For the most part, Peanuts strips are timeless. It's usually relatively easy to tell if a strip is from the 50s because Charles Schulz didn't really settle on the final form for his characters until late in that decade or early in the 60s, and it's usually easy to tell if a strip is from the 90s because during Peanuts's last decade, he broke out of the rather rigid four frames per strip format that he had been using since the beginning. But frequently, a strip from 1966 is indistinguishable from a strip from 1976 from a strip from 1986.
This is not to say that Schulz never referenced current events or pop culture. For example, in a strip that ran in November 1983, Snoopy, wearing an oversized sweatshirt, spends three frames dancing, before thinking in the final frame "Flashbeagle!" This was an obvious reference to Flashdance, a huge hit movie from earlier that year starring Jennifer Beals as a young welder by day, exotic dancer by night, who dreams of going to ballet school. Even if the kids reading the strip had not seen the R-rated film, they likely had seen the poster, which featured Beals wearing an oversized sweatshirt, and were also probably familiar with the equally popular soundtrack album. The strip was a one-off, but something in it must have struck a nerve with Schulz, or Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson, or CBS, because less than five months after that strip aired, the network debuted It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown.
Flashbeagle is unique in the annals of Peanuts specials because it is just as timeless as the strip that inspired it, i.e. not at all. Like the strips, it isn't too difficult to think that most of the various Peanuts specials preceding this one could have been made at any time between 1965 and 1985. Not Flashbeagle, which could only have been made in 1983/1984. Indeed, the special was pretty much well out of date by 1987. No other Peanuts special, before or since, is so firmly tied to the era in which it was made.
The special is unique in other ways as well. While music has been incredibly important in previous Peanuts specials, and several memorial songs have come from them ("Christmastime is Here", "Little Birdie"), this is the first full-fledged musical special, with no less than five original songs, written by the franchise's musical team of Ed Bogas and Desirée Goyette. I should note that I hadn't really written much about the duo before now, as I found their prior contributions the specials' soundtracks fine, but a step down from the scores of the late Vince Guaraldi. In this special, though, they got the chance to shine, and made the most of it, as all five songs are fairly memorable (points off, though for incorporating the theme from The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show into the score. The piano instrumental happens to be my favorite piece of music they wrote, but it still seems like a blatant way to promote the Saturday morning series, which, for all the hype it arrived with, ended up turning in disappointing ratings that first season).
Like a lot of 80s Peanuts specials, this one doesn't really have a consistent storyline. The cold opening has a couple of random shots of Snoopy playing football, before switching to a night scene with Charlie Brown going to bed, while Snoopy pulls out a giant, 80s-style boombox and begins dancing to the title song over the opening credits (the song is cut off fairly quickly by the first commercial break, but don't worry, this won't be the last time we hear it in the show).
After a standard-issue series of classroom gags involving Peppermint Patty and Marcie (the highlight of which, lifted from the strip, involved Peppermint Patty getting her three-ring binder stuck on top of her head), we get to the first full-length song of the special, in which Peppermint Patty leads Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Sally, and Schroeder in aerobics, while singing "I'm in Shape", a catchy little ditty that manages to incorporate a clear parody of Toni Basel's "Mickey" into the lyrics. The images also seem to be a parody, aping both the then-popular series of workout videos by actress Jane Fonda and the gym-set video for the smash Olivia Newton-John song "Physical" (but without any of that song's sexual innuendo, of course).
The next segment features a house party that the gang is attending. Lucy quickly takes over a game of "Simon Says", turning it into (of course) "Lucy Says", which also happens to be the name of the song she begins singing. This is probably the best song of the special, being both undeniably earwormy, and with stellar vocals by Jessie Lee Smith. After some more gags involving Woodstock and a bowl of punch, we come to the worst song of the special, "Pigpen Hoedown". It's not bad, and it's nice that Pigpen get a bit of time in the spotlight, but it still seems like filler (and I wonder how many people, like me, kept hearing the lyrics as "big damn hoedown"?).
After the party sequence, we get a sequence of Snoopy getting ready to the song "Snoopy", including him trying on outfits (including a certain white suit worn in a prior dance movie), before choosing a sweatshirt and heading out. Thus starts the most iconic, most insane segment of not just the special, but of any Peanuts special. Indeed, it's so indescribable that I have no choice but to just show it to you in its entirety:
I'm not sure what I find most amazing--that Franklin was breakdancing in front of this club at night (with two other kids with unconcerned parents watching), that Snoopy and Franklin could just waltz into the club, or the design of the dancers, which had adult bodies but the head styles of the kids (at least the relatively rare times adults had been show in prior specials, they had their own unique design). The song itself is definitely earwormy--maybe even more so than "Lucy Says". It should be noted that Snoopy's dancing was rotoscoped from footage of Marien Jahan, who had been one of Jennifer Beals's dance doubles in Flashdance. To be fair, despite that and the orange sweatshirt (and Snoopy's rejection of the white suit earlier), the segment owes more to Saturday Night Fever than Flashdance.
That really should have been the end of the special, other than maybe a brief closing segment, but nope, we have one more, in which Sally takes an exhausted Snoopy to school for show and tell. Her presentation is berated by one of her classmates, who then proceeds to take out a giant boombox (much like the one from the beginning of the special) and turn it on (again, in class, during Sally's presentation). Naturally, the song playing is "Flashbeagle", which wakes Snoopy up and prompts him to lead the class in a dance party. This whole thing is nearly as amazing as the disco sequence.
While he was credited as a segment director on It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown, this is the first co-director credit for longtime animator Sam Jaimes, who shares credit with Bill Melendez. We mostly get a new voice cast for this one, with the most notable name being one kid who grew up to be arguably the most famous Peanuts alum. Stacy Ferguson made her debut as Sally, and also contributed vocals to the various group choruses. She, of course, would grow up to become Fergie, core member of The Black Eyed Peas. Yes, two decades later, Sally would sing "My Humps".
I remember watching this as a kid and hating it. 38 years later, I still think it's a bizarre idea for a special, but I do have a lot more appreciation for it now than I did back then. The songs are well-crafted and catchy, the gags are solid, and if the special is somewhat unfocused, that is a trait it shares with a lot of Peanuts specials from the era. And yes, as weird as it is, it's impossible to deny that the special's signature segment is one of the most memorable few minutes in the entire Peanuts franchise. It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown is a time capsule, but it's a surprisingly enjoyable one.
Next week: Wedding bells are ringing in Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown.
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