Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977, Phil Roman and Bill Melendez)

There’s only one adult referenced in Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. When the bus leaves Charlie Brown (voiced by Duncan Watson) stranded, they’ve established the driver’s silhouette. Not having any adults makes a lot of sense since, somehow, the Peanuts parents all decided to send their kids to a camp on the other side of a distant desert with no adult supervision. The camp’s name? Camp Remote.

The desert bit gives Sally (Gail Davis) a scene to threaten some local kid, which doesn’t go as expected, but since the movie’s setting it up for Sally to back down… it’s a bit of a surprise. I think the local kid is from the comic strip somewhere. She and her little brother (the anti-Browns, in a way) seem familiar, and they’re only in the one gag.

Sally prominently figures in the first act of Race for Your Life, right up until Peppermint Patty (Stuart Brotman) starts talking about running things as a democracy. The boys and girls have been split into their different tents, with Patty running for tent leader. She confuses the other girls with her version of fair voting (by secret ballot), which becomes a recurring gag, and from then on, Sally’s just got the occasional lovelorn wail for Linus.

Both the boys and girls have a similar problem in the first act—the camp bullies. There are three of them with their mean cat, and none of them have names. Two of them have the letter “R” on their shirt; it never means anything. What’s so peculiar about them is Race never tries to humanize them, never tries to redeem or even provide context for them. They’re just assholes.

Okay, now, I’m reading something into the “R.”

Anyway.

The second act of Race is all about the best tent competition. The kids do various activities, with the bullies winning by cheating. Since there are no adults and presumably the teen counselors supervising the events are paying attention to the other two dozen campers we rarely see (at least two Peanuts supporting cast members, Violet and Frieda, end up amongst them). The most important race is the raft race.

It’s more a wilderness survival race, with rafting involved. The kids have to camp at night, feed themselves, and get back on the river. It seems to be a three-day event. If it weren’t a cartoon with a dog and his best friend, a bird, riding around America on an Easy Rider chopper… it’d seem dangerous.

Though there is danger. For a fairly long section of act two, Snoopy thinks Woodstock’s dead, the kids think Snoopy’s dead, and everyone’s lost in the woods trying to find one another. So it goes on for a while, with Snoopy mourning his presumably lost friend. Oh, and then the evil cat hunting Woodstock as he tries to survive on his own.

It’s impressive how Charles M. Schulz’s script—the pacing and plotting—and then Melendez and Roman’s direction make it so intense. There’s objectively no danger to the characters, but the movie makes believe so strongly, the emotions come through. It’s a fascinating use of narrative empathy and sympathy.

The raft race takes up most of the movie. The bullies have a speedboat with a wonky motor, so the Peanuts kids can get ahead often enough for tension. Snoopy and Woodstock add a sail to their inner tube, which leads to some pastoral scenes and disasters, though maybe if Snoopy didn’t sleep while at the wheel….

The boys and girls each have a raft, with Charlie Brown’s arc for the movie involving him becoming more of a leader. Peppermint Patty’s would possibly be listening to others while leading. No one else gets a character arc. Linus (Liam Martin) gets to defend the kids from the bullies thanks to his blanket snapping, and there are some other recurring personality gags, but not arcs. The movie’s too busy and the race too severe to slow down for them.

The original songs are strange but not bad; imagine a disco Cat Stevens, and then also more pop-folk. Ed Bogas’s score is good. The animation’s beautiful, with excellent editing from Roger Donley and Chuck McCann. Race has a somewhat peculiar vibe; while there’s a lot of action, including harrowing POV shots, there’s also the tranquil nature stuff, especially for Snoopy and Woodstock. It’s a fine mix. The end credits are a hallucinogenic Charlie Brown sequence, which provides the final synthesis. It’s weird and a perfect finish for the film.

Acting-wise… Watson’s okay. He’s got some weaker moments, but the movie never leans on him too long or adjusts for it after doing so. Brotman’s good, Davis is good, Martin’s good. I was expecting a lot more from Lucy (Melanie Kohn), but she gets less than Marcie (Jimmy Ahrens), who doesn’t get much.

The filmmakers know how to get the best out of the performances. Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown’s good.

Snoopy, Come Home (1972, Bill Melendez)

Snoopy, Come Home’s parts are better than their sum. The film’s a number of vignettes, usually set to music, sometimes with songs. Sometimes there’s connective material between the vignettes, sometimes the circus shows up, and it’s time for a new scene. Also, sometimes, the vignettes have a rough cut between them. Not too rough, there’s a fade-out and a fade-in, but there’s no attempt to transition between them. Usually when the action cuts between Snoopy and Charlie Brown. As the title indicates, Snoopy has left home, and Charlie Brown wants him to come home. So the action cuts between Snoopy and Woodstock on adventures and Charlie Brown whining.

I guess it would be hard to find the right transition music for whining.

Though Charlie Brown does get a song to himself late in the movie, which is effective, but also entirely changes what the movie’s about. Sort of. The third act has a couple surprise turns, narratively speaking, and the Charlie Brown song fits one of those turns but because the film’s pushing hard to make it work. It’s a stretch, though it comes right after (and refers to) an absolutely fantastic, out-of-nowhere scene. About halfway through Come Home, director Melendez starts doing these phenomenal sequences occasionally—a hallucinogenic astral dream, for example—and they’re outstanding. The second big sequence, that third act one, it’s completely different than the dream sequence, instead relying on the characters. Though, specifically, the visuals they can all create. Come Home’s always very visual, for better or worse.

The worse is how often Charlie Brown and Snoopy use their comic strip expressions, which the film uses more in the first half than the second. The expressions are deadpan, reminding the viewer it’s an adaptation of the comic strip, which kills the momentum a little. At least until the expressions change. It’s a strange device, especially since Come Home shows off a bunch of expressions on Snoopy from multiple, not-comic-strip angles too. Come Home’s got innumerable visual flexes; they just sometimes come with distracting music.

The film runs eighty minutes, with the first twenty building to the inciting incident. Snoopy’s fed up with “No Dogs Allowed” places getting in the way of his good time. Every time Snoopy comes across such a location, there’s an accompanying song sung by Thurl Ravenscroft. It’s not a great song; it does pay off in the end, but it’s not great.

The film’s best song is easily Linda Ercoli’s one, which accompanies Ercole’s character tormenting her new pets, Snoopy and Woodstock. They went to her for help, and she just couldn’t wait to hug them and squeeze them. The duo’s just passing through; Snoopy gets a letter from his former owner, a little girl named Lila (voiced by Johanna Baer); she’s sick and in the hospital and would love a visit. So, peeved at the no dog zones as well as Charlie Brown being a jerk lately, Snoopy goes to visit her, Woodstock in tow. The incident at Ercoli’s is just one of their adventures along the way.

Performance-wise, Come Home’s got a couple significant problems. Chad Webber’s rarely good as Charlie Brown, and Baer’s usually bad as Lila. They do the most talking—both pleading their cases with Snoopy. The resulting turmoil gets the film into the third act with a firm footing and enables Melendez to mix style and narrative better. Though it gets rocky because the third act goes on way too long. Also, it’s rushed. Never a good combination.

Oddly, the charming end credits help pull Snoopy, Come Home around at the last minute; they last-minute find some humor they lost in the first act.

Besides Webber and Baer, the voice acting’s good; Robin Kohn and Stephen Shea, as Lucy and Linus, respectively, are really good. Kohn gets more range, including some good laughs.

Lovely animation, good music (Ron Ralke); it’s technically solid. Snoopy, Come Home’s fine. It’s got the chops to be better but just makes some hampering choices along the way and leans into them way too hard.

But when Melendez hits, he hits hard.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969, Bill Melendez)

A Boy Named Charlie Brown gets by on a lot of charm. It takes writer and creator Charles M. Schulz forever to get to the story. It takes Schulz so long to get to the story–Charlie Brown, spelling bee champ–it seems like there isn’t going to be a story.

Schulz lays the groundwork for the story, sure; Charlie Brown enters the spelling bee as an attempt to bolster his self-confidence. Nothing else has worked. He’s lost a baseball game, he’s had a lousy–not just for him–therapy session with Lucy. He even losses at tic-tac-toe.

So, right after Lucy and two other girls sing a song to Charlie Brown about him being a “failure face.” Not a great song. Rod McKuen writes the melancholy Charlie Brown songs, John Scott Trotter writes the didactic spelling song.

Even with director Melendez’s suburban Expressionist visuals and the fantastic montaging courteosy Robert T. Gillis, Chuck McCann, and Steven Cuitlahuac Melendez’s expert cutting, Failure Face is a low point. It’s the meanest the girls ever get to Charlie Brown. Sure, maybe it’s the inciting incident for the spelling bee plot development, but Melendez doesn’t change tone with it. Just because Schulz is finally ready to go, Melendez isn’t speeding up Boy. It’s still going to be slow and deliberate, with visually outrageous montages, interludes, and asides.

Schulz’s spelling bee plot works out. Linus gave Charlie Brown his blanket to keep him comfort at the nationals. Linus didn’t know he’d go into fainting spellings without the blanket, he and Snoopy go to nationals.

Nationals appear to be in a beautiful and empty New York City. Why Linus gets the excursion to the New York Public Library and Rockefeller Center while Charlie Brown is literally studying in a movie called A Boy Named Charlie Brown doesn’t even matter. Snoopy goes with Linus. And has his own daydream about playing hockey.

It’s the last daydream–or aside or iunterlude–and it’s the worst. It’s cartoon Snoopy in front of silhouetted hockey footage. Boy Named Charlie Brown has this Beethoven “music video” full of Eastern Orthodox imagery (I think, I saw eggs) and all sorts of other amazing stuff. It’s wondrous. And everything else is good if not excellent. To end on a blah daydream?

Maybe if Schulz’s lesson came through, it’d work. Schulz has a lesson in A Boy Named Charlie Brown for Charlie Brown and it’s eighty-five minutes coming so maybe it should be good. It’s not a good lesson. It’s a “movie’s over in two minutes” lesson. The film’s just shown it can do New York City and scale and then it’s got a bad lesson for Charlie Brown, who spent the last third of the movie offscreen.

Even the spelling bee is from the perspective of the other kids. Charlie Brown narrates Boy for a while, yet Schulz doesn’t want to spend the time with him. Schulz is sympathetic to Charlie Brown, empathetic to him, but he never seems to like him. All of Charlie Brown’s details are jokes at his expense. Or at least Schulz goes that route in A Boy Named Charlie Brown. The eventual story arc starts with lengthy depression monologue thirteen year-old Peter Robbins gets to do as Charlie Brown. Schulz gets intense when he’s not trying to be funny.

And then sometimes he’s not funny. Like Lucy. Not funny. Pamelyn Ferdin’s never particularly likable as Lucy here because all she’s ever doing is being mean to Charlie Brown. She’s invested in it, nothing else. She and Schroeder only have the one scene–kicking off the great Beethoven music video–but Schulz gives Lucy almost nothing other than being mean.

Glenn Gilger’s the best performance. He’s Linus. Robbins’s is good as Charlie Brown. But Schulz doesn’t give him anything good. Gilger’s best because he gets the best material.

Excellent score from Vince Guarladi. Fantastic animation. A Boy Named Charlie Brown has all the parts it needs to be great–not McKuen, sorry, forgot about him; but it doesn’t work out. Schulz’s plotting is too cumbersome.