I love Charlie Brown — but be honest. Cartoon producers led his Peanuts gang through some truly disturbing stories. As the cartoonist's manic-depressive imagination focussed on his newspaper comic strip, studio executives fumbled for new ways to fill the 40 years after A Charlie Brown Christmas. Now, even though Charles M. Schulz is dead — the cartoons keep coming.
If there's one thing Peanuts specials have taught us, it's that Charlie Brown was still loveable, even when he failed. So let's give that same appreciation to his five worst cartoons....
1. It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown
Disco had been dead for years, but in 1984 Snoopy suddenly discovered the joys of boogie fever. He slapped on a headband, sweats, and a bad case of 80s attitude, then did his best Stayin' Alive strut towards the discotheque, where he met Franklin — the cartoon's only black character — breakdancing on the sidewalk. In the creepiest scene of all, the discotheque is filled with adult-sized Peanuts spinning in narcissistic oblivion.
"All Flashbeagle really consists of is a foursome of thinly strung-together music videos," wrote one viewer, "with very little of the beloved Charles Schulz dialogue filling in between." And forget the familiar jazz soundtrack; this special is mostly dance loops and synthesizers.
This felt old the day it was released — but don't tell Charlie Brown's sister. After Snoopy spontaneously ignites her first grade classroom into a disco inferno, she insists Charlie Brown give his dog some credit. "That's the first time I've ever got an A in Show And Tell."
2. Linus's Towering Inferno
My uncle, the baron, hates strangers, and he will be very upset eef — ooh la la! He is back! He mustn't find you here!
We always knew Linus was a chick magnet, but his dalliance with a stereotypical French girl ends badly, as an overturned candle traps him in a burning Chateau.
Charles M. Schulz had served in World War II — his unit was behind the tanks that liberated Dachau — and he'd wanted to include his unit's village in a Charlie Brown cartoon. To reach this improbable moment, the entire Peanuts gang procures passports, then travels through Europe with Snoopy as their chauffeur. Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown is an artificially sweet travelogue that ends with a melodramatic fire sequence which consists mostly of Linus shouting "Help! Help! Help, Charlie Brown!" over and over again.
The baseball-challenged blockhead successfully rousts the villagers — including one token French Peanut — and as Snoopy wheels out a fire hose, Linus repels away from the flames using his blanket. After a particularly wooden reading of the line "Use my blanket! To catch us!" they all successfully escape a grisly death from smoke inhalation.
The only thing more depressing is the infamous Peanuts Memorial Day special in which Linus again visits World World II battlefields, then recites the poem "In Flanders Fields. " ("We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow...") He then turns to Charlie Brown and asks accusingly: "What have we learned?"
3. Why, Charlie Brown, Why?
Charlie Brown endorsed everything from Zingers to sandwich bread. In fact, the newspaper comic strip accounted for less than a fifth of all Charlie Brown-related revenue, most of which came from merchandising. (Case in point: the commercial in which an exhausted Charlie Brown suddenly perks up after eating "tasty low-sugar Cheerios" before facing certain doom in the boxing ring...)
But sometime in the 70s, Charles M. Schulz took a break from creating children's programming altogether, and began illustrating life insurance brochures. Those weird TV commercials in which Snoopy played a lawyer were only the beginning. The online version showed Charlie Brown illustrating the proper procedure for mourning the death of a family member. ("Immediate care of the body," it read, next to a picture of a very depressed Charlie Brown. "If the deceased has made provisions to donate his or her organs...")
Elsewhere Lucy proudly brandished her discharge papers in an essay about leaving the military, while Schroeder continued his Navy tour of duty and Snoopy continued his career as a Marine. (Complete with buzz cut). Two cute yellow birds were shown getting married, followed by a brochure illustrating the logistics of divorce. One page even showed Woodstock imprisoned for failure to pay child support. But no one really wanted to know why Lucy was carefully scrutinizing her health insurance's pre-natal coverage, and eventually it was replaced by a picture of Woodstock clipping out the phone numbers for an OB/GYN
Only after reading these disturbing brochures were you ready to watch Peanuts: Why Charlie Brown Why — the angstiest cartoon ever, in which a little girl fights leukemia. This 1990 special was nominated for an Emmy, but it's never been clear why Charles M. Schulz wanted to tackle the subject. (Although Charlie Brown was named after a boyhood friend who later died of cancer, a disease which also claimed Schulz's mother.) At one point the hymn "Farther Along" is sung gently in the background of this cartoon. "When death has come and taken our loved ones, It leaves our home so lonely and drear..."
In its tear-jerking conclusion, the little girl's baseball cap flies off her head, revealing that all her hair grew back after her chemotherapy.
4. Snoopy, Come Home
Umberto Eco once wrote about how Snoopy failed to bring Charlie Brown the tenderness he needed. "His solitude becomes an abyss," the deconstructive Italian novelist wrote. "...he proceeds always on the brink of suicide, or at least of nervous breakdown..."
That's the feeling you get watching Snoopy abandon Charlie Brown in Snoopy, Come Home. Charlie Brown stands alone, sad circles around his eyes, not just depressed but actually crying. He returns alone to his joyless room, as a 4-minute ballad chronicles his uncontrollable descent into depression with histrionic violins.
Someone named "TickleMeCthulhu" has uploaded the video to YouTube, along with another clip from the same movie — although it's not particularly cheery either. In the 1972 film the beagle's original owner, now confined to her sick bed, writes him a letter wondering if she's been forgotten. She cries, looking longingly out her window, then sends the letter to Snoopy.
"What could possibly be sadder," one commenter posted, "than a little girl in the hospital missing her dog?!"
5. Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown
Family Guy isn't funny — except when it is — but you've got to acknowledge the audacity in their mean-spirited parody. A miserable grown-up Charlie Brown crashed a reunion of his old gang — sporting tattoos and piercings — then blusters, "What are you looking at? Yeah, it's me, your old punching bag, Charlie Brown. Everybody wish Snoopy and Woodstock were here? Well they're dead!"
The sweetness of Peanuts presents a too-obvious target, and even Simpsons director Jim Reardon took a whack at it. Back when he was an art student in 1986, he created "Bring me the head of Charlie Brown" — an underground three-minute short with the Great Pumpkin offering a bounty for the death of his arch nemesis. The bounty sends Lucy, Schroeder, Linus, and Snoopy on a hunt for Charlie Brown, so when watching the ultra-violent climax you'll probably want your security blanket.
If you search YouTube today for Charlie Brown, you'll find the top matches are amateurish re-dubs of the holiday specials into race-baiting parodies like A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa, or simply, Suck My Black Ass, Charlie Brown.
These parodies are useful only to demonstrate how the Peanuts cartoons would look if you threw away everything that made them so endearing — their gentleness, artfulness, and philosophical humor. Even at their worst, the real Charlie Brown cartoons always had a simple, bittersweet honesty. They didn't always end happily — but maybe that was the point.
The world is full of kite-eating trees.
See Also:
Six Freakiest Children's TV Rock Bands
The Cartoon Porn Shop Janitor: Carol Burnett vs. Family Guy
Five Freaky Muppet Videos
The Simpsons on Drugs: Six Trippiest Scenes
Family Guy is definitely funny, otherwise, a fine article.
Coincidently I watched an episode of Robot Chicken this morning which had a Charlie Brown skit where Linus raises the Great Pumpkin in a black magic ceremony. It then hunts and kills all the characters until Charlie Brown lures it into range of the Kite Eating Tree. It ended with them all dancing in hell…
No, Bo. No.
I agree with everything except Snoopy Come Home. While Charlie’s monologue may be over the top, it reinforces what made Peanuts great: the inherent sadness and isolation of ol’ Chuckeroo. Peanuts connected with me at a very early age because is so unflinchingly represented the cruelty of children; witnessed mostly in the gang’s constant mauling of CB. Snoopy’s exit party remains a genuinely unhappy affair, and compared to today’s kiddie fare crapola at the theatre, SCH seems positively deep, in spite of some genuinely bad songs here and there.
Should #5 even count? While the clip itself wasn’t that funny, it was actually a parody segment from a Family Guy episode, and has no connection to the original team involved in TV specials, films, and commericals endorsed during Schulz’s lifetime.
I’ll have to disagree completely with #4. Snoopy Come Home, along with A Boy Named Charlie Brown, both had a better creative tone than the last two Peanuts films. The story was how the absense of a favorite pet brought harsh times for both Charlie Brown and Lila, both of whom never met each other. It was an interesting revelation that was based partially from the strip itself.
In fact, one of the moments that SHOULD’VE been mentioned was 1991’s “Snoopy’s Reunion”, which supposedly explains how Snoopy was first owned by Lila, then Charlie Brown. It broke several kinds of continuity with the comic strip, especially in the sense that CB got Snoopy long before Sally was born.
Number 5 feels like it’s just there because alot of people hate Family Guy for the kind of humor it has.
This just got linked on the “Cartoon Brew” blog, and though I come over to check on this with my two cents.
It should be noted that the inspiration for “It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown” was based on Schulz having saw the film “Flashdance” and thought to capitalize on that movie’ success with an animated counterpart of sorts, albeit, a string of vignettes with no real overall plot other than having some songs dispensed through the thing. An LP of the special’s soundtrack was released subsequently. I hate to admit I was 7 years old when I saw that one back in ’84, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it “disco” since by that point it was already shunned by the masses and we had to call it something else like we had in “Flashdance”, at least a reconstituted 80’s version.
“Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown” used to be one of my favorite films growing up on. I never really thought about it as an adult, but I can see where the campy nature settles into that situation. Of course, if you were those kids’ ages, having to take a trip to France, and got stuck in a burning chateau, you’d probably lose all that confidence you’ve build up going up to the attic to have that spring up.
“Why Charlie Brown, Why?” was said to have been produced based on an insistance of a nurse who told Schulz she felt doing something with the Peanuts gang about cancer would help to inform children about it in a comforting way. That’s all I know about that, it has some interesting moments I felt, though heavily piled with things like Snoopy and Woodstock playing doctor at the hospital or other diversions.
The other special you sighted “What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?” was a sort of sequal to the movie “Bon Voyage”, following up on the Peanuts gang’s trip through the French countryside, and visiting those WWI and WWII sites. Schulz had done that in response to lackluster box office return for “Bon Voyage”, and wanted to vindicate for that by having the children learn something on their trip besides staying in on village. I actually loved that special for how much it departed from the usual Peanuts formula through injecting it with historic content I still wouldn’t be able to grasp entirely for another few years (me being 5-6 years old when that special aired). Used to seem rather interesting for a kid like Linus to know a whole lot about the D-Day Invasion at the time when the library and perhaps PBS was the only outlet to find out about WWII in those pre-Internet days.
“Snoopy Come Home” did have some very moving parts, no doubt, thanks to the Sherman Brothers (more familiar for the Disney films they had been the tunesmiths on like Mary Poppins) for having to be involved in writing those tunes (Vince Guaraldi had no part in that film, nor anything past 1976 since his death, replaced by the Bogas/Munsen/Goyette group that did the later music in specials like “Flashbeagle”. The woman who sanged “Do you Remember Me”, Shelby Flint, also did several songs in Disney’s “The Rescuers” years later.
I really wouldn’t put the Family Guy joke in with the top five, only that it exceeds the timeline of the other clips shown (and since Schulz is already dead by the time this had aired I think, hardly watched FG in a long time), but it is a good example of the redicule and parodies that have existed for Peanuts, which seems to have gone into full-force once the strip ended, but it has been around for many decades, going back to the classic Mad Magazine gags of the 60’s and 70’s. Jim Reardon’s film, albeit crude in terms of plot and characterization, is still a dead-pan view of how some might’ve wanted to see happen to the characters beyond their original panels. Of course he didn’t have the capabilities to make it better (being a pencil test, and using some of his Cal Arts buddies for voices, resulting in Charlie Brown getting credited as having three guys do him), it’s an early reminder of the kind of works guys like Reardon would later do on shows like “Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures” (where Jim and Rich Moore got their early starts), The Simpsons and other shows that followed in the 90’s.
Someone else here brought up the Robot Chicken spoof as well (oddly Charlie Brown doesn’t get to die in that but the last shot with the other gang doing their dance cycles in hell was nice). Often spoofs of Peanuts tend to wanna slam those conventions of the animated specials, like the use of the cheap animation in the Xmas special, to the muted trombone noise the adults make, as well as the near-hinted lesbian relationship between Peppermint Patty and Marcie. The Family Guy clip seen here kinda wanted to break from that, with the idea of a reunion seen later on with Charlie Brown having to appear the way his is and brings up whatever sob story he has to tell. It almost reminded me of the way Eddie Murphey went on SNL as the grown-up Buckwheat (from “Our Gang”), yet he still had the same speech impediment and clothes we would associate the former kid as.
Other such parodies in recent years include the one TV Funhouse short from some years ago that went after extending the end of the Xmas special to having the children realize the magic powers they have to change things by waving their hands around (a lift to the limited animation again). MADtv also had one done where the Peanuts gang got thrown into a South Park-like world with the kind of cheap animation and hard-biting dialogue that show contains.
A more interesting video that came out of last year I found myself enjoying was called “Billy Schulz”. Done in the style of a History Channel-like documentary on Charles Schulz, we witness the decay of the Peanuts strip at the hands of an illegitimate son who felt he could continue the strip on his own, only to further ruin it for everyone else.
If anything, I wouldn’t necessarily call the five cartoons above “lame” personally, given the amount of comments on YouTube that do favor them for what the viewers liked about them (of course they’re all probably around the same age as me, and doesn’t reflect a younger mindset who might’ve only saw the few holiday specials on ABC and think that’s the best ones out there). If anything, I felt the lamest specials where those after the mid 70’s when the quality became too standard with less emphasis on doing the holiday stuff in return for more specific plots and whatever else Schulz could cook up in his mind (like the hour-long “It’s The Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown”). The more recent post-Schulz specials that Bill Melendez has been able to churn out have been OK, but often have to gather much of the original strip’s 50 year run to create a new story or vignettes of sorts to string together for a half-hour special. Still, these are just my opinions, plus I’m taking up WAY too much space with my comment anyway!
Bo is wrong. FG stinks. American Dad stinks. Only a 15 year old or an idiot would claim either was funny or original. That FG spot underscores the rich stupidity at FGs core.
Ugh, I remember “Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don’t Come Back!)” That ending was *terrifying* and the rest of the thing was tedious. It and the equally endless and depressing “Snoopy, Come Home” got played on the Disney Channel a lot for some reason as I recall.
I agree with pretty much everything on your list except for #5 (it’s an unauthorized parody, so it doesn’t fit) and #1. Yeah, “Flashbeagle” was dated when it premiered but I liked it a lot and -in marked contrast with the other specials you’ve listed- at least it’s upbeat! (Snoopy would never be allowed on “Dancing With The Stars”; he’d own the whole show.)
I, too, disagree with the notion that Family Guy is a source for humor or enjoyable experiences. The insurance brochures were funnier than that show at its best.
McFarlane, in the half dozen or so shows I watched while people were trying to convince me, “You just haven’t seen enough yet. Watch a fourth one… a fifth one… a sixth one…”, got hold of a funny situation once in a while, and managed to hamfistedly bludgeon it until it was dead. Not only to the point of not being funny any more, but to where I resented that moment of possible potential humor that gave me a glimmer of hope before he beat all the life out of it.
As far as I can tell, half of the alleged humor in the show comes from just showing baby boomer icons using bad language. (The other half comes from repeating the first half over and over and over.)
I loved Snoopy Come Home. So sad. Also, the scenes when Snoopy wasn’t allowed on the bus because he was a dog, reminded me (at age 10, or so) of what my parents told me about segregation. And then, at the end, he gets to go back to Charlie Brown b/c the little girls condo complex was not dog-friendly, it seemed like a silver lining to an oppressive law. (I know this is weird sounding, but it meant a lot to me when I was little.)
I thoroughly disagree with #4. I haven’t seen that special in years, but watching that clip I actually got a little choked up. In a time when animation is afraid to show or play on genuine emotion, stuff like this should never be called “lame”! Look how simply drawn and animated that scene is, and yet how poignant. If that scene does not somehow move you, maybe you need to grow a soul…
I realize it’s kind of an easy target to mention anything from the ’90s, but I remember a time when one could get a discounted “YOU’RE IN THE SUPERBOWL, CHARLIE BROWN” with a minimum 8-gallon fill-up at participating Shell stations. There was a long “punt, pass & kick” segment that smelled like an NFL advertisement.
Only the Flash Beagle was an bad idea but they wanted to keep the spirt of Charlie Brown going, if your really are a fan you would know that. You are wrong on 4 of them. Family Guy shouldent count but yes that was funny. Bon Voyage was one of the best, your an moron for even thinking that. Come Home Snoopy was depressing however it was still good, but it at least has a happy ending. If people killed themselves over this one they were idiots to begin with, it’s just called natural selection. Only the new Charlie Brown stuff is a little off for the fact that Charles Schulz is not around to ok the ideas. There is alot of horrible cartoons out there that should be picked on instead of Charlie Brown. You need to find something better to do with your time…………..
Thinking of the last comment, the worst out of that attempt by the network to increase the longevity of the Peanuts toonage pumping would be “The Charlie Brown & Snoopy Show”, a cheaply strung-together Saturday morning half-hour vignette piece based on stories taken from the comic strips, albeit, animated half as good as an average TV special, often resulting in characters appearing off-model or cheaply drawn from episode to episode. It’s not worth the effort tracking down unless you’re not an obsessed Peanuts nut.
“Your in the Super Bowl Charlie Brown”, along with “It’s Christmastime Again Charlie Brown” where both offered as VHS items that Shell sold off at a discount for whatever how much gas the guy brought up a few comments ago. Both are equally lame on their own terms.
If you don’t think Family Guy is funny, then maybe you should check your pulse and confirm that you are alive. Or maybe its raw nature and Peter’s antics “hit to close to home”. Or perhaps you have the sense of humor of a hot dog. There, I said it. Hot dog.
Bunch of family guy haters huh? I appreciate all kinds of humor, FG has an intense irony that other shows lack.
Agree with most of them except #4 (I LOVED “Snoopy, Come Home”); it was one of the greatest moments in the series (no trumpet-playing adult voices), and had some real dramatic elements to it. It actually dared to go into issues that the comic strip’s conventions shied away from (especially so in an era where the word “emotional” is taboo to any network executive), while still staying true to the overall spirit of the strip.
I also kind of liked “Flashbeagle,” for what it was. I mean, sure it was loosely connected skits, but they were among the best routines devised for the TV specials, with a dose of humor as well.
Oh, and I don’t think #5 really counts. I agree that Family Guy sucks (as does nearly every late-night cartoon targeted at fratboys), but I don’t think an unauthorized parody should be counted (but what do I know?).
It’s not animation, but if anyone’s interested in a more elaborate “Peanuts all grown up” parody, ask your local comic store about AUTOMATIC KAFKA issue 4, written by Joe Casey with art by Ashley Wood. The point they were trying to make (about how a creation surpasses its creator) is a better fit for the overall theme of this post.
Some good points here … and some I just have to disagree with. The over-merchandising of the Peanuts franchise was horrible. I mean give the little shrills SOME shred of dignity. Several of the specials were schmultzy, but that was what they were going through. Usually Linus would be the one to offer the sobering thoughts or moral messages for the special, but the others got in on the preaching too. If you didn’t like that kind of special you didn’t watch it. It’s like complaining you don’t like peope in puffy animal costumes then going to Disney World for vacation.
As for Family Guy. I’ve always found that FG can reach some interesting depths of humour (I’m not saying it lives at these depths but it does go there). Are some of the gags less that funny … of course … nobody hits homeruns every at bat. But some of the pop culture references in FG are defininately worth seeing and laughing at. And for those nay-sayer who have to attack the intelligence level of anyone who disagrees with them … (pardon a little immodesty here) I’m well read, well educated and I enjoy a wide variety or art, music, liturature and film. I’m not the smartest guy on the planet…but I coud carry on a great conversation with him. Why must people always equate different taste with lack of intelligence …. that’s just plain ignorant.
Great article though! (Though I agree the FG clip inclusion was out of place and not really keeping with the theme of the article/list)
FlashBeagle rules! I still remember it from the early 80s. Being a child of the 80s, it served as the basis for me of what the “awful pop culture” of the late 70s was all about. I always used to imagine my parents meeting in some kind of setting like that, except maybe some more cocaine… *shudder*
Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown was friggin’ awesome, don’t knock it.
In Re “Family Guy” –
I don’t care HOW funny it is, I just can’t take a 1/2 hour or watching a guy w/ his balls surgically attached to his chin. I just CAN’T…
“Flash! Flash! Flash! Flashbeagle! Somethingsomething… he flies like a wild EAGLEEEEEEE!!!!”
Heh, I had the Flashbeagle soundtrack and a little kid. Loved it.
“‘Why Charlie Brown, Why?’ was said to have been produced based on an insistance of a nurse who told Schulz she felt doing something with the Peanuts gang about cancer would help to inform children about it in a comforting way.”
If you read the reviews at Amazon you’ll see that the strip was geared to making disease and hospital stays understandable and less mysterious and scary for younger children. In that respect I think it succeeds quite admireably
“FG has an intense irony that other shows lack.”
You say intense, I say overworked, self-conscious and far too predictable. It’s like watching a show made by the funninest guy you knew in high school. What was probably hilarious around the lunch table just comes off as second-rate and derivative against real inspiration and genius.
That said, I loved Charlie Brown as a kid. I have little kids now, and watching it with them, I can’t help but notice a strong whiff of neurosis and pop psychology that probably seemed normal in the ’70s, but sounds an awful lot like whining now.
I never thought I’d write that.
“the neuroses of today will be the whinings of tomorrow”!
i said it first!
seriously, i haven’t seen that Snoopy Come Home, but based on many of the comments I really want to now. I have always loved Snoopy.
Where I think you missed something, though, is in the omission of probably one of the stupidest 1/2 hours of audiovisual nonsense ever created, that being “Race for your life, Charlie Brown” (I think it was called that). A pointless little film about Charlie and the gang at camp in some kind of canoe race. I remember being a kid of the proper age, a huge fan of other CB specials, and being bored by this one within less than 5 minutes, and asking myself why I bothered sticking with it. It was really, truly, a failure. And perhaps unlike “Snoopy Come Home”, race for your life really is a lame-o!
Oh my god. I totally remember “Race for your Life, Charlie Brown.”
Sometimes it felt like they stumbled onto the script for someone else’s movie, and then filmed it using Peanuts characters.
Glad to see so many others also disagree on including “Snoopy, Come Home.” It may be a maudlin tear-jerker, but it’s a classic maudlin tear jerker. I think for a lot of us growing up in the 1970s it was probably one of the most emotionally affecting films of our childhoods.
I’m neutral on FG; but all in all, a more accurate prognosis for what a grown-up Charlie Brown might be like is the latter days of Syd Barrett–bald head and all. Perhaps even cursing kite-eating trees…
Meh…None of those, except Flashbeagle, are so lame for me. The Cheerios commercial is ok, as far as commercials go, Bon Voyage Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Come Home are good movies, despite of their flaws. Well, maybe Bon Voyage is a tad boring, but Snoopy, Come Home is great. And even if I hate Family Guy I think this particular gag is not the worst the series can offer.
Sorry, Bo. Family Guy sucks. Great Read.
That comment by Adam on Syd Barrett made me laugh out loud. Poor, poor Syd. Now I have visions of the FG demented Charlie wandering around hearing “See Emily Play”.
I hate FG and agree that derisive humor at Peanuts expense feels like a cheap shot. But one that resonates with the FG crowd, I’m sure. I guess all that was left there was when Chuck pushes the blond skank with the fishnets away, to have Linus pipe up and say “Sally!”
Correction: the skank would have run bawling to Linus, only to have Linus slap her away, exclaiming “I’m not your Sweet Baboo!”.
Re CB = SB: I guess “Emily” might equal the little red-haired girl, then. Though more sublimely efficient (and FG-compatible to boot) would be to substitute the name “Charlie Brown” for “Arnold Layne”.
Most sublime of all, of course, is the tribute: “Shine On You Crazy Blockhead”…
Linus = Roger Waters? (Though I suppose Lucy would have knocked his block off when he suggested she vocalize on “The Great Gig In The Sky”.)
Other possibilities? A Snoopy/Red Baron-themed “Corporal Clegg”, perhaps; or, rather obviously, “if you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding” rendered in wha-whas…
are there any GOOD Peanuts parodies out there?
I love all Peanuts cartoons. Some of them more for the nostalgia and the quiet peace I feel when watching them than for the humor. My kids may not like some of them which may be a better measure of whether or not they are funny, but I enjoy them on a level beyond what makes me laugh.
I can still do adult Peanut speak with my trumpet and a mute, too.
If FG is not funny to you, then FG is not funny TO YOU. Lots of people like it. That’s why it was brought back. I think the new ones are less funny than the originals, but I still get a good laugh out of some of the gags. The same way that I can fall out of my chair laughing at some BritComs while other people don’t even realize that a joke has occurred. Different people have different senses of humor.
Robot Chicken also had the BEST parody ever. The one where CB comes up to kick the football, and when Lucy pulls it away he kicks her squarely in the head exclaiming, “THAT’S FOR YEARS OF HUMILIATION, YOU B*TCH!!!”
Wow… not only did you FG haters become completely retarded, you forgot the entire point of a comments section. Thanks for giving me the inspiration needed to lobotomize the entire world.
You might enjoy this audio interview with “Schulz and Peanuts†biographer David Michaelis (with transcription): http://www.mrmedia.com/2007/11/david-michaelis-schulz-and-peanuts.html .
Charlie Brown was never one of my favourites, and you’ve reminded me of just why that is… :( There are old cartoons that are good and have aged well, but Peanuts isn’t it :(
“Use my blanket to catch us.” is like the catch phrase of my childhood. We all deliver it deadpan and generally without provocation.
Have to agree that “Flashbeagle” was a low point; “Happy New Year, Charlie Brown” followed in a similar vein. “Snoopy Come Home” was middling overall — the Shermans’ songs were a disappointment, right from the opening beach scene, which started with an appealing, lilting score, but then suddenly sank into the cheesy “At the Beach”. But by far the worst aspect of the movie was the scene with the battle between Linus and Snoopy over Linus’s blanket, which degenerated into an appallingly violent and mean-spirited interlude. What were Schulz and Melendez THINKING?!?
What was really the BEST Peanuts animation? Probably “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown”, the 4th TV special, from 1967 (produced next after the also-excellent “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”). The “wah-wah” adult voices debuted here, but that is not the crime some people seem to think it is. The humor of the episode was top-notch, perfectly reflecting the strip in its heyday.
Of course, with that being the “best”, means that, sadly, it was all downhill from there (albeit slowly at first)….
Alan
Am I the only one who was deeply disturbed by the fact that he kicks the football in “It’s Magic, Charlie Brown?”
Now that felt pretty lame. It just shouldn’t be!
the tv show American Dad is actually great.~:`
I love this TV Series and have always been a fan of American Dad`-,
oh well, American Dad is a nice tv series. my sixteen year old daughter just loves watching it -“,
ah charlie brown… i feel bad for hating come home snoopy because my mom absolutely adore that movie but i hate it. sad to say i’ve never seen the others… we watch holiday specials on tv mostly. the best is the halloween special
There are parts of “Snoopy Come Home” that I really enjoy. The trick is to turn it off before it gets to the sad parts where all the Peanuts are bawling uncontrollably…
There’s a webcomic by Jason Yungbluth that you absolutely must read.
It’s about a grizzled cyborg mercenary in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
His friends – who are all DEAD – called him ‘Chuck’.
But to you….
he’s WEAPON BROWN.
My parents loved peanuts but I think it is kind of lame. If you have seen one you have seen them all.
First of all I love the comic strip Peanuts and some of the animated specials which I really like for myself, And second for God’s point of view we all know that the four Charlie Brown movies which were made between 1969 and 1980 are bad taste I refused to watch them I’m afraid.