The TV Zone

August 28, 2003 Thursday ALL EDITIONS

For a Good Man, Bill Melendez, Charlie's Still a Draw

BYLINE: Verne Gay

SECTION: PART II, Pg. B02

LENGTH: 748 words

Today must be a fine, bright day out in Sherman Oaks, Calif., and Bill Melendez must be in a fine mood, too. He is sitting at the same desk he has sat at for years, looking out at a view of the San Fernando Valley, with rows of eucalyptus and the Santa Monica Mountains beyond.

And, he is still working with the same characters - arguably the world's most beloved - with whom he's spent half a glorious lifetime. At 87, he's outlived their creator, Charles Schulz (who died in February 2000), co-created one of the finest half hours of television ever ("A Charlie Brown Christmas") and remains - with longtime production partner Lee Mendelson - steward of the longest-running series in prime time. You'd be in a fine mood, too.

And tomorrow night, the legacy of Schulz continues - a legacy which, in large measure, belongs to Melendez as well. "Lucy Must be Traded Charlie Brown" (WABC/7, 9 p.m.) is another gentle variation on the same good-hearted philosophy that has shaped the 48 other "Charlie Brown" specials, stretching all the way back to 1965. Directed by Melendez and Larry Leichliter, the inarguable truth of "Lucy": It's more important to be loyal to your dog than to win baseball games.

And while "Lucy" may be a brand-new half-hour, Charlie Brown is still very much Charlie Brown. In a roiling ocean of animation dominated by SpongeBobs and Rugrats, Melendez's Charlie Brown series remains rooted in TV's deep past. In style, the programs are flat, single-dimensional, and the pace seems better-suited to post-40-year- olds than to pre-10-year-olds. They (still) have a jazz soundtrack, written by Vince Guaraldi and David Benoit. And like all good things, they are rare - this is only the second in a series for ABC (the previous one, a Valentine's Day special, aired in 2002). The long-running association with CBS, which began in 1965 with "Christmas," yielded just about one special per year, too.

What's most remarkable about "Lucy" is Melendez himself. He is not only a legendary figure in animation, but also a living link to Schulz.

Born in Sonora, Mexico, Melendez spent the 1940s and '50s working in animation for Disney and Warner Bros., but began the most important association of his career when he was at J. Walter Thompson, the ad agency. While there he met Schulz, who had given Ford the right to use some Peanuts characters in its commercials. Mendelson later approached Schulz about an animated special but (as Melendez recalls) was told he'd have to work with "the crazy Mexican" at Thompson.

Mendelson became the producer, Melendez the animator, and the first special was sold to CBS. Both the network and creators hated it, as TV legend has it, but "Christmas" would emerge a classic, and a perennial ratings draw.

Melendez, who still speaks of his old friend "Sparky" (Schulz) as though he were down the hall or in the next room, explains that over the years, "I would often say, let's do this or that, and he'd say, 'No, no, no, once you say it to me, I'll never use it. If I'm going to write these things, don't give me a gag.'" Working without Schulz by his side, Melendez has had to mine some of the old comic strips for material - about 1,800 out of a total of about 18,000 dealt with baseball.

"The story is pretty much as fresh as you can get it, [but] we culled every joke we could from the strip [even though] the situations are very different from the strip. ... I refuse to take Sparky's place and I won't let anyone else do it, either. That's the one thing I owe him."

Mendelson, who says work began on "Lucy" three years ago, explains that the momentous move from CBS to ABC more than a year ago was not rancorous. "No one got mad at anybody else, and in our business, that's strange, [but] it was a business decision... ABC made just an unbelievable offer, and not just for the old shows, but for new ones."

Under the terms of the five-year deal, ABC will air the three evergreen classics (Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving) and new specials - the next an hourlong program called "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown." Which, incidentally, Melendez is at work on right at this moment.

"I'm very happy at my desk," he says. "It's just great. You know, if I weren't coming here every day to my desk, I'd be dead. Some people want to retire, but I say, 'You want to retire from what to what? What are you going to do then?' I'm never going to retire. If they wanted me to work 24 hours a day, I would."

LOAD-DATE: August 28, 2003