Charles M. Schultz beloved comic strip Peanuts, debuted on October2, 1950 and new strips ran until February 13, 2000 (the day after Schulz’s death). At its peak, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of 355 million in 75 countries, and was translated into 21 languages. Given that success it is no surprise that Charlie Brown and the gang eventually found success with a series of television specials that remain favorites to this day. Though no new strips have appeared in almost a decade, we continue to get new Peanuts television and video specials at a fairly consistent rate. and the characters can still be seen in various television commercials.
Earlier this month, Warner Bros. released Peanuts: 1960’s Collection, a two DVD set which contains the six television specials that are arguably the best of the bunch. Disc one contains: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), twenty-five minutes; Charlie Brown’s All-Stars (1966), twenty-four minutes; and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966), twenty-five minutes. Bill Melendez directed all of the episodes, with Peter Robbins voicing Charlie Brown, director Melendez doing Snoopy, Sally Dryer as Lucy (except A Charlie Brown Christmas, where the voice is Tracy Stratford and It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown, voiced by Pamelyn Ferdin), Christopher Shea as Linus (except It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown, voiced by Glenn Gilger), and Kathy Steinberg as Sally (except It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown, voiced by Hilary Momberger).
The Emmy Award winning A Charlie Brown Christmas finds Charlie Brown feeling positively glum about the season. Convinced nobody likes him, his dilemma is only exacerbated when Violet assures him she didn’t send him a Christmas card. Desperate, he visits Lucy’s psychiatric booth who suggests he direct the school Christmas play about the Nativity. Naturally, Charlie Brown attempts to take charge in his usual scattered way and everyone believes the play will be a failure.
The main reason A Charlie Brown Christmas remains such a classic is because Schulz and Melendez managed to create a special that was both fun and touching. Unlike most Christmas specials, this one tackles the commercialization of Christmas. Charlie Brown is looking for some meaning in the holiday but can’t find it in the midst of all the card sending and gift giving. Lucy sums it up best: “We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know.”
When Lucy asks Charlie Brown to fetch an aluminum Christmas tree for the play, he decides to get a small, real one instead. The result is poignant and provides an important message about the true meaning of Christmas.
Charlie Brown’s All-Stars, has Charlie Brown as the coach, manager, and captain of the world’s worst baseball team. Everyone on the team blames Charlie Brown for their never having won a game and they don’t want him ever to play with them. Ever the optimist, our hero refuses to give up. Charlie Brown gets some good news when the owner of a local hardware store offers to sponsor his team, place them in an organized league, and even buy them new uniforms. Everyone is excited but Chuck is forced to turn down the offer because of certain conditions placed on the deal. Charlie Brown doesn’t tell the team for awhile, in hopes that they might play better. Charlie takes most of the blame when the team finds out he’s reneged on the deal but the ever faithful Linus forges reconciliation with their manager; while not quite as strong as A Charlie Brown Christmas, All-Stars has a nice message about the importance of friendship.
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is the one special where Charlie Brown takes a secondary role to another Peanuts character. Instead, this on revolves around Linus’ steadfast belief in the existence of the Great Pumpkin. Linus believes that on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch with presents. He sits in the pumpkin patch most of the night waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. In an interesting subplot, Snoopy climbs aboard his Sopwith Camel (in reality, his doghouse) to do battle with the Red Baron.
The first episode on disc two is You’re In Love, Charlie Brown (1967), thirty minutes long. This one finds our hero once again believing nobody likes him. He’s even more miserable than usual because he fallen in love with the little red-headed girl at school, who doesn’t seem to know he’s alive. As hard as he tries, he can’t bring himself to do anything about his crush, embarrassing himself with each feeble attempt to get her attention.
Nearly everyone who can remember their first crush, likely relates to Charlie Brown here; it’s hard not to empathize with him. Sitting there eating his peanut butter sandwich and trying to convince himself to talk to the object of his affection–haven’t we all been there once or twice?
He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown (1968), is twenty-four minutes long and new to DVD. After some bad behavior, Charlie Brown decides to send Snoopy to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm for a bit of discipline. Snoopy doesn’t quite make it there, instead crashing at Peppermint Patty’s house. When Patty refuses to let Snoopy stay, the pup learns that boy is a dogs best buddy and vice versa.
The collection concludes with It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown (1969), also new to DVD and twenty-four minutes long. The last special of the decade, this one sees the Peanuts gang go off to summer camp. The boys and girls split up and face each other in a series of events. Thanks to Charlie Brown’s optimistic but inept leadership, the girls win everything. Their last hope is to challenge the girls to an arm wrestling match against the boys’ secret weapon: Snoopy. In a first for the animated franchise, this one is told in a series of flashbacks.
All six of the Peanuts specials come in their original television broadcast ratios, 1.33:1 and Warner Bros. have remastered all the episodes in high bit-rate transfers. They look the best I’ve ever seen them. The image is fairly clean, with only a few age flecks noticeable, along with a bit of noise and grain. Colors are superb–bright and full–with deep black levels setting them off. Definition is good, though there is some minor edge enhancement and haloing.
Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 1.0, which does the job but isn’t amazing. Expect a fairly low but steady audio response. Another words, don’t expect a sonic experience but Peanuts fans shouldn’t be disappointed. The set includes English, Japanese, and Portuguese spoken languages; French, Japanese, Portuguese, and Thai subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.
This set has only one bonus feature:
• Vince Guaraldi: The Maestro of Menlo Park (36:55) newly produced, this featurette takes a look at the musician who composed the music for all of the specials on this set. Hosted by Lee Mendelson, the executive producer of the Peanuts specials; it includes comments about the composer from many of his friends, relatives, and members of his band. Guaraldi clearly loved his work on the Peanuts franchise and the specials would not be the same without his unforgettable contribution. I listened to Guaraldi’s album, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus after watching this featurette and was completely blown away.
