100 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM Quick: Who’s your favorite character from the Peanuts cartoons? Is it thoughtful Linus, sassy Sally, irrepressible Snoopy or loveable loser Charlie Brown? For brothers Sean and Jason Mendelson, who work together at Lee Mendelson Film Productions in Burlingame, figuring out which characters they most identify with took some soul-searching. A bit ironic, since their late father Lee is the reason that generations of kids grew up watching animated Peanuts specials on TV. In 1963, Lee left his job at KPIX-TV in San Francisco, opened his own company and made a documentary about baseball legend Willie Mays. Lee thought it would be fun to words by ANDREA GEMMET Peanuts on the Peninsula? was a family affair. Glenn and Lynda, older siblings from their father’s first marriage, were the voices of piano-playing Schroeder and curly-haired Frieda in the 1960s. Sean did voice acting as a child, as did Jason, who played the roles of Peppermint Patty and her sidekick Marcie. Both men say they didn’t think much of it at the time. “If there was a special coming out and I had a big part, it might be two hours on a Saturday,” Jason says. They’d go into the studio, their dad would say the lines and he and Sean would say them back to him. “I was in studios doing recordings at four and five years of age, as was Sean.” Then the boys would forget about it—until it aired on TV months later. GOOD GRIEF! do his next documentary on a terrible baseball player—good ol’ Charlie Brown. Lee met with Peanuts creator Charles Schultz to pitch the idea and their mutual admiration for Willie Mays sealed the deal. The documentary A Boy Named Charlie Brown never aired on TV, but it led to their next project: A Charlie Brown Christmas. That hastily-made holiday classic kicked off a creative partnership that produced over 40 Peanuts specials and endured until the beloved cartoonist’s death in 2000. Unlike most kids growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s, Sean and Jason didn’t just watch Charlie Brown specials—they had a hand in making them. Lee Mendelson Productions PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: NORTON PEARL PHOTOGRAPHY - SAN MATEO COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
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