Charlie Brown has always been a big sports fan. While his athletic pursuits in the strips have mostly been limited to baseball and his attempts to kick Lucy's football, in the specials, he has participated in motocross, decathlon, and an actual football game. Of course, being an enthusiastic athlete does not mean he's a talented, or even competent athlete, though he's usually only as bad as the script requires him to be. After all, he did manage to win the motocross race in You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown and came very close to winning the decathlon in You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown. His baseball team also almost beat Peppermint Patty's team in It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown, except for an ill-timed rainstorm. So there is precedent for Charlie Brown to actually be a halfway decent competitor.
Despite a long streak of specials in the late 70s to early 80s revolving around various athletic endeavors (including the ones mentioned above), sports had taken a back seat in most recent specials. As the title implies, You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown becomes the first one since She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown or (if you consider breakdancing a sport) It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown to center around athletics. What's more, as the title implies, it centers on how talented Charlie Brown and Linus are at football, which, at least for this special, is quite talented indeed. What else to be expected from a special made with the full cooperation and (perhaps) sponsorship of the NFL?
Indeed, the NFL is all over this special, as we frequently see the NFL logo, characters dress in NFL uniforms and helmets, and the main plot revolves around the NFL's now-defunct Pass, Punt, and Kick competition for kids. Peppermint Patty comes up and informs the gang just as Lucy is trying to goad Charlie Brown into kicking her football yet again, and everyone decides to enter. Surpisingly, the two favorties turn out to be Charlie Brown and Linus, who actually turn out to be pretty good passers, punters, and kickers, at least when they don't have to worry about Lucy's antics. I'm not sure I buy that, but its a bit easier to swallow than the idea of Charlie Brown being a champion decathlete.
While the two of them are training, they notice a cute new girl watching them. Her name is rather improbably Melody Melody, and both boys, but especially Linus, are taken with her. She goes out for hot fudge sundaes with them, and promise to come see them at the contest, and both are pumped when she actually shows.
While the competition is the main plot, it feels like more screen time is devoted to the subplot, which has Snoopy coaching a team of Woodstock-like birds in the Animal Football League playoffs. Somewhat improbably, the Birds turn out to be the animal equivalent of the 1972 Dolphins, bulldozing their way through three games against much bigger compition, mostly by reusing animation again and again and again. More on that in a minute.
At the PP&K competition, most of the field, which is competing for a new bike and Super Bowl tickets (because that's where the national finals will be held) seems to consist of the main characters, as indeed, of the major human characters, only Sally and Schroeder don't participate. The male characters and Peppermint Patty do just fine, Lucy and Marcie don't, but somehow the top two are Linus and Charlie Brown. But there's one more competitor after them, and no points if you can guess who it is and who ultimately wins the whole thing.
While I wasn't crazy about the main plot, which was rather repetitive and predictable, at least it felt completely animated. Not so with the Animal League playoffs. Snoopy and his Birds go through the Cats, Dogs, and Bison (teams consisting of actual cats, dogs, and bison), winning them all in utter blowouts. Its a cartoon so I can suspend my disbelief that somehow a group of tiny birds is able to dominate a team made up of bison (even if they are a lot smaller than real bison). What annoyed me to no end was the blatant and obvious use of the same clips of animation all the way through all three segments. I don't just mean that they would use a strip in one, then recycle it for the next with the opponents replaced, though they certainly did that as well. They would reuse the same clips in the same games, within seconds of each other. It's like the animators only had about three minutes of footage for 11 minutes of screen time. Top-notch animation has never been a hallmark of Peanuts specials, but I've never seen it this shoddy. I can only guess that either the money largely ran out (hard to believe, with the NFL behind the special), or they ran out of time (more possible, because of the title).
There were a couple of amusing aspects as we watch the same brief sets of scenes play over and over and over. One is that the game announcer would use different last names for the Bird players in each of the three games (Polish names, NFL quarterback greats, and US presidents, respectively). The other is that Lucy showed up on the sidelines of the third game to mostly berate Snoopy and his team, even as they were crushing the Bison. That's not nearly enough to make up for the animation wierdness, though.
What's most surprising is that this was directed by Bill Melendez, who I would have thought would have known better. Of the voice cast, the only holdover is John Christian Graas, who plays Linus again after playing him in It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. The rest of the cast, including Charlie Brown voice Jimmy Guardino, would only voice their characters in this one special, and indeed, for most of them, this is one of three or fewer IMDB credits. Like Christmastime, the music once again was Vince Guaraldi, arranged by David Benoit. Charles Schulz wrote the special, though additional dialogue was written by Steve Stoliar, who was the announcer for the football game sequences.
After CBS decided to stop airing animated specials in primetime, this one found its way on NBC, premiering in January 1994, airing 12 days before Super Bowl XXVIII, which also aired on NBC. As ratings weren't great, that might explain why NBC was uninterested in picking up the future specials. This remains, to date, the only special to air on NBC. Indeed, while specials would continue to be produced for the home video market, this would be the last new special to air on network television until 2002, after Schulz's death.
In the strip, only five of the kid characters had gotten last names: Charlie and Sally Brown, Lucy and Linus Van Pelt, and Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt. As all the kids were announced by first and last name, last names were needed for Marcie and Franklin, who got Johnson and Armstrong, respectively (Armstrong comes from Robb Armstrong, the creator of the comic strip Jump Start, who was delighted when Schulz asked if he could borrow his last name). The exception was Pigpen, who was introduced as "Mr. Pig....Pen?". As mentioned earlier, during this sequence, all the contest participants were dressed in NFL jerseys and helmets, highlighting the league's top teams at the time.
Indeed, it is this NFL tie-in that has kept this perhaps the most obscure Peanuts special of them all. Like It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, this got a pre-air video release as a promotional item at Shell gas stations. That Shell release is, to date, the only official video release of this special, which was also only broadcast the once. Warner Bros., which currently hold the home video rights to the Peanuts specials, does not seem to have the rights to this one, and apparently, Apple, which owns the TV/streaming rights, do not have them, either. It is widely speculated that the NFL is behind this special more or less disappearing (though it is widely available in its entirety on various internet streaming sites).
To be fair, if any Peanuts special deserves obscurity, it's this one. Between the blah storyline and the shoddy animation, this is near the bottom of the pile. You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown (a title, that incidentally, is a misnomer. Charlie Brown, nor any other character, gets anywhere near the Super Bowl) is probably better suited for Snoopy's dog bowl.
Next week: After sitting on the shelf for nearly four years, It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown bypasses TV for a video release.
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