How the Beatles and Peanuts creative teams came together at the Oscars

The Bay Area quickly became a mecca for the new beat music. “Bill Graham has built a new infrastructure for the music business,” explains John Lingan, author of A Song for All: The Story of Creedence Clearwater Revival. The community became known for rock music venues. The rise of radio-friendly pop tunes drowned out many jazz tunes, and many traditionalists tried to swim against the tide, deriding the music as a teeny-tiny noise and hoping things like Beatle wigs would be a passing fad.

“But Guaraldi didn’t run away from that,” says Bang. “He was very quick, even quicker than many jazz musicians, at incorporating pop into what he was delivering. While in the 1950s most of what he performed during a club gig came from songs in the Great American Songbook. He has a great version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ that became a staple in his setlist as the 1960s transitioned into the early ’70s.”

Throughout the decade, the Beatles provided the soundtrack for the generation, while Schulz’s Peanuts gang grew to reflect the children growing up during the era. In the 1970s, both groups competed against each other.

“The best story about her relationship with the Beatles was that both Guaraldi and the Beatles were nominated for an Oscar in the same year,” says Bang. “It was when A boy named Charlie Brown, the film came out, and Guaraldi, along with John Scott Trotter and Rod McKuen, were nominated for the song’s score. The Beatles were nominated let it be.”

Directed by Bill Melendez, produced by Lee Mendelson and written by Schulz, A boy named Charlie Brown, the first Peanuts feature film released theatrically, premiered on December 4, 1969. Guaraldi’s soundtrack was nominated for Best Music, Original Song Score at the Academy Awards. It found itself in competition with the soundtracks too The Baby Maker, darling lily, ScroogeAnd let it bewhich hit theaters in May 1970.

By the time the Oscars were awarded, the Beatles had split up. The one who announced their split, Paul McCartney, was the only band member to attend the pre-Oscar dinner. The Peanuts gang filled the extra chairs.