It was 65 years ago yesterday, 1 OCT 1950, that the first Peanuts comic strips ran in seven US newspapers; The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Allentown Call-Chronicle, The Bethlehem Globe-Times, The Denver Post, and The Seattle Times. In commemoration, the US Postmaster General was at the Charles M Shultz Museum in Santa Rosa CA yesterday to officially dedicate the release of 10 new Christmas US postage stamps commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the television debut of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
The animated Christmas special was the first to feature Charles M Shultz’s beloved Peanuts characters. A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired on 9 DEC 1965 in evening Prime Time on the CBS network. The animated feature, now broadcast yearly on the ABC network, has joined the line up of annual holiday broadcast classics including; Frosty the Snowman, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, The Littlest Angel and The Little Drummer Boy.
Postmaster General Megan Brennan, was scheduled to be joined for the dedication ceremony by Schulz’s widow Jean Schulz; Schulz’s son Craig Schulz; and, A Charlie Brown Christmas Executive Producer Lee Mendelson. The stamps feature 10 still frames from the animated special. The feature took an unusual route and hired mostly children to voice the characters and at Shultz’s insistence, did not include a laugh track. He is noted to have said, “Let the people at home enjoy the show at their own speed, in their own way.”
The stamps are being issued as Forever stamps and will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce price. The US Postal Service is offering first-day-of-issue post mark service. It is also selling first day covers, as well as, other philatelic collectables.
The stamp images include: Charlie Brown holding the sapling that eventually becomes his Christmas tree; Charlie Brown and Pigpen with a snowman; Snoopy and children ice skating; the cast of the program gathered around the Christmas tree; Linus kneeling by the sparsely decorated Christmas tree; Charlie Brown checking his mailbox for a Christmas card; Charlie Brown and Linus leaning on a snowy brick wall; Charlie Brown and Linus standing by the Christmas tree; a frustrated Charlie Brown standing in front of Snoopy’s doghouse; and, Charlie Brown decorating the tree in front of the prize-winning lights display on Snoopy’s doghouse.
Get information about the philatelic collectables in the Postal Service press release.
The images are courtesy U.S. Postal Service, Copyright 2015 USPS