Tim's Toons: Peanuts at the movies
Thursday, November 5, 2015 at 10:00PM Tim here. One of the all-time iconic snippets of American pop art returns to movie theaters this weekend: The Peanuts Movie from Blue Sky Studios (of the regrettably deathless Ice Age movies) converts Charles Schulz's comic strip characters to CGI, and the results have been getting surprisingly warm reviews (I haven't seen it yet, and am only now letting myself start to get really optimistic about it). In its honor, and in case it turns out to be bad, let's revisit the animated Peanuts films to have gone before. For even setting aside the God knows how many television specials, this is the fifth Peanuts feature, and while some of them have been weaker than others, there's not a true clinker in the bunch.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
The first in this case is pretty emphatically the best: based (like all of the movies and TV shorts, ultimately) on a couple of narrative arcs taken from the comic strip, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is the one that gets the essentials most perfectly. It's a story of perpetual loser Charlie Brown finding something he's genuinely terrific at, and coming up short in the end, anyway. The specific thing the film hinges on is a spelling bee, but that's almost beside the point; the film takes its time getting to that point, dwelling on Charlie Brown's keen awareness of his own shortcomings for a good third of the running time before the plot even announce itself in earnest.
It could be mopey, and it sure as hell sounds mopey, but A Boy Named Charlie Brown benefits from having the genuine anguish on display cut with the same sense of wry humor as the comic strip – as well it ought to, being written by Schulz himself (like the other features and basically every Peanuts animation prior to his death in 2000). And there's also the flights into broad comedy on the back of the Snoopy B-plot, to knock the rest of the edge off. It's perfectly bittersweet, funny enough that it's never hard to watch (it is, after all, for children), but deeply felt and never, never willing to join in the general mockery of Charlie Brown himself.
There's a distinct stiffness to the dated and even awful (but Oscar-nominated!) song score, which jangles badly against the terrific instrumental jazz score by Peanuts mainstay Vince Guaraldi, but that's really the worst thing to say against it. The animation is as ambitious as the series ever got, with shifts into an almost experimental mode, the child cast's voice acting is right on point with sharp frustration and melancholy, and the pragmatic moral – "The world didn't come to an end" – is one of the great moments in all of Peanuts.
Three more Peanuts classics below the jump
Snoopy Come Home (1972)
A deliberate attempt to go more Disney-style commercial, including hiring Disney's iconic songwriter-brothers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman. That might have even worked, too, if the story wasn't quite possibly the most relentlessly tearjerking thing in all of the filmed Peanuts output. Snoopy has received a letter from his former owner and goes to be with her in her illness; this leaves Charlie Brown shocked into loneliness and his erstwhile dog confronted with the oppressive reality of a world that doesn't care for dogs. Some of it is perfectly funny: the instantly-recognizable bass tones of voice actor Thurl Ravenscraft turn the repeated motif "No Dogs Allowed" into an absurdist delight.
But much more of it is heartwrenching, even with a tinge of cruelty in the way the characters treat each other at points. This isn't the "pick yourself up and go on to the next day" melancholy of the last film, but a chilly depiction of a hard world. There's value to that, and I will admit that my childhood memories of Snoopy Come Home were unnervingly strong even before I re-watched it. But it's not hard to see why this was a box-office bomb: it isn't afraid to point out that some really sad stuff can happen out there in the cold world. Admirably bleak, but fairly unrelenting as well.
Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977)
Much perkier than either of its predecessors, with more of an adventure-comedy bent, and more to do for the supporting cast. Every one of the films feels basically like a series of vignettes adapted from the comic strip (since that's what they all were), but Race for Your Life doesn't even try to have much of a structure beyond an arrangement of gag-driven shorts all built around the theme "what we did at summer camp". There's a lot of charm to that – when he wasn't engaged in philosophy about depression, Schulz was a great gag-man; but this is unquestionably the most insubstantial of the movies.
Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!) (1980)
After three low-key fables taking place in snapshots of America, the scale suddenly explodes with this Euro-trotting tale of a trip to France, mysterious letters, and a weirdly detailed sense of history. Something about all of that feels weirdly disingenuous and untrue to the material, though the Snoopy elements, at least, are generally wonderful (his visit to a bar includes some simple but wonderfully executed gags about listening to mournful music). It's so damn weird: the setting amplifies all of the most exaggerated elements of the characters, Snoopy especially, who is fully a man-dog of fantasy at this point. The expansiveness is rewarding, though, and the accentuation to the characters' personalities in the foreign setting makes it worth a peek even though this is, by any really objective measure, the worst film of the four.
Reader Comments (7)
"Regrettably deathless" is the most delightful thing I've read today! I did an actual spit take.
I had a VHS and full comic book of "Bon Voyage" growing up, and YES, so weird.
The ones I've seen and love are A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back) as they were part of my childhood when I was growing and I still love them as they do bring a tear to my eye.
I love the Vince Guaraldi music. It never stales.
The only one I remember liking was RACE FOR YOUR LIFE. In fact I went back to the theater and watched it a second time (I was 12). I remember Pauline Kael's damning review of the first film, and thinking, though I barely remember the film itself, that she was right. I haven't seen any of them since the late 70s/early 80s, though.
When I was a kid my dad had cancer (happy ending, he's alive and well) and we had on VHS a Peanuts short called 'Why, Charlie Brown, Why?' It's about Linus and Charlie Brown and their school friend called Janice, who is diagnosed with cancer. There's a great scene where Linus tells Lucy off for being ignorant about cancer, because she worries that they might catch it. I cannot tell you how often my siblings and I watched that video. And still quote it to each other to this day. There's something so special about Peanuts, and how it constantly turns its downbeat nature into something so heartwarming.
I watched Bon Voyage Charlie Brown about 92 million times as a kid. The London tennis scene with Snoopy made me so happy. Thanks for posting this. It's fun to remember these things ... and to remind myself just how freakin' old I am.
Right there with you, CharlieG. Of the four I've only seen "Bon Voyage" in its entirety but my dad recorded it, along with all the Peanuts holiday specials, on Beta max (yes, I am that old) and I watched it so many times it's engraved in my memory. Snoopy parts are definitely the best - (and omg yes, the Wimbledon scene!) but the whole thing had a distinct charm that made me want to go to Europe as a kid.