Peanuts

Peanuts would have never made it in today's market. Cartoonists love to point out Charles Schultz had a long and happy career in comics and that's the model they want. Schultz had several things going for him. First was the timing. Peanuts was fresh and unique (and really quite good in it's early years considering it's competition) but what really sent it into the stratosphere was the animated specials. Consider this was at a time where there were only three channels and a large portion of the viewing audience watched the same holiday specials. A Charlie Brown Christmas became part of tradition. You talk to kids under 10 now and a large number have never seen this special. Why? Because it's competition are 100 other channels, internet and video games. Had Peanuts been launched today it would at best be considered mediocre.