This Ford's for You, Charlie Brown!

Tonight, apparently, the franchise-launching holiday classic and Vince Guaraldi vehicle A Charlie Brown Christmas will air on network television, whatever that is. If you don't happen to have a two-year-old girl whose entire incentive structure is anchored on behaving well enough in school to merit watching Peanuts DVDs at night, it's possible that you've forgotten the special's major if soft-pedaled subtheme: That commercialization is distorting and obscuring "what Christmas is all about."

Cue the kids at 10 Zen Monkeys, who exclusively reveal that Charlie Brown's first foray into animation "followed a six-year period where the whole gang was recording commercials for Ford Motor Vehicles." You know you want to watch:

Not only that, the commercialism-dinging Charlie Brown Christmas was heavily sponsored by Old Coke:

[O]riginally the special ended with the Christmas carol — "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" — being interrupted by the following voice-over: "Brought to you by the people in your town who bottle Coca Cola."

You know what's coming next: classic footage from the 1965 Libertarian Party convention. As Internet hero recon007jf teaches us, "Pay special attention to the girl in the pink dress she seems so free and happy. I'd like to feel that way."

Reason on Charlie Brown here. Thanks to El Destiny for the tip.