One of the great strengths of Peanuts is its ensemble. Charlie Brown and Snoopy may be first among equals, but in most specials, you're probably going to get to see Linus, Lucy, and Peppermint Patty, and there's also an excellent chance of Marcie, Sally, and Woodstock showing up. Schroder and Franklin also pop up relatively frequently, though their screentime is considerably reduced from the specials of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Other characters, like Violet, (not Peppermint) Patty, Freida, and Pig-Pen also occasionally appear. Indeed, it's unusual for a special to have just a handful of regular characters. What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown limited the cast to Snoopy and Charlie Brown (and the sled dogs in Snoopy's dream), and Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown only features Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Woodstock.
The limited number of cast members is not the oddest thing about this special, though. No, the weird thing about this one is, at least from modern perspectives, how incredibly awful Charlie Brown is during the entire thing. He sets out on an obsessive, all-consuming quest of dubious morality, then is too wishy-washy to actually do what is needed to do, forcing Linus to do the dirty work for him. Only one special after Charlie Brown finally gets a well-deserved win, here, he's not a lovable loser as much as a wholly deserving loser, and perhaps setting the stage for him to become an incel in about eight or so years. Yes, this one is that bad.
The plot begins when Charlie Brown spots a girl in the crowd for about two seconds at a football game he's watching on TV. That's enough time for him to fall madly, passionately, head-over-heels in love with her. Most people would just admire how cute the girl was, then move on with their lives, but not Charlie Brown. Declaring that this anonymous girl he briefly glimpsed and knows absolutely nothing about is the love of his life, he forces Linus to help him track her down. Whether the girl wants some strange kid she's never met tracking her down doesn't seem to enter into the equation.
Of course, if there's one thing we know about Charlie Brown, its his complete inability to talk to girls he's attracted to. After all, we've already had two specials devoted to his all-consuming love for The Little Red-Haired Girl, who at least knows of his existence and seems to at least like him, if not in the same way Charlie Brown does. Here, this extends to talking to literally anyone but Linus.
The special takes the form of a not-particularly interesting mystery, as Charlie Brown and Linus follow one clue to its conclusion, find it's not what they're looking for, but get another clue that sets them off toward the next destination. First stop is the stadium, which is apparently wide open for two elementary school kids, a dog, and a bird to just go wandering into. Charlie Brown quickly figures out where the girl was sitting, but the stadium ticket office reveals that they have no record of who actually sat in what seat. So it's off to the downtown office to see if the seats belong to season ticket holders. From there, they meet a very ugly girl, then a very pretty teenage girl who has no interest in anyone as young as Charlie Brown (played, for some reason, as really arrogant on her part), and then out to the countryside, where the girl from the TV actually lives.
Snoopy and Woodstock are somewhat along for the ride, but mostly seem to be there as comic relief, as they invade the stadium's weight room, get caught in traffic downtown (a scene that features the rare sight of adults), and finally have to battle a mean bobcat. As all of this seems to be there to pad the running time, it all feels very superfluous.
At any rate, Charlie Brown, who couldn't even bring himself to talk to the adults at the ticket office, much less any of the other girls he and Linus had encountered, gets his comeuppance when Linus finally meets the girl and realizes that she's as attractive as Charlie Brown described her as. The two quickly establish a rapport involving a mutual precious item each one carries (hers is pink) and gets invited inside, while Charlie Brown is left waiting behind a tree. I'm not sure how we're supposed to feel about this, but given what an ass he has been all special, I found it to be a singerly positive outcome.
Charlie Brown gets a new voice in this one, courtesy of Grant Wehr, in not only his one outing as Charlie Brown, but his single solitary IMDB credit. Future boom mike operator Earl Reilly returns as Linus. Nicole Eggert, who would go on to star on Charles in Charge and Baywatch, had her one and only Peanuts outing as the ugly girl, Loretta.
Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown was, I'm sure, thought of as a 30-minute romcom. And maybe this type of thing was acceptable in 1981. In 2022, though, it just feels creepy and wrong. This one may be the most disappointing Peanuts outing yet.
Next week: The gang goes long and short in A Charlie Brown Celebration.
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