content: This is one of the sweetest, sad, funny, and actually profound Christmas specials ever. Well, maybe not Dostoyevsky deepness, but there is quite a lot of depth here, unlike a lot of modern Christmas specials, which are just plugs for toys. The suits at CBS hated this series. They thought it was too intelligent for kids, and they didn't like Vince Guardaldi's jazz score (which is a bonafide classic now). It almost didn't air. Luckily, it did, and we are all better people for it.