My grandson, Zev, is a Pigpen. I don't mean he's messy or dirty because, as those things go, he's not. Quite the contrary, in fact. But he is currently playing the role, one of two Pigpens, in the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble's production of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.'
You're not surprised. All over the country, theater companies large and small are putting on the same play over the Christmas holidays, and lord knows how many millions across the world will watch 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' on streaming, and millions more will nod along to Vince Guaraldi's snappy score.
The Bloomsburg production is a massive success, with most of the shows sold out. After he did three performances, I told Zev that by the age of 10, he had already performed before more people than I did in four years of mediocre high school basketball. And, I say this with much hesitation because it's the Christmas holidays and all, but I don't really get it. I've always found the whole Peanuts thing a little overrated, and consider its creator, Charles Schulz, who died in 2000 at age 77, to be the luckiest cartoonist who ever lived. Not to mention, I assume, the richest. Now, that is not, I grant you, a popular or widespread notion.
'A Charlie Brown Christmas' first played on American tv in 1965. It was the first of seemingly a million Peanuts specials to subsequently appear on tv, and it remains the king of them all. From the beginning, the program just worked, and keeps on working through monumental changes in society's cultural tastes, which is what surprised me. In my opinion, it's not all that funny or even witty.
Gary Larson, who drew the Far Side strip before retiring at the height of his powers, was, on his worst day, funnier than Mr. Schultz. I'll never forget the strip when an exasperated teacher standing in front of a classroom of dogs asks, "Okay, did anyone not eat his homework?" And Larson's strip often had an edge, as with a good bi-note from a student mentions a box she left behind for the class with good wishes. The note was signed, "From Pandora."
Yet, somehow, Schulz succeeded in becoming the cartoonist of "deep meaning." I'll never forget a headline from the Globe Times about a speaker who had spoken before a local club to discuss the Peanuts strip, and Snoopy in particular. "Cartoon Dog Linked to Life's Meaningfulness," read the headline. Please.
But Schulz does deserve some credit. He created a mini universe with a disparate set of characters. His Charlie Brown was not a hero, nor the most popular kid, but rather an outsider loner. Schulz excluded adults from his world, making his world seem like the province of kids; something for them. And, though Schulz doesn't deserve credit for this, along came Guaraldi, a friend, incidentally, of Jerry Garcia. In fact, whether or not Guaraldi actually ever jammed onstage with the Grateful Dead is a matter of ongoing debate among Dead Heads.
But I think what goes along with 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' is what we look for in the holiday season: a comfortable continuum, memories, family, a mood and a tone. I get it and I'm fine with it. I also told Zev that Charles Schulz once commented that he regretted the character of Pigpen, its one-joke nature. But Zev said he doesn't care, it's just fun.
So, let's have Guaraldi play us off here with a few seconds of Linus and Lucy. But you already knew that.
