Lee Mendelson, the longtime producer of Peanuts TV specials who wrote the lyrics for the yuletide classic “Christmas Time Is Here,” died on Christmas Day at the age of 86.
Mendelson’s sons confirmed the A Charlie Brown Christmas producer’s death following a long battle with lung cancer to the Palo Alto Daily Post. “It wasn’t great for us, but to have him pass on Christmas really ties into his history and legacy,” his sons said.
Mendelson first linked up with Peanuts creator Charles Schulz after the cartoonist saw Mendelson’s documentary about baseball legend Willie Mays in 1963. The plan originally was for Mendelson’s production company to make a documentary about the Peanuts comic strip, but the two instead decided to create the now-classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.
“Guaraldi 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, ‘Maybe we could get a lyricist to put some words to this,’” Mendelson told Rolling Stone in 2015.
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