A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969 film)

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A Boy Named Charlie Brown is a 1969 animated film produced by Cinema Center Films and Lee Mendelson Films for National General Pictures, directed by Bill Melendez, and based on the Peanuts comic strip.

This film features Charlie Brown and other characters from the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts, competing in a spelling bee. Naturally, none of Charlie Brown's friends (except the ever-faithful Linus, who continues to believe in him when no one else will) believe he has a chance to win when he announces he's entering the school spelling bee. He surprises them all by winning not only the school spelling bee, but the city tournament, and qualifying for the nationals in New York City. Linus and Snoopy accompany him on the trip.

Charlie Brown very nearly wins the tournament, but at the last minute misspells the word beagle (B-E-A-G-E-L) and is eliminated, and returns home dejected. However, Linus convinces the despondent Charlie Brown that his life is not over and encourages him to continue.

In addition to the main story about Charlie Brown and the spelling bee, the film included several minor vignettes and subplots dealing with Charlie Brown's baseball team, Lucy's continued attempts to get Schroeder to notice her (including a visually and aurally dazzling tribute to Beethoven), and Snoopy's ice skating. Even Charlie Brown's old nemesis, the Kite-Eating Tree, put in an appearance. It also included several songs, some which for the first time boasted vocals (before this film, music in Peanuts specials were primarily instrumental tunes), on tracks such as "Failure Face" (sung by Lucy and the other girls to discourage Charlie Brown from entering the spelling bee), "I Before E Except After C" (sung by Charlie Brown and Linus while studying for the spelling bee), and "Champion Charlie Brown" (sung by the entire cast after Charlie wins the city tournament). Rod McKuen wrote and sang the title song. He also wrote "Failure Face" and "Champion Charlie Brown". The instrumental tracks interspersed throughout the entire feature were composed by Vince Guaraldi and arranged by John Scott Trotter (who also wrote "I Before E Except After C"). The music basically consisted of uptempo jazz tunes that have been heard since some of the earliest Peanuts specials aired back in 1965 (however, for A Boy Named Charlie Brown, they were given a more "theatrical" treatment, thus lusher horn-filled arrangements). The instrumental tracks used in the film were "Skating" (first heard in its original form in 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas, and during this sequence, the animated Snoopy segment was choreographed by American figure skater Skippy Baxter) and "Baseball Theme" (first heard in its original form in 1966's Charlie Brown's All-Stars) among others. Guaraldi and Trotter were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Score for their work on A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

A segment during the middle of the film in which Schroeder plays a solo piano sequence of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata was performed by Ingolf Dahl.

The film was partly based on a series of Peanuts comic strips originally published in newspapers in 1966. That story had a much different ending: Charlie Brown was eliminated in his class spelling bee right away for misspelling the word maze ("M-A-Y-S" while thinking of baseball legend Willie Mays), and then yelled at his teacher in frustration ("Why do I have my head on my desk, ma'am? BECAUSE I BLEW THE STUPID SPELLING BEE, THAT'S WHY!), causing him to be sent to the principal's office. (A few gags from that storyline, however, were also used in the 1968 special You're in Love, Charlie Brown.)

This film made its Region 1 DVD debut on U.S. DVD on March 28, 2006, by Paramount Home Entertainment. The DVD has about 5 minutes of footage not seen since the 1969 premiere. The footage consists of new scenes completely excised from earlier home video releases (VHS and CED Laserdisc) and TV prints and extended existing scenes.

Trivia

• Snoopy's dream (where he battles the red Baron atop his doghouse), consists of footage from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
• This was the first of the four theatrical, feature-length Peanuts animated films.
• This was Peter Robbins' last voice-acting role as Charlie Brown (who was with the series since its first special A Charlie Brown Christmas), before leaving the series.

External links

• [Peanuts Pictures at DVD Active]