was just a recording of the special. No, not Sperry Farm. That's remember how last episode we were asking, like the amusement park or whatever. That's where Snoopy is. It's Snoopy. Because there's some rides and stuff. We told y'all we'd figured out by this episode and then we did it organically solved itself. Solved itself. So that's all my facts on uh that's really fun. Yeah. That's very cool. I thought it was interesting. I I who knew I I was gonna spend hours. Oh, I should probably know because I do that every time. That's okay. That means, I mean, I feel like that's a sign that you're like really enjoying what you're researching, you know? When you have like whatever. Um, so our thoughts are so cohesive today. We're really we're killing it with our thought process today. Um, and hopefully, you know what, you guys are probably all in your like a little bit of a holiday fog already. So they're right there with us while they're listening to this. 100%. They've had lots of turkey and candy and all the things by now. Speaking of candy, our last episode we told you about some treats our British friend Hannah gave us, and I have we have been digging into them. They're delicious, so good, and I am regretting all the sugar I've just put into my body uh before lunchtime. Is your grumpy gallbladder gonna return? No, uh-uh, because I've been um doing good on other things in life. Oh, good. My grumpy gallbladder gets kooky when I have too much uh wine. Yes, spicy stuff, and sugar combined. Okay. So you haven't been having this much like like greasy fried food, like the fatty stuff, like the thick fatty stuff. So usually when I'm on vacation, like it'll start getting not happy, or like the end of the holiday season. This summer when my mom died, I was going through it. It kind of was getting mad at me. But I know how to kind of get my life back, so I'm doing okay. So I'll be all right. I'll be all right. Good, good. I'm glad to hear that. But thank you for being concerned about my gallbladder. I appreciate it. I was like, wow, we haven't talked about that in a while. I'm doing all right, which no news is good news, right? And now that I say that, I'm gonna go home and be like, oh my god. I hope hopefully I didn't bring that into existence. Oh, you didn't. Sorry about that. That's not how gallbladders work. They don't just hear us talking about them being like, Well, I'll show you, dummy. Yeah, oh, that's how it sounds a gallbladder. Did you know that? No, that's how mine's you got a really aggressive gallbladder. He is. He's not nice. Right now, he's sleeping. He's all right. Okay, good. All right, let's talk about the special when we rewatch. Let's talk about it. Okay, the beginning ice skating scene. Yes. Where um Christmas time is I don't know words. Happiness and cheer.

unknown: 28:29

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00: 28:31

Something by the fireside. I don't know. Um, as a kid who grew up somewhere it did not snow in South Louisiana, I thought when I was a little kid that everywhere else except where I live just had snow 24-7 at Christmas time. No. Guess what? That's not true. That's not true. Some places, sure, but most of the country, it might, I mean, it's varied weather. It might be cold. I have lived places where there's snow on Christmas. And to be honest, I don't I don't care for it. It's too much to clean up. It's a lot of work. And I hate being trapped in the house. That too. And I hate not having sunshine. Even though I'm like an indoor cat, but I would like the sun to be beaming in the window at me. Do you know what I mean? You like the option of the sun. I like it. And I want to see it through my windows. I open all the windows in my house. And living places, you know, you've lived places too where it's gray for like months, which is generally where it's snowing. Correct. Yeah, that's the thing about snow. Like it's pretty when it's coming down. It might be pretty if it's like Christmas Eve or Christmas and you're you don't have anywhere you necessarily gotta be, or you're looking out the window. But then it like stays, and now it's just cold and it's everywhere, and it's dirty. And y'all know what's the snow when it starts to melt, and then the nighttime comes, it freezes again and makes ice and it makes it super scary to drive on and really hard to break. I can distinctly remember we had we lived somewhere in Missouri that had a long driveway, and when that driveway Would freeze and I'd have to go out there with a shovel and break the ice to get through that ice and get it off my driveway so I could leave my house. That's my own personal hell. It's awful. Yeah, it takes so much longer to get places uh with that weather because you have to get your car defrosted, your driveway cleared out. All the clothes you got to put on if you gotta put help children put their clothes on, multiple children. It's a whole thing. And then like the whole car seat thing where they really shouldn't wear their coat in the car seat. It's a lot. So look, we've got listeners who live in those places, and God bless you. God bless you. Um, they may hate it too. They just happen to live there. Well, that's true. So you don't get a choice. Quick kind of funny story. Several years ago, we were up in Indiana for Thanksgiving, and we had driven our minivan with Florida plates. Uh-oh. So my parents or whoever were being nice, and they were like, Oh, you and Brent like go out to eat or whatever, because we got the kids, and we're like, okay. But the roads were not great. And my husband learned to drive in Miami. Uh-oh. Right. He's never driven. And driving in in snow is so I was up north and it was snowy and icy. It wasn't snowying, but it was like, yeah. So I drove and we went. I I didn't even have a drink or anything because of the roads. Oh, yeah. It's so scary. We ate, we had a good time. So we're going back, and there were two ways I could have gone, but I decided I would take him through this like neighborhood where like I had friends and stuff. It's really pretty back there. There's pretty houses, but it's super hilly. So we're driving, and I'm having trouble like getting our van like over hills, like to the point like I'd be like halfway on a hill and I'd start to feel like we were going backward.

SPEAKER_01: 31:39

Girl.

SPEAKER_00: 31:39

But we're in the middle of this neighborhood now. So I'm like, so I'm kind of freaking out, and he's freaking out. And I was like, I gotta either turn around and go back over these hills or just like get to where it's flat. Well, then of course, this pickup truck is right behind us, trying to go fast, right on our butts, and probably sees a Florida plate and is probably annoyed. But the the funny part is I drove those neighbors, like I'm familiar with those roads and I'm familiar with driving in weather, but like here I am in my little Florida minivan. So now I'm freaking out because he's like right behind us, and every turn we made he followed because I'm sure he was just like going home. So I'm like starting to panic. Drive by, and I don't point out to my husband, my ex-boyfriend's house. Okay, who I like dated all through high school. And I'm like, dear God, please don't let me get in an accident right here. Oh no. So there's the steep hill, just past it to the left. So we go to go left, we're halfway up the hill, and the car like starts like stalling. What starts to slide back down. Oh, and the pickup truck is right behind us, so it starts to back up. Oh my god. And I said to Brant, I was like, I just have to let it slide to the bottom of the hill. So I'm like, I'm gonna end up crashing into my ex-boyfriend's house at the bottom of this hill. And I'm not saying any of this to my husband. I'm just like, oh my God, you know. So we get to the bottom of the hill, the truck goes around us and leaves. So we just stop. I call my dad. I'm like, I don't know if we can get back. He's like, Well, what road are you on? And we're like talking about it. So he tells me this other route that's like relatively flat, and we got out of there. Oh my god. But can you imagine? I was ready for you to say you had to knock on his door. No, and and I mean, he was grown and didn't live there anymore. It would have been his parents. But still, it was just like of all the places, all the places, and it's like I should know how to drive this. But but like when it's battery, you don't have all-wheel drive, it's hard to drive in snow and like that damn pickup truck had. But anyway, we had a van too, so that's what I'm gonna do. It was heavy, yeah. Yeah, it was heavy. Anyway, so thankfully it was all okay, kind of. All right, well, so there you go, snow. Um, also, I wrote down, I wrote, okay, but Charlie Brown is so for real for feeling his feels that we all feel at the holidays. Because he's sad and he's like irritated and he's like, what is wrong with everybody? You guys are working like, and what does Christmas even mean? Like, what are we even doing as a society? Like, I was like, he is so for real for that. He is like, he's having all the thoughts that we don't all say out loud, but have at different times during the season. I do, but not at most people don't.

unknown: 34:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:26

I was like, I was I'll agree with that. I was talking to Troy the other day about that. Um oh, I was or maybe I was talking to my sister because I was talking about our when we had that friendship conversation on Dawson's. Oh, yeah. And I was talking about, we were talking about for those of y'all that don't listen to our Dawsons, you should, number one. Number two, we go off on lots of tangents, and we're talking about friendships and like girls not having close friendships with other girls. And I was saying that made me sad because like friends are important to me, blah, blah, blah. And I I can't remember it's my sister or Troy, and I was like, you know, like I know people put their guard up, but I just like I said, I just do the opposite, or I said, I just don't do that. And they I said, you have the exact opposite problem. Like you just say too much, too much, but it's too hard, you know, it's too hard to not. I just I'm so tired to not. Yeah, it's it's a lot of energy to try to filter that stuff all the time. Yeah, yeah. I get that. I know, and I don't know if that's just because I don't know why, but whatever. Anyway, yeah. I was gonna say something else that was pertinent to this, but guess what? It left. It's gone. Left the brain power. Okay, I wrote down this is for you, where he's talking to Lucy, and um and he's like, Well, what is it you want? And she says, real estate. Yes, oh that's a whole word right there. I was like, that's for Katie. Yeah, I don't need diamonds, I don't need chocolate, I don't need I need a studio, a place to be. Yeah, okay. A place a studio for they need Santa Claus, you be listening, and a baby. Slip a studio under my tree for me. But I have always wanted to sing that song. You'd be that'd be fun. It would be such a fun one to sing. You have to do it. I don't know what uh mic check. I'm gonna do it on a mic check. Can I tell you a funny mic check story? Yeah. So for you performer friends out there, you'll get a kick out of this. For those of you who aren't performers, you have to do mic checks when you're wearing body mics to be in a show. And I hate them. I uh some people love them. Katie's one. I love them. Yeah. But for those of us who aren't sopranos and don't belt and don't have showcasing vocals, they are so anxiety-induced. Even people who actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna retract some of that because even people who do, some of them still don't like mic checks. Right. It's just it puts you on the spot, everybody's staring at you, everybody can hear you, and like your brain goes blank. There's no music, it's no music. It's just your voice singing into the abyss. So I figured out a few shows back, the way I handle that is just to do something funny. Okay, still in the range, because the point is you have to sing something that's in the range of what you're gonna be singing in the show. Like, you can't come up there and sing something down here if you're a first soprano, because that's not gonna gauge where your levels need to be. Am I right about that? That's right. Okay. So uh in the current show I'm in, it's like a lot of choral singing because it's Christmas Carol, so it's Dickens. It's like a choral singing. Katie knows because she vocal directed this show. And there is one song where the alto line is like two notes. That is what I've been doing for every single mic. I love this. I love this. Just the two notes over and over. It's just lead voices, right? Literally, it's like that's what it is. And then you you go, you have another note, and that's about it. But that's what I do, and everybody every time starts laughing and clapping, and that's all I need. That's all I need, guys. Well, I mean to be fair, you sing that in the show. I sing it like in quarter of your levels, yeah. And it's funny because people who are used to singing melody have no idea the harmonies everybody else sings until you do something like that. And so Isabel was like, Oh, I feel so bad for you. I didn't know that literally you sing two notes. Aww. I said, Listen, that's an alto's dream because it is right in that like middle C range, and it is lovely, and you just and you make it sound great. In in the show I'm rehearsing now, there's only six people in the show, so everyone has to take turns not being the melody. And so there's several spots where you know, composers be doing this sometimes. Composers be cray. I'll be singing melody and a different character singing my harmony, and inexplicably we just switch. This happens several times in the show. That's hilarious. So we've been learning this as we've been learning the music, and I was like, Oh, wait, now I'm down there. And we're like looking at it, like with our glasses on, trying to make sure. Yeah, it happens a lot, and so I've my brain's been having to like figure it out. It's hard. That is hard. It's hard to do that to sing the melody. I don't sing high in the show. I sing what? Yeah, I um I sing almost everything is between G below middle C, which I actually go to a lot, which is low for me, and um below middle C? Uh-huh. Okay. And then the C above middle C is my break. Is is it? And then there's one time I go to the E, and that's it. One time I sing that E. Get out of here. Yeah. Do you know I have to sing that F in this do show? Whoa. Because they took out you remember last time we took out out of Scrooge's house? Everybody's like, who what are y'all even talking about? F above middle C. Who gives a shit Danny? Or everyone is like, wow, I feel like I'm not gonna be. There's like three of them who like feel I'm listening. Three of y'all care. Uh so for you three, anyway, I don't sing C is my break. I don't like I can sing higher. I just don't like to, and I don't want to, and I do not spend time there. And I, of course, have to do it this time because we all are singing that Carol song. And it's yeah. We're outside Scrooge's. Oh, outside Scrooge's house, like you just said. But they took it out last time, but we're doing it now. Oh, gotcha. And Cooper and I are the first ones to walk on stage. Yay! So it's like I better nail that high part. So that's where you sing the F. Ooh. Okay, it's the and I'm not doing it right now, guys. No, um, it's it's the peace and joy. Yeah. Oh, I love that song.

unknown: 40:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 40:46

So you'll listen for it. Yeah, I will listen to that. And then again, what a morning. I mean, it's coming out. It's up to everybody else to come single. Look, the break is harder than high notes. It is. I hate it. And so an F is easier than a C. Why is that? What tell me the science? It's it's just because you're switching registers.

SPEAKER_01: 41:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 41:06

And so if you know it's high, you can place it physically, your vocal cord can get there and mentally. But if it's kind of that murky middle part, you're like, am I here or here? And where do I put it? Literally, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now that everybody is bored to tears, let's get follow us for more vocal nonsense. Thank you. Okay. Uh oh, I wrote down this whole special. I just wanted to scream, capitalism, Charlie Brown. That's the problem. It is. That's what he was mad about. Yeah. So just rename it. It's capitalism, Charlie Brown. Yeah. Um, all right. And I want to know your answer to this. You know the scene where Schroeder's playing the piano and they're all dancing? I feel like oh, well, you just answered it by your head movement. I feel like everybody has a dance style and a character that they can't cling to. Yes. Mine's the the head one, like this. I'm I'm torn. I'm torn between who's the one that does the neck, that one? I think it's a non-named character, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And then Pig Pen has his like dirt flying. I love it. I love it. And what was the other one? There's nothing. There's like eight of them. And they're really funny. Hold on. I'm gonna pull it up just so we can do the visual hair. And we're gonna decide. Well, no, Danny, that's not no. You can do it on the search. You can do it up there too. You can do both. Um Christmas um dance scene. There you go. Okay. There they are. They're so funny. Oh, so there's a little girl with her head going side to side. Oh no, Linus. I think mine was Linus. With the neck. Um uh-uh. Hold. We're gonna get there. We haven't done an on-air. Oh, y'all hear it? Vince Giraldi. Giraldi. Come on, Schroeder. There you go. See, there I am. Oh, there's two of me. Oh, there's two of you. I guess so. No, Linus. Oh no, this is the pink pen's on the bass. The little girl with the red curly hair. Oh my god, the Frankenstein. And they all get a little moment, by the way. They're getting close-ups. And I'm sorry. Snoopy playing guitar, get out of here. I think I'm Linus. Yeah. But what is is that Lucy in the middle or just someone that has the same color hair? No, that's she's um, I forgot her name. What is she doing? She's doing like punches. Look at her. That's what that's what I look like. No, I don't. I mean, I'm just wondering what she's doing. Okay, anyway. Sorry. We had to look that up. That's cute. Now we know for sure who we are. You're the head bobber. I'm the head bobber. I think I'm Linus. Or the guy that looks like he's doing the running man.

unknown: 43:53

I love that guy.

SPEAKER_00: 43:54

I love you. That guy. We love you, that guy. Yeah, it's a good scene. Um, we have, I don't know what's happening this episode. Okay. Where Lucy um where Snoopy licks her and she's like freaking out. Yes. Like, that's so she's like, ew, dog germs. Like, yeah, girl, I hate it when dogs lick. First of all, I went to a benefit for dogs. Thank you. So everybody knows I support dogs. I just don't want them in my life. And please, for the love, do not let your dog jump on me or lick me. Cause gross. Gross. And let me tell you how many people told me, Well, my dog doesn't stink, or my dog. I'm like, yes, listen, if you have a dog, it smells like a dog. True. Are you a person who's gonna tell me your dog don't smell like a dog? I my dogs smell like dogs. Okay. Yeah. Well, they went to the groomer yesterday. Oh, they always be getting their hair did. They did get their hair did. And my doodle, especially, because they give him a blowout. So normally he's like super what? He's so curly. Straighten his hair. Well, they just blow dry it. Well, then. Yeah, with like a big brush. Oh, they use a round brush. Stop it. And so his his fur is always straight and just a poof. That is high. When we pick him up. But then as soon as like the one drop of rain lands on him or he jumps in the pool, it's curly again. I can feel that. But he's so soft. He's so soft. And then my lab looks, they dished her like with the different tools, but she goes in looking the exact same as when she comes out. Like literally. Like they could look at me. They could just dash her with like a little bit of talcum powder and be like, thank you. You're$75. Yeah, I have I have no clue. Oh my gosh. What are we even? But they do they do smell like dogs. They do. Okay. Well, Lucy, listen. I feel you. Uh, what do you have? You have any down? No, I don't know what happened. This is all Dawson, but I I'm just gonna keep tagging on to you. Well, I was just gonna say I like Snoopy as um Santa. I know that was really cute. I just love Snoopy as Santa. Um, I had to laugh in that dancing, or not where where Schroeder's playing the piano and Lucy keeps telling him to play. He's like, let's do Beethoven. I think we should do Beethoven. And she's like, Can you just play Django Bells? And he gives her a dead side eye, and he's like, It was hilarious. I love it. It's like he's too sophisticated for that. But like the look he gives her, and then it's like oh god, it was so funny. I don't know. These things I did not pick up on, I don't think as much. Yeah. I also said them kids be so mean to Charlie Brown. I know, like they were telling him he's hopeless, he's dumb, oh great, you ruin everything. Like, yo, I know it was giving um Kevin from Home Alone. Yes, when they're all like, you stupid idiot, you ruin that. They actually say that to him too. You ruin it. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. But yeah, it's I I hate it. I hate it so they're like bullied. They even even his dog laughs at him. The Snoopy laughs so cute. How dare you betray your owner? A dog, a real dog would never do that. Cats would. A cat would do that. Yeah, not my cat. My little dog Annie might. Oh, yeah. Yeah, your dog. She betrayed me in one second for a tree. Yeah, for real. She'd be like, I don't care about you.

unknown: 47:05

Correct.

SPEAKER_00: 47:05

Bite you. Um, and then I wrote down I totally teared up at the end where they're humming. They're humming, Hark the Herald Angel sing, because you know what it reminded me of the end of It's a Wonderful Life. You're right. When they're all like around the tree. Well, it's at the end where they're all bringing him money. Uh-huh. Oh, right. And they all start singing, and the bell, y'all know I know this movie by heart. I love me. And the little girl says, Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his face. And Jimmy Stewart goes, Adam Boy, Clarence, out of boy. Wow, you just sounded like Jimmy Stewart. I'm telling you, I know that. Nice job. I know that's I love that movie. Are we watching that one? Uh no, not this year. Okay. Well, I mean, we can watch it, just not for me. Oh, I watch it every Christmas Eve. Yeah, we watch it on Christmas Eve. Sob and sob and sob because that movie has layered meanings for me, and this year I really don't I don't want to talk about that. So Right. You'll watch it, but you don't want to talk about it. I feel that. I feel that. I'm at the end of my news. So do you feel like now that we've watched both Thanksgiving and Christmas, rewatched both, do you think that these specials hold up? Do they hold up for us because they're nostalgic, or do they like hold up for generations now? What say your kids? Because your kids watched it. My kids love them. Okay. All of them. I I I had to watch these at a weird time because I've been so busy. So I did not. Caden Kaden has never been a big Charlie Brown fan. Um, and I I I don't know. I don't know what Cooper says. I think I think they can hold up. I don't think there's anything super. I mean, yes, they're dated, but I don't think it's not stuff that isn't still true. Like we still get caught up in commercialism. If you're a religious person, the religious meaning would mean something to you if you watched it. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. It's interesting, right? Because the way that we look at holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas hasn't changed much. Like what that looks like. Yeah. As far as food and decor and commercialism and really from like 1950 to like now, because it was really like here I go. My friend told me, no, not at all. Random observation, but I just feel like a lot of things before 1950 or so, that's kind of when this Americana, here's how we all do stuff as a culture kind of kicked in following World War II, plus the rise in capitalism and industrialism and all that stuff, of course. But it's these sorts of things are kind of frozen in time in a way. Yeah. There's not a lot of like new traditions or looks or aesthetics that are being introduced to either holiday. You think? Well, you know what I do appreciate now that we didn't used to have is now it's pretty common to have um multiple um oh my god, brain dead. Oh, no, no. I was like, where was I going with this? Sorry, everybody. Um, it to have multiple expressions of Santa, like it's not just a white Santa. Yes. Like now it's pretty common. Like it used to be really hard to find or in angels. Like I remember I had this book when I was teaching school, um, and it was I had it was like Christmas books or whatever, and it was called An Angel Like Me. And it was about a young black boy trying to find an angel to put on his tree that looked like him. Wow. He couldn't find it. And I feel like now we have all we we do have a lot more representation, which is great. Um, I mean, there always have been black Santa's and black angels and stuff, but they were not as easy to find in all the like all the places. Mainstream stores, which is crazy to me, which is so dumb. But I'm so I'm glad I feel like that has changed. Agree. Like, have you watched that next that Netflix Christmas special that came out a few years ago called Jangle Jangle? Oh my god, it's so good. It's really cool. Oh, it's so good. Okay, look it up. Okay, musical. Wait, is it called Jangle Jangle? Well, what's it about? Um, it's about this toy maker. And hold on, I'm just gonna I'm gonna just look it up right now. Okay. Because I'm scared if I tell you the wrong thing. Welcome to the show, everyone. Um I I think there's just more of everything. Yeah, there's more options, there's more of everything. There's you know, where we maybe used to have one Christmas tree, now people have two or three Christmas, you know, like there's just more. And I'm not saying okay, see. It is jangle jangle. Is that Wally? What is that? No, it's well, I don't want to tell you too much because you need to watch it. I need to watch it. It's really good. Okay, the dancing is so much fun. Um, they have this little girl is so talented. Um, Felice Felisa Rashad's in it. Oh, I love her. Yes. Okay, I'll watch it. Forrest Whitaker. Ricky Martin's in it? Yeah, I don't remember that. Weird, but I guess so. But anyway, it came out in 2020. Okay. It's really cute and good, by the way. Jingle Jangle, watch it. Okay, gonna watch it. Awesome Christmas special. All right. Well, thank you for all that research, and thank you guys for sticking with us. Let us know if you love Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Peanuts and Christmas or Thanksgiving and Christmas or Thanksgiving. Yes. Um, I was gonna say leprechauns, but that was the last episode. You had to be there, guys. You had to be. This one we talked about dogs. Um mostly just that. No, we talked about something else dumb vocal things. Yeah, see, that'll that'll be the most listened to two minutes of any of our podcasts. People just come there for your hell are you? Yeah, man, that C above middle C is a just sucks. Although I don't need I don't need people who be singing high to throw shade at me when I say a note is high, and somebody be like, that's not that high. No, that's high. Can y'all just shut up? That's all high. Whoever said that to me recently, you know who you are, Greg. I was saying, who said that? But Greg, yeah, that adds up. He's like, that's not that high. I was like, get out of here, Greg. If I can't sing high, I can't sing high, all right? I always say to my students when we're like doing vocal exercises or even a vocal range test, like if they need to know their range for something, I say, it's not good or bad, it just is. Yeah. It just is. Listen. And you might be like, I like to sing a little higher or I'd like to sing a little lower. And there's stuff we can do to work on that, but at the end of the day, your vocal range is what your vocal range is. It is what it is, guys. And that's okay. And listen, stay in your lane. Let me be in my lane. Let her be in hers. No, I'm saying you stay in your lane, let me be in my lane. If I say it's too high, it's too high. That's and that's completely understandable. Will Katie always be making me sing high? Yeah. Well, you just said you sing the F. I'm like, I know. I don't know what you made me. But look. And I'm gonna be singing that low Gina. That's Gina. Gina making me. That's Gina. Damn Katie and Gina always making people do hard stuff. When we were in a rehearsal last night, um, one of the actresses, she's a voice student of mine and and a friend, and she sang something, and the director's like, Oh, you have your rhythm a little off there. And she goes, Katie said it was okay. And I was like, everyone stares at me. I was like, how dare you betray it? I said, No, I said, and then everyone just had a good giggle. I was like, but if the director wants you to do it that other way, it was just really funny. And then later she's like, I didn't even mean to throw you under the bus. I'm like, it's okay. Because it was more of like a I think it's fine if you do it that way, because it's like you sing it by yourself, blah blah blah. It was just really funny how it all went down, and everyone's staring at me, and I'm like, Katie told me to. Yeah, and then the people started doing that. They're like, Well, Katie said, I was like, get out of here. Get out of here with that. Just but anyway, all right. No more vocal discussions today. Today. Um, thanks for tuning in, and I hope you're having a great kickoff to your Christmas season now that Thanksgiving's behind us, and we'll see you next time on Generation in Between. Bye.