This Day in Pop Culture for December 9

1965: Charlie Brown Celebrates Christmas

On this day back in 1965, CBS aired what is perhaps the greatest TV Christmas special for the first time. However, some people thought that A Charlie Brown Christmas wouldn’t get a second viewing.

Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, wanted to include a few verses from the Bible telling the nativity story which raised a lot of red flags with the network big wigs. They were afraid that the special would end up offending a large audience. Schulz refused to do the special unless the passage was included. CBS relented and to their surprise, the special did amazingly well.

In 2001, the Christmas special moved to ABC where is played every year until 2020 when Apple TV+ purchased the rights to the special (and all of the other Peanuts‘ specials too for that matter) to air exclusively on the streamer.

2016: ‘La La Land’ (Almost) Wins Big

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in *La La Land*. *(Lionsgate)*

The romantic, musical comedy-drama, La La Land was written and directed by Damien Chazelle. He had written the script with a desire to bring back the great Hollywood musical, while making the story to more realistic. However, the beginning of the movie, which opened in theaters on this day, doesn’t start out that way.

The story revolves around Sebastian Wilder (Ryan Gosling) who has dreams of opening his own jazz club and Mia Dolan (Emma Stone) who dreams of becoming an actress. The two meet quite literally on L.A.’s freeway. During a backup on the freeway, all of the drivers get out of their vehicles for the movie’s largest song number. Soon, the couple have an on again/off again romance where when things are good, they were great, but when things were bad … everything was bad.

La La Land seemed to have impressed everybody who watched it having won seven Golden Globes. (They won all of the awards they were nominated for which also set a record.) The movie was also nominated for 14 Academy Awards including Best Picture, which they didn’t win. (At the end of the night, the final award was presented by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Dunaway incorrectly announced that La La Land had won when instead the award went to Moonlight. However, by the time that the correction was made, the crew from La La Land were already giving speeches. That was awkward.)

The movie did win six Oscars for Best Director, Actress (Stone), Cinematography, Original Score, Original Song (“City of Stars”) and Production Design.

1907: Christmas Seals Go on Sale

Christmas Seals, a promotional tool used to promote the American Lung Association, went on sale for the first time on this day in 1907. Emily Bissell came up with the idea after she had read about similar Danish seals used in 1904. Bissell hoped to raise funds for a sanitarium in Delaware.

In 1908, the stamps were used nationally to promote the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (which later became the American Lung Association) and the National Red Cross (which later discontinued their involvement).

In 1987, the term “Christmas Seals” was trademarked by the American Lung Association.

1983: The Tense ‘Terms of Endearment‘

Debra Winger and Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment. *(TVDB)*

Directed by James L. Brooks from a script adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel of the same name, Terms of Endearment dealt with the troubled mother/daughter relationship between Aurora Greenway (Shirley Maclaine) and daughter Emma Greenway (Debra Winger). It was reported that MacLaine and Winger didn’t enjoy working with each other very much while filming, but they only helped with the tension needed for their roles.

To escape her mother’s controlling nature, Emma marries Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels) a college professor. After the birth of the couple’s first child, they move away from Houston to Iowa. Soon, Emma and Flap have two more children and find making ends meet a difficult task. Later Emma accuses Flap of having an affair and then begins to have one herself with the older Sam Burns (John Lithgow). Meanwhile, Aurora realizes that she’s not getting any younger and begins to hook up with the boy next door, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson).

The director had originally wanted Burt Reynolds to play the role of Garrett and wrote the part specifically for him. Reynolds turned it down due to another commitment. Harrison Ford and Paul Newman were also offered the role, but they said no too. Terms of Endearment also starred Danny DeVito, Mary Kay Place and Albert Brooks.

And all of the bickering between the characters come to an end when Emma is diagnosed with stage four cancer. They put their differences aside so that they can support her.

Although the movie has a sad ending, Terms of Endearment did amazingly well in theaters grossing $165 million worldwide. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and walked away with five Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actress (both leads were nominated, but MacLaine won the prize) and Supporting Actor (Nicholson).