Snoopy is easily the most popular Peanuts character, and has been for years. However, during the first decade plus of Peanuts specials, he was rarely front and center. He certainly played prominent supporting roles in numerous specials, but only 1968's He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown and 1974's It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown had made him the lead character, and even in both those instances, it was more than he was the first among equals in the ensemble rather than being the undisputed lead.
There is no doubt that Snoopy is the lead character in What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown. Indeed, this is easily the most experimental special so far, as for the majority of the story, Snoopy is the only familiar character onscreen. Indeed, the only other Peanuts character to even appear is Charlie Brown, and he disappears from the story a little more than 5 minutes into it.
It opens with Charlie Brown trying to harness Snoopy to serve as a sled dog. Snoopy is having none of that, of course, and after the inevitable scene where the tables are turned and Charlie Brown is acting as the sled dog for a whip-cracking Snoopy, the boy berates the dog for being lazy and entitled and overpampered (mostly why Snoopy is consuming roughly six homemade pizzas). Snoopy retires to his doghouse, where the indigestion leads to a horrible nightmare in which he finds himself as a sled dog in the Arctic.
The special, with both the title and the transition to the dream sequence, makes it very clear that this is, indeed, just a nightmare, and not Snoopy's new reality, but nevertheless, it is quite jarring, with Snoopy being yelled at by his new adult owner (who only appears in silhouette and speaks in the usual trombone sounds of adults, albeit pitched lower than the sounds used for teachers and parents), and all but dragged along by the rest of the sled dog team, who take an instant dislike to the newcomer, denying him food and water and sabotaging his attempts to get warm at night. This is surprisingly tough stuff for a Peanuts special, and its easy to see how this could be traumatizing to younger viewers who might not be sophisticated enough to recognize this was just a fantasy.
There is a brief reprieve about halfway through the sequence, when the team stops at a saloon in a town, and more traditionally Snoopy gags play out, such as him pretending to play a player piano, finally getting some food in the form of a sandwich, and ultimately ending up in a poker game and then on stage. However, he is soon back outside and on the sled team again, where he finally goes full Call of the Wild and challenges the pack leader, turning the tables.
Given that Snoopy is a mute character, outside of the occasional yip, bark, or howl, this means that this entire section of the special is dialogue-free, a rather bold choice. Of course, cartoons without dialogue are nothing new, but it was definitely atypical of the Peanuts specials of the time.
Eventually, Snoopy has no choice but to embrace his inner sled dog, turning feral, somehow beating the pack's alpha dog in a fight (it is a dream, after all), and takes control of the pack, at least until Snoopy wakes up in the midst of a tragedy.
As noted, the plotline seems heavily inspired by Jack London's The Call of the Wild, to the point that the novel's Wikipedia pages lists this as an adaption. However, London is not credited, and the novel was in the public domain by 1978. To be fair, the special only follows the novel's very basic outline of a pampered pet forced to become a sled dog, so while the novel's inspiration is undeniable, I don't think it is fair to call it an actual adaption.
Bill Melendez, whose last directed Peanuts special was A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (though he had subsequently directed the feature film Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown), returned to co-direct with Phil Roman, who had taken over as full-time director since Melendez moved on. It seems likely that one of them handled the bookend, "real life" scenes, while the other handled the Arctic scenes, as the latter had a notably more fluid style (and possibly a higher budget) than the typical Peanuts special. The loss of Vince Guaraldi is felt much more keenly here than in It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, as Ed Bogas provides a rather cartoony, action score for the sled dog sequences than the jazzier score Guaraldi would have written (Bogas also wrote an unnecessary comic vocal bit for the bookend sequences). Liam Martin provides the only voice in the entire special, voicing Charlie Brown for the first and only time after having voiced Linus in two previous specials, as well as the aforementioned Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. This would be his final professional credit listed on IMDB.
There's a lot to admire in What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown. It goes far darker than any previous Peanuts special had, and it also experiments with the special's formula in some intriguing ways. Ultimately, I'm not sure if this is a special I'd want to revisit much in the future, but it's definitely among the most unique entries in the franchise.
Next week: The gang gets (junior) Olympic fever in You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown.
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