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.

Peanuts (1965) s01e15 – It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown

It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown opens with Charlie Brown (Dylan Beach) and Linus (Liam Martin) making vaguely sexist cracks about Linus’s mother’s ability to ride her bicycle. Just as you’re thinking writer Charles M. Schulz is taking it a little far, he cuts to baby Rerun (Vinny Dow) on the back of the bike who gives his take on he and Mom’s day and it’s a perfect pivot. It changes the tone and trajectory of the scene, while also introducing the idea of visual constraints.

Arbor Day has a lot of great visuals–there’s a trip to the library, the whole ball field thing (I’ll explain in a minute)–but director Roman keeps them background to some degree. He and the animators concentrate on the foreground movement and action. It’s strong direction from Roman, even while sometimes the animation is a little too static on figures or expressions. Overall, the animation’s quite good, just sometimes a tad too functional; if the detail is a little off, the pragmatic animation only aggravates it.

But these weaker moments are few and only annoying because they screw up otherwise excellent scenes. There’s quite a bit of Sally (Gail Davis) flirting with Linus and one time the animation on Sally’s eyes throws the scene askew. Davis is excellent, Martin is good, so the scene should be one of the stronger dialogue-based ones in Arbor, but it hangs. Because of the animation detail.

Arbor Day has good dialogue-based bits and good physical comedy bits. Snoopy and Woodstock get the majority of the physical comedy ones. While the special is about Arbor Day–with Sally doing a report on it, so built-in exposition–it’s more about the first ball game of the season and how the Peanuts kids’ take on Arbor Day affect it.

And the ball game is great. The pragmatic animation plays well with the sports action, which is awesome. Arbor Day just gets better as it goes along. I mean, sure, the Arbor Day stuff is just affixed to a baseball game story but whatever.

The game’s against Peppermint Patty (Stuart Brotman, who’s great). Schulz likes his pairs in Arbor Day. Sally and Linus, Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown, Woodstock and Snoopy. Lucy (Sarah Beach) feels like a special guest star more than a regular cast member. And the gentle affections between Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown really play well. Arbor Day has a good arc for Charlie Brown and Dylan Beach does a fine job on the performance.

Arbor Day doesn’t have an inspired or ambitious narrative, it’s instead this expert execution of a twenty-five minute “Peanuts” special. Schulz and Roman have it down here. The characterizations are great, the performances are good, the Snoopy stuff is good, the game is good, the finale is great. Nice score from Vince Guaraldi. It’s just an ideal Charlie Brown special.

Peanuts (1965) s01e13 – Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown

There’s not a lot of story in Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. It’s almost Valentine’s Day and Charlie Brown (Duncan Watson) is anxious to receive some valentines. Meanwhile, Linus (Stephen Shea) has a crush on his teacher, much to the chagrin of Sally (Lynn Mortensen).

Those plots are it. Everything else either supports Charlie Brown and Linus’s story or is just padding. Sally gets some scenes, but it’s Linus’s plot line. And they’re padded.

Some of the padding is charming. Valentine has some iffy graphic blandishment and that iffiness works against the charm. Some of the padding is just padding too. There’s this lengthy sequence where Snoopy is putting on a play and Lucy (Melanie Kohn) gets suckered into seeing it. Charlie Brown narrates and, even though it doesn’t really fit and isn’t particularly successful, there’s some creativity to the vingette. The scenes for the main stories? They’re awkward. Especially the third act, which takes place on Valentine’s Day. The kids in school, getting their valentines.

Director Roman–and his graphic blandishers–don’t take a lot of time executing the scene. It’s a long scene, there’s plenty of time to execute it better, they just don’t. Sometimes it gets worse. Plus, there are these weird “Peanuts” continuity errors–like Peppermint Patty and Marcie being in the classroom (silent) when they’re supposed to go to a different school. It makes you wonder how closely Roman and the animators followed the Charles M. Schulz script.

Of course, while Schulz gets the sole writing credit, they are seven credited story writers. And Valentine feels like there are eight sets of hands in it. It’s all over the place.

Linus’s resolution is also poorly executed. It’s extremely padded. Literally extremely padded. Editors Roger Donley and Chuck McCann hold this shot where nothing is happening on screen and there’s no sound suggesting anything happening for most of it and it just hangs. Valentine stalls. Literally this time instead of figuratively.

There’s some fun Snoopy stuff–outside the play–and some okay, if not enough, material for Lucy–but it all hinges on Linus and Charlie Brown’s stories. And then it sabotages them through plodding plotting.

Valentine is too rote. Especially Vince Guaraldi’s score.