After years of trying to persuade Charles Schulz, Bill Melendez, and Lee Mendelson to bring Peanuts to Saturday mornings, CBS finally succeeded in 1983, with the debut of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show. In interviews tied to the debut of the new show, Mendelson revealed that the trio agreed once CBS agreed to allow a substantial lead time to produce the 13-episode season. That would suggest that production on the show began during the spring of 1982. The network also allowed for a format change from the specials. The new show would consist of a few vignettes every half-hour, most of which would be adapted directly from the comic. That corresponds with the format of A Charlie Brown Celebration, which aired in May 1982, before the new series was announced but, if Mendelson's timeline is accurate, after the series had entered production. Given that the special bears a 1981 copyright date, that strongly suggests that Celebration was indeed intended to be a pilot for the Saturday morning series. Apparently to ensure that Celebration wasn't merely a fluke, and/or to prepare audiences used to storylines lasting the entire special for the series, a second vignette special premiered about year after Celebration, and four months before the show's Saturday morning debut.
It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown would consist of nine vignettes, including the short cold open, which had Lucy performing acrobatics thanks to bubble gum. Unlike Celebration, which had numerous one-liners and quick gags between the longer segments, Adventure would consist almost entirely of longer stories, each one designated on-screen by a one-word title.
"Sack" saw Charlie Brown first begin to see baseballs everywhere, then once he got a rash, put a grocery sack over his head and head to summer camp, where he inexplicitly became the most popular kid there. "Caddies" focuses on Peppermint Patty and Marcie who get (short-lived) jobs at the local golf course, while "Kite" has Charlie Brown leaving home after getting a warning letter from the EPA after taking a bite out of the kite-eating tree. He ends up managing a team of very young baseball players who call themselves the Goose Eggs. "Song" and "Sally" are both a plotless series of gags, the former starring Lucy and Schroeder (and his piano), the latter involving Sally at school. "Butterfly" has Marcie convincing Peppermint Patty that, after she fell asleep with the titular creature on her nose, it turned into an angel. "Blanket" detailed Lucy's various schemes to separate Linus from his security blanket for good. Finally "Woodstock" is another series of plotless gags, this time involving the titular bird and Snoopy.
Like in Celebration (and the eventual series) these stories were adapted from the strip. And, like Celebration, the special is a mixed bag. Both "Sack" and "Kite" feel disjointed, as they start with one narrative (Charlie Brown's baseball obsession/his battle with the tree) before abruptly shifting to another one (his trip to camp/his managing the tiny Goose Eggs team). As much as I like Peppermint Patty and Marcie, I didn't like either of their segments as they both felt too repetitive. The best of the bunch was "Blanket", as it had a nice rhythm, had a consistent storyline, didn't feel like it was several straight gags that were only slight variations on each other, and didn't wear out its welcome.
While the vignette style was a clever way to recycle the nearly 33 years worth of strips, not to mention relieve the stress on Schulz, who refused to let anyone else write for his characters and still had a 365-strips-a-year schedule to maintain, not to mention writing the one or two annual specials that were still coming down the pike, the format definitely had its limits. I felt my attention wane during the second half, even if the strongest story was during that part. And, as noted, the quality of the stories widely varied. It was also clear that Schulz didn't put much effort in modifying the scripts from the strips. For example, in "Butterfly", the same basic gag (Peppermint Patty saying that a butterfly landed on her nose, Marcie making a smart aleck comment, Peppermint Patty responding negatively) is repeated four straight times. That works in a daily strip format, but not so well when the lines follow each other one after another.
It's an Adventure seems to have been produced before the previous special, Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?, as several actors who had been long-time voices of the characters (including Earl "Rocky" Reilly as Linus, his sister Cindi Reilly as Sally, and Brent Hauer as Peppermint Patty) were in this even though they weren't in Goodbye. Then again, Goodbye was directed by the departing Phil Roman, while this was directed by Melendez, who would resume directorial duties again from here on out (Roman would be credited as "segment director". This would be his last Peanuts credit other than a few segments on series). Also credited as "segment director" was longtime animator Sam Jaimes, who would co-direct a few upcoming specials with Melendez, and also get a few solo assignments. Getting back to the voice cast, this marks the only Peanuts appearance by child actress and future musician Jenny Lewis, who voiced one of the tiny baseball players. Also making his one Peanuts appearance, as Schroeder, was 13-year-old Brad Schacter, whose main claim to fame was being the first victim of the evil masks in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (his IMDB page picture is of him wearing the fatal pumpkin mask).
Whatever the flaws of It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown, it didn't seem to bother the network, who, the following fall, gave The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show a prime spot on its Saturday morning lineup. I'll have more to say about the Saturday morning series in future installments, but the fact that, despite the hype, the show turned out to be fairly short-lived might hint that, when it comes to Peanuts on TV, coherent stories might play better than quick vignettes.
Next week: It's a rare Memorial Day animated special with What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?
No comments:
Post a Comment