Columns

The storyline that changed television history

Published

3 weeks ago

December 17, 2024

Charles M. Schulz created a comic strip that captured the hearts of millions in the nearly 50 years that Peanuts ran in thousands of newspapers around the world. Schulz, an amiable and soft-spoken Minnesota native and World War II veteran, had been drawing the daily strip since 1950. Fifteen years later, he would be responsible for a Christmas story that has since become a cultural icon. But it was almost entirely by accident.

In April 1965, executives at the Coca-Cola Company contacted their advertising agency, McCann-Erickson in New York, and asked if there were any Christmas specials they could sponsor that winter, still months away. The ad agency immediately suggested an adaptation of Schulz’s Peanuts strip even though none had even been proposed and Schulz had not even thought of the idea.

Within days, Schulz, along with producer Lee Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez, produced a story outline. Executives at CBS agreed to air the special but only gave it a budget of $76,000 (or $716,000 in 2022 dollars).

In spite of the special’s purpose of advertising Coca-Cola, Schulz chose a storyline that was critical of crass profiteering and emphasizing the simple message of the Christmas spirit. By the early 1960s, many cultural commentators had already criticized the commercialization of Christmas and the emphasis on gifts and holiday spending. In 2021, Americans spent hundreds of billions on Christmas by one estimate, so much that many businesses depend on brisk Christmas shopping to stay afloat.

In the storyline that emerged, inspired by strips that Schulz had run, the main character Charlie Brown was feeling disconnected and depressed as Christmas approached as everyone around him made demands on receiving extravagant gifts, including his sister Sally asking Santa Claus in a letter to make it simple by just sending “tens and twenties.”

As part of directing a Christmas play, Charlie Brown and his friend Linus, a blanket-toting theologian, attempt to buy a Christmas tree. The two find a lot filled with the aluminum Christmas trees that had become popular by the early 1960s. Thinking the aluminum trees were too superficial, Charlie Brown chose the one live tree available, a small, dilapidated sapling. Mocked by his friends about his choice of tree later, he asked what the meaning of Christmas was, prompting Linus to quote Luke 2: 8-14 from the Bible on the birth of Christ. “And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” Linus said to Charlie Brown, satisfied and inspired by the answer.

The network, studio executives, and advertisers were reluctant to include the monologue. The biggest question they had was whether it was in good taste to take a scriptural message so special to millions of Americans and turn it into a cartoon. Television had only been widely available for a little over a decade by the 1960s. Television animation had been around for almost as long, but critics did not see it as very sophisticated. Schulz, however, insisted that the scene be included. In the process, it became the first time the Bible was quoted in a television cartoon.

Animators worked feverishly to produce the thousands of images needed for a cartoon before the deadline. With 12 images needed each second for a 25-minute special, their work was cut out for them as each needed to be drawn and colored by hand. Children auditioned to voice the characters with 8-year-old Peter Robbins cast as Charlie Brown and Christopher Shea as Linus, who would both repeat their roles in future specials. CBS executives were uncertain how audiences would react to the cartoon, trying without success to convince Schulz, Mendelson, and Melendez to make changes to the production, already over budget.

A Charlie Brown Christmas aired on December 9, 1965. More than 15.5 million households watched. It immediately became a classic. Its heartwarming message that Christmas was more than about shopping became a comfortable reminder for millions. The special won an Emmy Award in 1966. It had such a profound impact on American culture that aluminum Christmas trees ceased to be made by 1968. In the following years, the special was translated into numerous other languages and broadcast in countries around the world. CBS agreed to produce more Peanuts cartoons, averaging about one per year into the 1990s. And a slew of other Christmas specials, inspired by the Peanuts success, would follow in the years afterward.

With the popularity of A Charlie Brown Christmas, CBS would air the special each December until 2000 when it was picked up by ABC for a few years afterward. Now, it is broadcast on digital streaming networks. Nearly 60 years after its first airing, it is still a program enjoyed by millions of children and also parents and grandparents who grew up watching it. Its simple message criticizing the commercialization of the holiday and emphasizing the true meaning of Christmas still resonates in the twenty-first century as countless people continue to look to Christmas as a time of family and togetherness and a time of the special promise of a manger in Bethlehem.

Columns

BRIDGES: When the dinosaurs roamed Arkansas

Published

2 days ago

January 8, 2025

Staff Reports

Dinosaurs have been extinct for many millions of years, but they still fuel the imaginations of many people today. Dinosaurs came in all shapes and sizes. Some flew, others swam, and others were massive creatures weighing thousands of pounds. They dominated the landscape between 240 million and 65 million years ago. Dinosaurs even lived in ancient Arkansas, but it was an Arkansas very different from today.

The first dinosaur bone was discovered in 1677 by scientist Robert Plot in England. Many more discoveries followed. It was not until 1824 that English paleontologist William Buckland wrote the first scientific paper on the discovery of a jawbone of what he called a megalosaurus that dinosaurs received their scientific name and became a field of scientific study.

Remains of creatures predating the dinosaurs by millions of years have been found across the state. Fossilized remains of ancient sharks from the age of the dinosaurs as well as shark teeth have also been found in the state. Most dinosaur remains and footprints in the state have been found in an area called the Holly Creek Formation in Howard County, a formation dating back to the Cretaceous Era (approximately 143-65 million years ago). In that era, most of the familiar features of the state did not yet exist. The Ouachita Mountains were only foothills, rivers such as the Arkansas and Mississippi would not cut their way across America for millions more years, and much of southern and eastern Arkansas was under water, leaving many parts of South-Central Arkansas as beachfront property at different points.

The decay of vegetation in the shallower areas of this sea toward the end of this marine era allowed the formation of oil in what became the ten southernmost counties of Arkansas over the ensuing eons. Much of the area of Texas, Oklahoma, portions of Colorado and New Mexico, and most of the Great Plains north into Canada to the Arctic Ocean was part of a great sea that geologists now call the Western Interior Seaway.

In Arkansas, only a handful of species of dinosaurs are believed by paleontologists to have existed in the area. Among them, Plesiosaurs apparently swam in the shallow seas around what became the Ouachita Mountains, and their remains have been found as far south as Antarctica. There were several different types of plesiosaurs, and sizes discovered range from 5 feet long to almost 50 feet long. These were large predators who spent their entire lives swimming and hunting in the sea.

Footprints of the giant dinosaur Sauroposeidon have been found the state. This dinosaur was a large plant eater. It lived about 118-110 million years ago. It was a massive creature, about 60 feet tall and 90 feet long, with an extremely long neck. They weighed as much as 55 tons. Remains of the Sauroposeidon have been found in Texas and Southeast Oklahoma.

The Arcocanthesaurus also lived in Cretaceous-era Arkansas. This was a powerful predator, similar to the famed Tryannosaurus rex, which also ran on its hind legs. The Arcocanthesaurus lived 113-110 million years ago. Remains have been found in portions of Southeast Oklahoma, East Texas, and as far as North Carolina. These creatures had spines along their backs, were 13 feet high and 39 feet long, and weighed about 6 tons. Remains similar to this dinosaur have been found in Southwest Arkansas, but more study of the remains needs to be done before a positive identification can be made.

The Arkansaurus was discovered by J. B. Friday in a gravel pit near Lockesburg in Sevier County in 1972. Dr. James Harrison Quinn of the University of Arkansas assembled the fragments of foot bones that were found in 1973. ReBecca Hunt-Foster added to Quinn’s work in 2018, with research suggesting that the Arkansaurus in some ways resembled a modern ostrich but much larger, perhaps 15 feet long and weighing 300 pounds, living about 100-140 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. To date, this is the most complete set of dinosaur remains found in Arkansas.

Fossilized footprints of dinosaurs have been found in several areas of the state. One notable set was found in 1983 preserved in limestone near a gypsum mine near Nashville. These footprints were along the ancient shoreline of approximately 100 million years ago. Another set was found near this location in 2011.

The age of the dinosaurs ended abruptly approximately 65 million years ago when an asteroid impact in the Yucatan Peninsula area caused a global mass extinction event, wiping out half of all animal species on Earth, including all dinosaur species. Today, the fascination with dinosaurs continues. In 2017, the Arkansas legislature, in a move led by Sen. Greg Leding of Fayetteville, chose the Arkansaurus as the state’s official dinosaur. Arkansas was the ninth state to so designate an official dinosaur species.

Columns

BOOZMAN: Delivering More Support for Veterans and Caregivers

Published

2 weeks ago

December 30, 2024

Staff Reports

Elizabeth Dole has been a staunch advocate for our veterans, helping lead a movement to support and uplift them and the caregivers who work tirelessly to meet their needs. That passion came from her own life experience as the spouse of a disabled veteran, former Senator Bob Dole.

Today, she continues this important work to elevate issues and enact solutions for our ill and injured former servicemembers as well as their loved ones. Her legendary status among this community continues to inspire while driving forward improvements to the policies that impact them.

And she is certainly not alone in her concern. From the time I entered Congress, my mother – the wife of a retired Air Force Master Sergeant – would frequently ask me, “Are you taking care of the veterans?”

That persistent question has helped remind me to work hard every day to live up to the sincere expectation of all those concerned about the welfare of the Americans who have worn our nation’s uniform.

As a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I continue to take that approach to the problems and opportunities that arise as we evaluate the benefits and services they have rightfully earned.

I’m pleased that we are ending this Congress by approving a comprehensive veterans policy package that delivers needed reforms and strengthens support for them and their caregivers.

The legislation, fittingly named the Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act, improves access to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) care and benefits, enhances programs for student veterans and their families, and provides increased oversight to ensure the VA is meeting its lawful obligations.

It delivers on many of the priorities Veterans Service Organizations have long pushed to achieve and represents an important step forward to better serve the men and women who honorably served our country.

This advancement to the quality and capacity of care the VA offers is good news, and I was honored to secure several specific provisions in this landmark bill.

Measures I helped author to bolster recruitment and retention of VA clinicians, support training for current and future providers to ensure veterans receive the highest quality of care, and provide more oversight and transparency on its efforts addressing leadership vacancies were all included.

Additionally, my latest push to confront the veteran suicide crisis was also incorporated into the larger package. This initiative – the Not Just a Number Act – requires the VA to examine veterans’ benefits usage in its annual suicide prevention report in order to evaluate the relationship between VA benefits and suicide outcomes, analyze which benefits have the greatest impact on preventing suicide, and issue recommendations for expansion of those benefits to further combat it.

We were also able to extend VA burial benefits eligibility to terminally ill veterans who pass away at a non-VA facility while receiving hospice care, as well as ensure training for VA employees on reporting waste, fraud and abuse in coordination with the VA Office of the Inspector General.

These are all important and timely wins that should make us proud.

Our nation’s promise to those who have served does not apply only to Republicans or Democrats; it must be kept for each person who answered that calling. I am proud to continue that effort daily and join those enthusiastically welcoming these latest enhancements for the heroes we all deeply respect and admire.

Columns

BRIDGES: The many ways of celebrating a new year

Published

2 weeks ago

December 27, 2024

Grant Merrill

Once Christmas has passed, the world looks to a new year. Many wonder what the new year will bring while planning their own ways of ringing in 2025. Some will mark the new year quietly while others will celebrate with friends and family. The new year will see many important events, as with any other year. New laws will take effect, new politicians will be sworn into office, and new elections take place in other countries. Important discoveries will be made, scandals will erupts, triumphs and tragedies alike will be seen. But what these events will be is yet unknown. On New Year’s Eve, the world will pause to reflect on one eventful year and look ahead to another.

Observances of the new year date back thousands of years as ancient peoples recognized the regular shifting patterns of stars at night and the sun in the day and their connection to particular seasons. The earliest observances of January 1 for the beginning of the year began with the Romans around 713 BC. The Romans named the first month of their lunar calendar year January after the Roman god Janus, who supposedly was the god of time and also the god of beginnings and transitions. According to legend, Janus had two faces, one looking into the past and the other looking into the future. It was a day marked with great celebrations.

In New York City, the famous dropping of the Times Square Ball will mark the new year. It is a tradition dating back to New Year’s Eve 1907 when Adolph Ochs, then owner of The New York Times, devised it as a way of celebrating the new year by having the glass ball lowered on the roof of his newspaper building. The modern ball, its fifth incarnation, is glass, twelve feet in diameter, and weighs nearly 12,000 pounds. It was manufactured by Waterford Crystal and has more than 32,000 LED lights illuminating it. It is the most popular new year’s observance in the United States, with up to one million people attending in person each year.

The tradition of Rosh Hashanah marks the tradition of the Jewish new year, which means “head of the year” in Hebrew, a tradition dating back to the Old Testament. This holiday is not observed in January but sometime in September or October, depending on the lunar calendar. The two-day celebration includes many symbolic foods, including apples dipped in honey to mark a sweet new year. It is a national holiday only in Israel and Ukraine. In 2025, it will begin at sunset on September 23.

For the Hopi and Zuni tribes of the Southwest, the new year is traditionally celebrated on the winter solstice, December 21. It is marked with prayers, rituals, and feasts, all of which can last up to nine days. The Navajo observe the new year with the new moon in October, usually the first new moon after the beginning of fall.

In most countries throughout the world, January 1 is an official holiday to mark the beginning of the new year. Even many non-western countries will observe January 1 as New Year’s Day because of the overwhelming influence of European and American business and culture for the past few centuries as they ultimately adopted the modern Gregorian calendar used throughout the West, even in officially atheist nations like China.

The Chinese New Year will not start until January 29. Under the Chinese Zodiac system dating back many centuries, 2025 will mark the Year of the Snake. In China, the snake is associated with intelligence but also trickery and deceit. In China, fireworks are set off to mark the new year and to also scare off demons and forces of darkness. In China, families often gather to celebrate the new year.

Similarly, January 29 will mark the traditional Vietnamese New Year, known as Tet. The Vietnamese lunar calendar is very similar to the Chinese calendar. The Vietnamese Zodiac also makes 2025 the Year of the Snake. By tradition, a great feast is prepared, family reunions are held, and many celebrations are held in cities across the country. Many in Vietnam see Tet as the beginning of spring as well. Cleaning the home is also part of the traditional observances to symbolically clean out the bad spirits from the previous year.

Different types of food are also associated with the New Year’s celebrations. In India, rice is eaten for prosperity in the new year. Buttered bread is supposed to be good luck in Ireland. In Spain, people traditionally eat 12 grapes at midnight, one at each chime, to bring luck for the year. In the American South, black-eyed peas are eaten for good luck for the new year. Leafy green vegetables like collard greens are supposed to symbolize prosperity. In Scotland, gifts of silverware or pastries are traditionally given for luck. In the Philippines, Christmas and New Year’s Day celebrations are often combined.

Many celebrations will mark the beginning of the year as the world heads into the future.