Tag Archives: Charles M. Schulz

1968, Recommended, Television

He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown (1968, Bill Melendez)

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He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown opens with Snoopy terrorizing the kids. He’s indiscriminately vicious, leading to the kids complaining to Charlie Brown about it. Charlie Brown’s solution is to send Snoopy off to the puppy farm for reeducation.

Snoopy is Dog’s draw. His worst moments are the initial terrorizing and even those are perfectly good. They’re beautifully animated. The transitions from cute Snoopy to terrorizing Snoopy are phenomenal. Melendez’s direction is strong throughout, particularly during the travel montages, but the opening terrorizing is more than solid stuff. Charles M. Schulz’s script works fast, getting Snoopy in trouble–after a quick, well-directed Red Baron (ish) sequence–and getting him off for retraining.

Unfortunately, Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins) decides to give Snoopy a layover on his trip. Snoopy’s going to spend the night at Peppermint Patty’s. Peppermint Patty (Gabrielle DeFaria Ritter) who just thinks Snoopy is a funny-looking kid.

Once Snoopy gets to Peppermint Patty’s and she treats him so well, he decides he’s not going to leave and instead goes on furlough. I mean, she’s got an in-ground swimming pool and waits on him hand and foot. While Snoopy’s various antics–and his eventual emotional breakdown–are Dog’s essentials, DeFaria Ritter is the one who makes it all work. Snoopy (despite director Melendez contributing growls and such) is nonverbal. DeFaria Ritter gets a lot of dialogue–all of the verbal jokes and gags–for most of the cartoon.

Even after Charlie Brown comes back in–he finds out Snoopy is skipping retraining and heads over to Peppermint Patty’s leash in hand, causing a further rift between he and Snoopy–DeFaria Ritter still gets the best material. When Snoopy comes back to her house after his dust-up with Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty has had enough with the waiting on him and instead puts him to work cleaning the house, which ends up being as hilarious as when she’s waiting on him.

Charlie Brown once again comes back, this time because he and the kids miss Snoopy, only for the reunion to again go south, leaving Snoopy more trapped than ever.

Schulz’s plotting is outstanding, Melendez’s direction is spry, the animation is exquisite–Vince Guaraldi’s score is a little wanting but still fine. He’s Your Dog is a fine cartoon, a great showcase for DeFaria Ritter, as well as Snoopy as a lead character. Schulz gives Snoopy multi-layered adventures. There are his daydreams, his main plot, then the incidentals. There’s always something different, even when they repeat the same animation (just once, but noticeably). Schulz and Melendez do a great job keeping Snoopy’s adventure fresh.

And when Dog needs to be sentimental or emotional, Melendez and Schulz always make it happen without getting too saccharine.

The cartoon’s pragmatically exquisite.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Bill Melendez; written by Charles M. Schulz; edited by Robert T. Gillis; music by Vince Guaraldi; aired by the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Starring Peter Robbins (Charlie Brown), Sally Dryer (Lucy), Christopher Shea (Linus), and Gabrielle DeFaria Ritter (Peppermint Patty).

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1966, Not Recommended, Television

Charlie Brown's All Stars! (1966, Bill Melendez)

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Despite being all about baseball–specifically baseball games–“Charlie Brown’s All Stars!” barely has any logic to how its baseball works. It’s summertime and Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins) loses the kids’ first game of baseball for them. Although, really, no one else on the team is any good, but he’s the only one who wants to play so it’s all his fault.

He’s able to convince them to come back and play again because the hardware shop owner is willing to get them uniforms and back the team in the Little League. Only it turns out Little League teams can’t have dogs or girls on them, in that order, so Charlie Brown decides to lie about the uniforms and just inspire everyone to play well.

And they do. Probably. There’s not just no adults in “All Stars,” none of the other team appears either. Even during the baseball games. Even during the baseball game where it’d be real important for them to show up so there was some logic about how the kids are playing (and losing) the games. But they get enough hits to stay competitive in the game, though the other team only has two runs at the bottom of the ninth.

For as much as “All Stars” goes on about baseball, it never seems like writer Charles M. Schulz particularly cares about it, which is fine for comic strips, but not really for a narrative. Especially not one about baseball.

The baseball story line–which has Charlie Brown making a tough, but moral decision (though it’s not really a tough decision and the cartoon barely pretends it to be)–kind of finishes before the end, when Schulz goes for a different laugh and fumbles it. Lots of fumbles in the script. You can see the scene as a four panel comic strip and it just does not translate.

There are a handful of decent jokes–always involving Christopher Shea (as Linus) though he’s in the last one and it bombs–and there’s some cute animation. All the kids nonsensically have skateboards, if only so they can skateboard away from Charlie Brown and his promise of baseball. The Pigpen jokes all fall particularly flat and Sally’s one scene trying to tempt Linus in her bikini is… really awkward and sort of concerning. It’s a short scene though (even if the failing joke gets drug out), which is probably for the best.

Most of the performances are uneven. Shea’s best. Robbins’s rocky. Sally Dryer has more bad line readings than good as Lucy. Glenn Mendelson’s flat as Schroeder, who’s not in it enough for it to matter. But Karen Mendelson (as Violet) and Gabrielle DeFaria Ritter (as Shermy) are probably the most consistently good. All of Ann Altieri’s Freida moments–usually about her curly hair–flop except one.

“All Stars” just don’t have any narrative flow. It’s not rushed, but it’s kind of aimless. Melendez’s direction doesn’t have any personality–except avoiding the particulars of the baseball game. Sadly Vince Guaraldi’s score is minimal. More music might’ve helped.

Nothing really works right in “All Stars.” It’s too bad, but nothing really works from the start so it’s not particularly surprising.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Bill Melendez; written by Charles M. Schulz; edited by Robert T. Gillis; music by Vince Guaraldi; aired by the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Starring Peter Robbins (Charlie Brown), Sally Dryer (Lucy), Christopher Shea (Linus), Karen Mendelson (Violet), Glenn Mendelson (Schroeder), Cathy Steinberg (Sally), Geoffrey Ornstein (Pigpen), Gabrielle DeFaria Ritter (Shermy), Ann Altieri (Freida), and Lynn Vanderlip (Patty).

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1979, Cartoon, Not Recommended

It's Dental Flossophy, Charlie Brown (1980, Bill Melendez and Phil Roman)

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There’s an adorable moment when Woodstock makes a nest out of dental floss in It’s Dental Flossophy, Charlie Brown, but otherwise it’s a hard going five and a half minutes.

Charlie Brown needs to floss and Lucy’s going to teach him. She wants to get all that plaque out before she goes to Schroeder’s concert. There’s so much pointless exposition, all of it with wooden delivery, one has to wonder how much work writer Charles M. Schulz put into Flossophy. Or how much work the directors put in to Michelle Muller’s performance as Lucy. It’s impossible to believe some of her deliveries weren’t just first takes.

Woodstuck gets Lucy’s dental floss because he’s having trouble building a nest. It’s a twenty or thirty second subplot and about the only charm in the cartoon. Snoopy helps him with it, apparently able to maintain brain function through Lucy’s flossing instruction instead of just shutting it off entirely.

And it’s all on Muller. Schulz gives her all the lines. She’s got to precisely describe various flossing techniques and there’s no way to make them work in dialogue. It gets her some sympathy, even if her performance itself doesn’t deserve it. When she gets to the “smell your floss, isn’t it gross, that smell is the plaque” moment, the goodwill’s gone. It’s unclear if the plaque smelling is supposed to be funny, disgusting, or instructional; regardless, like the rest of Flossophy, it’s a fail.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Bill Melendez and Phil Roman; written by Charles M. Schulz; music by Vince Guaraldi; released by the American Dental Association.

Starring Arrin Skelley (Charlie Brown) and Michelle Muller (Lucy).

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1979, Cartoon, Not Recommended

Charlie Brown Clears the Air (1979, Bill Melendez)

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Charlie Brown Clears the Air opens with a deceptively funny gag. Snoopy messing with Linus. It’s the only funny thing in the cartoon, produced for American Lung Association with the apparent purpose of boring children into environmentally responsible behavior.

See, Snoopy’s in a mood because his dog house has got soot all over it because the neighbor is burning leaves and trash. The neighbor won’t stop burning leaves and trash unless Snoopy gets his motorcycle’s exhaust system fixed. Woodstock is Snoopy’s mechanic and he can’t figure it out–when the Woodstock cameo falls utterly, painfully flat, it’s clear how little Clears is going to impress–so they’re just going to have to live in mutual misery.

Then there’s the baseball game where Lucy can’t see because of air pollution and Linus can’t catch fly balls because he trips over litter. We see the litter. We don’t see the air pollution–apparently the American Lung Association didn’t offer the filmmakers much in the way of money, Clears has almost no backgrounds and nothing in the way of establishing shots. What can Charlie Brown do about it?

He can give a report at school.

A really boring report.

Bad dialogue throughout from Charles M. Schulz–so bad I didn’t think he wrote it–and similarly bad deliver from Arrin Skelley as Charlie Brown. There’s no way to make the clunky, expository dialogue work. Neither Daniel Anderson (as Linus) or Michelle Muller (as Lucy) do much better; they don’t do as bad, however, just because they don’t have as much dialogue as Skelley.

Clears doesn’t have anything going for it. Not writing, not animation, nothing. It’s charmless to the point of being annoying.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Bill Melendez; written by Charles M. Schulz; edited by Roger Donley and Chuck McCann; produced by Melendez and Lee Mendelson; released by the American Lung Association

Starring Arrin Skelley (Charlie Brown), Daniel Anderson (Linus), and Michelle Muller (Lucy).

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