gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

charlie brown christmas

One of the great moments in TV History (and there are surprisingly few) is "A Charlie Brown Christmas". First broadcast in 1965, it still resonates.

The story is BEAUTIFUL and AMAZING in its simplicity.

[SYNOPSIS:] All the kids (The Gang) decide they need a Christmas tree for their clubhouse.

So they pool their pocket money together to buy one. Charlie Brown is given the task of taking their money down to the Chrismas tree store and buying the best tree he can with the money. Linus elects to tag along.

On Christmas Eve they get to the Christmas tree store. But what's this? All the trees in the store are fake! Plastic and tin!

Except for one knarly, little twig of a tree. Scraggy and hopeless-looking. About a quarter the height of the fake trees.

But it was the only real tree in the store. So Charlie Brown buys it.

When he gets the tree back to the clubhouse, The Gang, of course, are furious with Charlie Brown's choice.

But it was the only real tree in the store...

The older I get, the more that story punches me right in the kisser.

We advertising-marketing folk think we're pretty darn clever when we're droning on about the post-Cluetrain "Authentic Voice" etc.

Charlie Brown beat us to it by almost 40 years.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Posted by hugh macleod at December 24, 2004 11:08 AM | TrackBack