Lee Mendelson

Leland Maurice Mendelson (March 24, 1933 – December 25, 2019) was an American animation producer and executive producer of many Peanuts animated specials. Biography Mendelson was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Mateo graduating from San Mateo High School. He graduated from Stanford University in 1954 with a degree in English. He was lieutenant in the Air Force for three years. He then worked several years for his father, a vegetable grower and shipper. Career Mendelson's career in television began in 1961, when he started working at San Francisco's KPIX-TV, where he created public service announcements. A fortunate find of some antique film footage of the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair led to Mendelson's first production, a documentary entitled The Innocent Fair. The documentary was the first in a series on the history of the city, San Francisco Pageant, for which Mendelson won a Peabody Award. Mendelson left KPIX in 1963 to form his own production company. His first work was a documentary on Willie Mays, A Man Named Mays. Shortly after the documentary aired, Mendelson came across a Peanuts comic strip that revolved around Charlie Brown's baseball team. Mendelson thought that since he'd just "done the world's greatest baseball player, now [he] should do the world's worst baseball player, Charlie Brown." Mendelson approached Peanuts creator Charles Schulz with the idea of producing a documentary on Schulz and his strip. Schulz, who had enjoyed the Mays documentary, readily agreed. The unaired 1963 documentary, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, was the beginning of a 30-year collaboration between Schulz and Mendelson.