Charlie Brown and Snoopy celebrated Thanksgiving … thanks to Willie Mays?

A handful of popcorn, a stack of pretzel sticks, two pieces of buttered toast, and some jelly beans are not the traditional Thanksgiving dinner -- unless you're dining with Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty and your caterer is Snoopy. That's the menu, of course, for the beloved Peanuts holiday classic "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," which turns 40 next year.

The Thanksgiving special, the third animated holiday show Peanuts creator Charles Schulz and producer Lee Mendelson created, doesn't always get the love showered on "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." But with that special dinner menu, Snoopy's throw-down with a ping-pong table and a chair, and the Peanuts specials' trademark of spotlighting the true meaning of a holiday, "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" continues to be a beloved holiday tradition for generations of viewers.

Yahoo! TV had the chance to chat with Mendelson, the now-retired Emmy and Peabody award winner who first talked Schulz into taking Charlie Brown and company from the comics to television. Mendelson told us it's actually Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays who gets the credit for the Peanuts holiday specials.

What is Willie Mays's connection to the Peanuts holiday specials?

We just had a dinner for Willie Mays, who lives nearby, a few days ago, and I recounted the story that Willie Mays is totally responsible for these holiday shows. In 1963, I did a documentary on Willie Mays, which was on NBC and did really well. Thirty percent of the population tuned in to see it. And I thought, "Well, we've done the world's greatest baseball player." Then I was reading the Charlie Brown baseball comic strips, and I said, "Maybe we ought to do the world's worst baseball player, Charlie Brown."

I called Charles Schulz, who lived nearby. I didn't know him, but his number was in the phonebook. And I said we'd really like to animate Charlie Brown. He said, "No, I'm really not interested. I just want to do my comic strip. I've had other people call and want to animate (the comic), but I just don't think I'm ready to do that yet." And I said, 'Did you happen to see the Willie Mays documentary last week?" He said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Willie's a hero of mine and I loved the show. Why are you asking?" I said, "Well, we did that show. Now, we want to do the world's worst ballplayer."

There was a long pause, and I remember to this day what he said. He said, "Well, if Willie Mays can trust you with his life, maybe I should trust you with Charlie Brown's life. Why don't you come up and let's talk about it." So if it hadn't been for Willie Mays, there would be no Charlie Brown Christmas, no Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin, and no Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

[Related: Willie Mays's '61 uniform sells for $31,000 on 'Pawn Stars']

Another reason to love Willie Mays …

That's right. In fact, Willie appeared in the Peanuts comic strips seven times, more than any other living person, and he was a big, big hero of Charles Schulz.

Does he know that he has this connection to these beloved holiday shows?

Oh yes, we've remained friends for 50 years. We live only 20 minutes apart. But I thought it was fun to make it public the other night at the dinner.

What was the inspiration for the Thanksgiving special?

Because it is the third show we did, we had a little more fun with it than some of the other shows. What we enjoyed about (the holiday), on the entertainment side, was that so much goes on in preparing Thanksgiving meals. There's a lot of love involved. There's a lot of family involved, and there's also a lot of controversy amongst families. "How we are going to cook it, and how are we going to serve it?" That's why we had a lot of fun with Snoopy cooking the popcorn and other nontraditional Thanksgiving items.

Snoopy's menu is one of the best parts of the special. Why popcorn, toast, jellybeans, and pretzel sticks?

It was really, to be honest, to have fun with the holiday. We thought it would be a funny way to approach it, because we all know the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We thought this is what would happen if Snoopy took over … that it would be total chaos, which of course is what it becomes.

Have you heard from people who re-create Snoopy's menu as part of their own Thanksgiving tradition?

No, that's something. I had not heard about that. I heard that at Christmas time, people will go into tree farms and say, "We just want a little Charlie Brown tree, or something like a Charlie Brown tree."

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What was the response to the special when it premiered?

It did very well from the beginning, and even today, it usually gets the same high rating that the other two (holiday specials) get. It's almost like the three go together, and people watch them together over the holiday season, which is very gratifying 40 and 50 years later.

You've won Emmys, Peabody Awards, but it must be amazing to see that people are still watching these specials 50 years later, and that new families are making them a part of their holidays every year.

Funny thing, when we finished the Christmas special and looked at it for the first time, before we delivered it to the network, Bill Melendez, who is the animator, and I were a little leery if it was good or not. We were concerned that maybe the show wasn't going to work. One of the animators who was sitting with us, Ed Levitt, stood up in the back and said, "This is going to run for 50 years." We all laughed at him and said we'd be happy if it ran once or twice. We all teased him for saying that, but it turned out to be quite prophetic.

The loyalty from our viewers has been tremendous, and we're most appreciative of that loyalty.

[Related: See photos from 'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving']

What is your favorite part of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving"?

For some reason, it always strikes me as funny that Snoopy's making popcorn. That's a scene that always sticks. And Snoopy fighting the chair, trying to set it up, because that was one of the more wild scenes we did with Snoopy.

That is another classic scene, with Snoopy battling the anthropomorphic chair. Snoopy really steals the show between his catering and setting up the dinner party.

That was the animator, Bill Melendez. He decided it might be fun to have Snoopy go a little wild there. Bill (had been) an animator at Disney, and that was probably the scene that was more Disney like than we had done or would do. But it was just him having fun this one time.

[Related: 5 memorable TV Thanksgivings]

As with all the holiday specials, the music in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is so infectious. Did Vince Guaraldi write "Little Birdie" just for the special?

Oh, yes, the Vince Guaraldi music on all the holiday shows is so critical. Vince, who composed the music and played the piano, of course, came in and said, "I'm going to sing a song that I wrote for the show." I thought, oh my goodness, he wants to sing? I didn't know how it was going to be, because I hadn't heard him sing. But he came in and recorded it, and it was, of course, great. It's a really fun part of the special, and his singing debut in the specials.

One question about the end of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." … We see Woodstock and Snoopy enjoying a turkey dinner, Woodstock eating turkey. Does that make him a cannibal?

(Laughing) That's so funny that you would bring that up. … I had forgotten about that, but I remember when Mr. Schulz said, "I think we're going to have Woodstock be at the dinner," and I said, "You can't have him eating the turkey!" It bothered me a little bit, and of course, the more it bothered me, the more he enjoyed doing it.

Do you still watch the holiday specials every year when they come on?

Sometimes, yes. I particularly watch the holiday shows with my grandchildren now. I think Charles Schulz said once that there would always be a market for innocence in this country. I think these shows probably prove that. We still get mail from people saying they like the shows, because it's one time the whole family can all get together with different generations, and that proves true in my own case when I sit down with my grandchildren to watch them. Grandparents who (watched the shows as) kids are now sitting down with their grandkids, and that gives me a very warm feeling.

"A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" airs Wednesday, 11/21 and Thursday, 11/22 at 8 PM on ABC.