The 7 Darkest Animated Christmas Specials – InsideHook
For starters, this is the greatest Christmas special ever, and one of the greatest animated shorts of all time. The Schultz estate has made some questionable decisions in the last couple decades, but this film (along with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown) is an enduring reminder of what the Peanuts franchise was at the peak of Charles Schultz s powers: a bitingly funny and depressing universe where children voice the seasonal anxieties of adults and participate in activities simply as a way of marching on with their lives. In Christmas, Charlie Brown and friends struggle to produce an under-budgeted nativity play. The suburb they call home is postmodern, in flux, and replacing things green and hearty with commodities aluminum and shiny. It s a dark film in that it pokes at the belly of a forlorn society, searches for the navel, and really finds it. You might cry, and that s okay. Snoopy s also on his worst (best) behavior in this one.
Great music too.