Since the dawn of moviemaking, filmmakers have blended live-action with animation. Some of Walt Disney's earliest work was the Alice Comedies, which featured a live-action young girl interacting with Disney's cartoon characters. Later, a live-action security guard would throw Porky Pig and his car out of the Warner Brothers studio, Gene Kelly would star in a dance number with Jerry the mouse, and Julie Andrews would win an animated horse race while riding a (admittedly live-action) carousel horse. In the summer of 1988, what remains to this day the most technically adapt blending of live action and animation opened in theaters nationwide. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a marvel, convincingly suggesting that animated characters were interacting with a wide variety of live-action props. One would not have thought that, of all franchises, Peanuts would join in the live-action/animation blending fun. But it did, and the result is quite possibly the oddest Peanuts special to date.
It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown debuted in September 1988, roughly three months after Who Framed Roger Rabbit hit theaters. And indeed, Rabbit was still going strong, having finished fourth at the previous weekend's boxoffice. This was probably not the environment to release a far-less technically impressive merger of live action and animation, and to be fair, this was originally slated to air the previous March, but production issues pushed it back. Maybe CBS should have just pushed it right off of its schedule.
Peanuts fans tuning in for what they expected to be the newest special were undoubtably confused by the opening panning shot of a very live-action desert, which did include a brief shot of the titular red truck. The camera would then glide past a group of saguaro cacti, including one that had an odd black rectangle in it. The camera quickly moved back and then dissolved into animation, as we see a sleeping Spike, Snoopy's brother, in a hammock. It's quickly established that this cactus is Spike's home and the black rectangle is a window. Spike comes outside to cook breakfast, only to have his fire and his pancakes "stolen" by a passing tumbleweed. And then it's time for the credits.
Interestingly enough, most likely to calm understandidly confused viewers, the opening credits give first billing to Charlie Brown and Snoopy, before clarifying that the special would star Spike, and then listing the rest of the cast. Sharp-eyed viewers would likely notice that the first non-Peanuts cast member listed is Jill Schulz. The writing credit a few moments later would reveal that Charles Schulz wrote the special with Monte Schulz. Yep, this was a family affair.
After the first commercial, the speical cuts to what turned out to be the longest bit of full animation in the special, as Charlie Brown visits his mailbox and then tells Snoopy that he got a letter from Spike. We get a couple more glimpes of the duo, and we have one more short scene inside Spike's cactus, but both Charlie Brown and Snoopy are gone from the special by the 6-minute mark, and we're done with full animation by 7 minutes in.
Instead, we meet Jenny, the girl in the red truck, who of course is played by Jill Schulz. Spike sees the truck coming and enthuistically waves at her, and she waves back. This excites Spike so much that he sits outside his cactus all day to see her and wave at her again, and then gets up early the next morning so he can wave at her once more. I guess the entire special could have continued like this, but luckily for narrative purposes, her truck breaks down on the return trip right in front of Spike. She takes an instant liking to him, and when he somehow gets her truck running again, she gives him a ride, first to a local cafe and then to her home, where we meet the other major human character, Jenny's boyfreind Jeff, played by Greg Deason. Here, the special gets rather weird (or, in actuality, even wierder) as Jeff seems to regard Spike as a romantic rival for Jenny. To be fair, its rather stronly implied that Spike has not-so-platonic feelings for Jenny, but it is also made clear that, as much as Jenny seems to like Spike, she regards him as nothing more than a dog. Nevertheless, most of the rest of the special treats the situation like a romantic triangle, with Jeff barely able to supress his jealously and hatred for Spike--except for the scene where he one-on-one confesses his insecurities to Spike.
The trio end up at a roller rink, primarily because Schulz was an expert skater and we got to see her show off her routines (she is talented, but I was mostly reminded of Betty White's very obvious dance double in that one episode of The Golden Girls). We then get to see Spike skating in an extended routine (somehow not as exciting) before he and Jenny start skate dancing together, which somehow ends with Spike getting thrown out the open back door, while Jenny doesn't even notice. This somehow leads to the truly odd climax of Spike getting hunted by a bunch of yahoos in trucks thinking he's a coyote (though I do wonder if him holding up a sign proclaiming himself not to be a coyote is a homage to a certain famous animated coyote) and Jeff and Jenny coming to his rescue, and Spike, having clearly lost the love triangle he had no chance of winning, heads back to his cactus.
Apperently, to appease the adults watching with their kids, there was a surprising amount of time devoted to the issues between Jenny and Jeff, since Jeff works in the big city (its not clear if its Los Angeles, Phoenix, or Las Vegas) and Jenny, despite her dreams of being a professional dancer, seems content to stay in the desert, teaching aerobics. The big conflict is that Jeff set up an audition for her, and Jenny doesn't appreciate him doing that without asking her first. Why any of the Schulzs thought this would remotely interest any of the kids watrching (or, for that matter, the adults), is unknown.
Since the budget was clearly multiple magnatudes lower than Roger Rabbit's budget, the producers simply decided to make anything that Spike needed to pick up or hold animated (the one exception being a salt shaker). That led to odd situations, such as when Jenny puts down an actual box of dog treats and Spike, a couple of minutes later, picking up an animated box of dog treats.
The acting wasn't any better than the special effects. Jill Schulz had an uncredited role on a 1977 episode of M*A*S*H as a hooker, then didn't do anything that was listed in the IMDB until Red Truck. In the month after this premiered, she'd have minor roles on two other CBS shows: Simon & Simon, where she once again played a hooker, and Newhart, where she played a dancer. And that would be it for her acting career. Today, she runs a company that puts stunt shows involving skates and bikes on for theme parks. Greg Deason's IMDB credits are also limited to 1988, as he popped up deep in the credits of an unsold pilot that CBS burned off that summer, and a minor role in the poorly-received drug addiction drama The Boost. This is the only credit for the third live-action person on screen, Molly Boice, who played the diner's waitress and who delivered her one big line "There goes the bus to Phoenix. I should be on that bus!" like she was planning to win an Emmy for her performance. The only other credited actor was Jason Riffle, who voiced Charlie Brown in this and in one episode of the mini-series This is America, Charlie Brown (in the other seven episodes, he was voiced by Erin Chase, who never played the role in any special). This would be the only special centering around Spike, though he'd appear in Snoopy's Reunion and play a major role in I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown.
Given that this was a mostly live-action affair, the usual Peanuts crew was largely absent. The rather peppy music was written by, if IMDB is to be believed, by actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez. This is the sole composing credit on his IMDB page, so I'm prone to believe the composer was a different Paul Rodriguez. The director was Walter C. Miller, who has, over his very long, very distinguished career, directed numerous award, variety, music, and stand up specials, but very, very few productions with narratives. Indeed, this appears to be the only one he'd ever direct. As for co-writer Monte Schulz, this is his only writing credit in IMDB, as its his brothers Craig and Bryan who have writing credits on the more recent Peanuts specials and movies. The credits do bring back the "Graphic Blandishment" label for the art team for the first time since the mid-70s.
Apparently, Charles Schulz thought It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown would be his Citizen Kane. Instead, it ended up being lambasted by critics (many of whom compared it negatively to Roger Rabbit) and, like his daughter's acting career, almost immediately sank into obscurity. After this, the rest of the specials stuck strictly to animation.
Next week: Peanuts heads into Very Special Episode territory, as Linus asks Why, Charlie Brown, Why?
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