At the Museum, we aim to please—and in doing so we discover new truths all the time.

This blog stems from a visitor’s question. The answer, provided by one of the Schulz Museum volunteers, led to new insights for me.

In January, a Museum visitor asked one of the Museum floor volunteers if she knew whether the voice actors in A Charlie Brown Christmas were also the singers. Little did the volunteer know, the answer to her question lay with another volunteer at the Schulz Museum!

David Willat at the Schulz Museum’s Greeter Stand

David Willat, a longtime member of the ice arena family, has been a Museum volunteer for two years. David’s answer to our visitor contained interesting information to me, so I will share his letter here:

“The voice actors in A Charlie Brown Christmas (those voicing Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, etc.) did not sing the songs in the television show or soundtrack. The singers were choir members of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California.

The singers never met the voice actors at the time. 

This choir had performed with jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi for the first jazz mass to commemorate the opening of Grace Cathedral in San Franciso. The choir and Vince practiced together for about 18 months for the May 1965 event at Grace Cathedral. The Cathedral had been closed for nearly four decades and had just reopened in March of 1965.

The choir members also performed several live concerts with Vince Guaraldi in the Bay Area. In October 1965, two months before A Charlie Brown Christmas was broadcast, Vince recruited a handful of the choir members to do the vocals for the show. These included Christmas Time is Here, Hark the Herald, and others on the soundtrack album which were not included in the television show.

Many takes had to be made of each song because the producer wanted the kids to sound like unprofessional kids from the neighborhood instead of a highly trained choir. The singers were paid $5.00 for their contribution; no one anticipated the positive response or continued popularity of the special or the music.

The singers in the show provide the voices when the Peanuts gang yells “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown,” and the laughter when Charlie brings the tree back to show the rest of the kids.

Several choir members, including me, still live in the Marin/Sonoma/San Franciso area and occasionally get together at Charlie Brown Christmas-related events. The choir members are planning a reunion for the 60^th Anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 2025.”

—David Willat

David at 11 years old

San Francisco recording sessions with Vince Guaraldi at the piano.

I found David’s letter interesting because although I had known that the children’s choir was from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Rafael, I didn’t know they had a history with Vince Guaraldi. They were a seasoned group of performers.

Parents had to sign permission for their children to go to the San Francisco recording session, but no one really understood what they were recording. All they knew was they were recording with Vince Guaraldi.

For that reason, the three recording sessions consisted of different children each time and took place in late September and early to mid-October which was less than 3 months before the special aired.

It has been well documented that the show did not please the sponsors or CBS when they previewed it, but they had no time to find another show. Ironically, as David Willat states, the things the network disliked about the special are the things people still love and talk about today. These include:

• No laugh track
• Using children’s voices instead of adult actors
• Linus quoting the Bible
• Jazz Music

The first three of the above Sparky insisted upon, somewhat to the dismay of Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson. But that day, it all worked.

Vince Guaraldi wrote the background music to the opening skating scene. Before finalizing the scene, it was decided that it needed words, so Lee hurriedly sat at his table and wrote:

“Christmas time is here

Happiness and cheer

Fun for all that children call

Their favorite time of the year

Snowflakes in the air

Carols everywhere

Olden times and ancient rhymes

Of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air

Beauty everywhere

Yuletide by the fireside

And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here

We’ll be drawing near

Oh, that we could always see

Such spirit through the year

Sleigh bells in the air

Beauty everywhere

Yuletide by the fireside

And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here

We’ll be drawing near

Oh, that we could always see

Such spirit through the year”

 

I learned a lot from David, and I hope readers of this blog enjoyed learning these ‘tidbits’ sixty years later.

—Jean Schulz