Technology Slice Blog

Charlie Brown Christmas - Before the steady stream of Emmy Awards and Grammy nominations and Oscar consideration came The Idea -- the one that producer-director Lee Mendelson, nearly a half-century later, calls with a certain zest "the best idea I've had in my entire life." "I'd just made a documentary about the best baseball player in the world," Mendelson tells Comic Riffs, referring to his award-winning NBC work about Willie Mays. "So I decided to make a documentary about the worst baseball player in the world." That, naturally, would be Charlie Brown. Mendelson read a "Peanuts" strip about the perennially losing hurler and thought: Why not make a documentary about the cartoon's creator? It turned out to be the best pitch Mendelson ever made. Charlie Brown Christmas Mendelson called fellow Northern California resident Charles Schulz -- "his phone number was listed right in the book," the producer recalls -- and...