{"id":974195,"date":"2019-12-27T12:20:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T19:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=931727"},"modified":"2019-12-27T12:20:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T19:20:58","slug":"lee-mendelson-peanuts-producer-and-christmas-time-is-here-co-writer-dead-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/lee-mendelson-peanuts-producer-and-christmas-time-is-here-co-writer-dead-at-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee Mendelson, \u2018Peanuts\u2019 Producer and \u2018Christmas Time Is Here\u2019 Co-Writer, Dead at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/TCDCHBR_EC004W.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Lee Mendelson, the longtime producer of <em>Peanuts<\/em> TV specials who wrote the lyrics for the yuletide classic \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/christmas\/\" id=\"auto-tag_christmas\" data-tag=\"christmas\">Christmas<\/a> Time Is Here,\u201d died on Christmas Day at the age of 86.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mendelson\u2019s sons confirmed the <em>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/charlie-brown\/\" id=\"auto-tag_charlie-brown\" data-tag=\"charlie-brown\">Charlie Brown<\/a> Christmas<\/em> producer\u2019s death following a long battle with lung cancer to <a href=\"https:\/\/padailypost.com\/2019\/12\/27\/lee-mendelson-executive-producer-of-peanuts-tv-specials-dies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">the <em>Palo Alto Daily Post<\/em><\/a>. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t great for us, but to have him pass on Christmas really ties into his history and legacy,\u201d his sons said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mendelson first linked up with <em>Peanuts<\/em> creator Charles Schulz after the cartoonist saw Mendelson\u2019s documentary about baseball legend Willie Mays in 1963. The plan originally was for Mendelson\u2019s production company to make a documentary about the <em>Peanuts<\/em> comic strip, but the two instead decided to create the now-classic <em>A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mendelson is also credited with hiring Vince Guaraldi, a fellow Bay Area resident who caught Mendelson\u2019s era with a jazz tribute to the Golden Gate Bridge, to do music for the television special. The result was one of the most beloved Christmas albums; <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> listed Vince Guaraldi Trio\u2019s <em>A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em> at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-lists\/the-25-greatest-christmas-albums-of-all-time-148740\/willie-nelson-pretty-paper-1979-81801\/\">Number Four on our 25 Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time list<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> <!-- .l-article-content__pull--left --> <\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Guaraldi \u2014 who recorded the special\u2019s soundtrack in just one three-hour studio session, the trio\u2019s drummer Jerry Granelli told <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> \u2014 initially composed \u201cChristmas Time Is Here\u201d as an instrumental before Mendelson added lyrics to the piece.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-contextual-player\">\n<h3> Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4PzetPqepXA?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cGuaraldi had written a very beautiful melody for the opening skating scene, but about two weeks before it was about to run on the air, I thought, \u2018Maybe we could get a lyricist to put some words to this,\u2019\u201d Mendelson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/a-charlie-brown-christmas-at-50-the-making-of-a-classic-soundtrack-233002\/\">told <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2015<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI called a few lyricist friends of mine, and everyone was busy. So I sat down at my kitchen table and I wrote out a few words, and we rushed it to the choir that Vince Guaraldi had been working with in San Francisco. And he recorded it, and we got it into the show about a week before it went on the air.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">A Charlie Brown Christmas would go on to win an Emmy Award in 1966 for Outstanding Children\u2019s Program and launch a collaboration between Mendelson Productions and the <em>Peanuts<\/em> brand that has spanned over 50 years, including <em>It\u2019s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown<\/em>, <em>A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving<\/em>, <em>Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (And Don\u2019t You Come Back)<\/em> and, most recently, 2015\u2019s <em>It\u2019s Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown<\/em>, a celebration of the original special and which also won the Outstanding Children\u2019s Program Emmy in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe whole thing from beginning to end has been surreal,\u201d Mendelson told <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cThe fact that it\u2019s become such a permanent part of the holiday season is surreal. And every time I hear it on the radio, or I hear it in a store, or someone says, \u2018wah, wah, wah,\u2019 I realize we\u2019re very lucky to have been associated with Mr. Schulz and his characters. It all comes back to his characters, and his philosophy, and his humor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/lee-mendelson-peanuts-producer-charlie-brown-christmas-time-is-here-co-writer-dead-obit-931727\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lee Mendelson, the longtime producer of Peanuts TV specials who wrote the lyrics for the yuletide classic \u201cChristmas Time Is Here,\u201d died on Christmas Day at the age of 86. Mendelson\u2019s sons confirmed the A Charlie Brown Christmas producer\u2019s death following a long battle with lung cancer to the Palo Alto Daily Post. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-974195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 06:17:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}