# "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is One F\*ed up Movie. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 27, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051 "2010-11-27T04:46:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/21 "2010-11-28T06:20:15Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > No, the others all misspelled words. Charlie Brown spelled two words correctly: incompetent and fussbudget. So it wasn’t like he whiffed on the first pitch. Oh, the words he knew were clearly chosen at random then. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/22 "2010-11-28T08:22:45Z")
I found this movie - all the Charlie Brown movies, really - profoundly depressing as a child, when I didn’t really have the capacity to understand why. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/23 "2010-11-29T17:23:58Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Charles Schultz was a strange man. I really don’t know how much input Schulz had in that movie, or any of the specials. The first two TV specials (_A Charlie Brown Christmas_ and _It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown_) contained a lot of gags from the daily strips, and are the only ones that I’ll still watch. After that, their basis in the actual strip seemed to get progressively looser, and they increasingly felt like poor imitations. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/24 "2010-11-29T18:23:55Z")
I read the biography of Charles Schulz a couple of years ago and allowing for the fact that biographies aren’t always accurate, it portrayed him as a man who was chronically depressed and whose family were almost incapable of demonstrating affection. When he came home from the army and went into his father’s barber shop, his father didn’t even stop working for a moment to shake his hand. And his mother had the tendency to undermine him anytime he felt good about an accomplishment. So, yeah, CB was his alter ego and Schulz couldn’t even give _him_ much happiness. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/25 "2010-11-29T18:37:48Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I found this movie - all the Charlie Brown movies, really - profoundly depressing as a child, when I didn’t really have the capacity to understand why. So did I. I think it’s not just the fact that CB is so desperately unhappy, it’s that the movies make it very clear that _no one_ will ever, ever help him. The adults - who can’t even communicate intelligibly - can’t help him, Lucy _won’t_ help him, and so on. The movies are great - but good grief, they are amazingly dark. Though they do have lighter moments. The Peanuts theme is a great, happy tune - and Snoopy’s happy dance is great stuff. Whatever glimmers of hope exist in Peanuts come through Snoopy. /Snoopy dance ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/26 "2010-11-29T19:08:05Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > Peanuts was a great strip from the 1950s to the 1990s. Look at how other long-running strips end up (Cathy, Garfield being prime examples). No, it was a great strip from the 1950’s to the early 1970’s. By the end it was every bit as bad as Cathy and Garfield. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/27 "2010-11-29T19:22:48Z")
[Thread link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=587218) It has been mentioned elsewhere that Christopher Shea who did the voice of Linus in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” has died. [Here’s his most famous bit](http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn10FF-FQfs) ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/28 "2010-11-29T19:32:23Z")
[Let’s try that again](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA) ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/29 "2010-11-29T19:32:39Z")
IMHO, what the animated Peanuts did best was make kids go apeshit over Snoopy. The self absorbed ass hole of the comic strip turned into a lovable little elf perfect for merchandising. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/30 "2010-11-29T19:51:39Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > That sonofabitch Schultz should have let him kick that fucking football before ending the series! The football? I wanted him to kick LUCY in the face! ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/31 "2010-11-29T22:44:38Z")
I remember, near the end of the Peanuts strip, there was one Sunday strip in which Lucy sent Rerun out to hold the football instead of her, and she stayed inside to watch TV or something instead of going out. Afterward, Rerun came back holding the football, and the dialogue went something like this: Lucy: So, did he kick it? Or did you pull the football away at the last second? Rerun: You’ll never know. Lucy: AAUGH! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/32 "2010-11-30T03:00:08Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > But Charlie Brown is a passive agressive jerk. He constantly whinges about having no friends when it’s clear he had lots of them. He constanlty fouls up baseball games yet the kids like him enough to let him play. Yet he fails to see that as a good thing but rather bitches about not being a great baseball player, instead of being grateful the other kids, let him play at all. > > Several times, Linus, Lucy and Schroeder respond to his his questino, “What would you do if you felt no one liked you,” by saying “I hate that answer” when they all tell him, “I’d examine myself and change what is wrong.” > > He’s selfish and unfeeling, he constantly whines about that “Little Red Haired Girl” doesn’t even know he exists, while ignoring both Pepperming Patty and Marcie, and driving them to probably lesbian 🙂 > > And the whole point of the story was that you do things for the sake of doing them and in the end you will see win or lose the world didn’t end and you were richer for the experience. > > I mean we do glorify winners, somewhat ridiculously, look at Michael Phelps, who spent pretty much his entire life traing to be able to swim form one side of the pool to the other faster than anyone else. > > That’s ludicrous when you think of it, but that’s how society is. And that is the point, real achivement and growth doesn’t come form a ridiculous exercise of memorizing a word you can just as easily look up in a dictionary. > > But as you can tell, I never found Charlie Brown to be a very sympathetic character Seeing as he’s described as nearly the perfect example of someone with depression, you basically just said that all depressed people are selfish jerks. And surely by now the board knows my opinion on that. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/33 "2010-11-30T03:21:55Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Seeing as he’s described as nearly the perfect example of someone with depression, you basically just said that all depressed people are selfish jerks. And surely by now the board knows my opinion on that. Not _all_ depressed people. Just Charlie Brown! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/34 "2010-11-30T04:53:56Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Is every marathon runner a loser because some guy from Kenya won again? Of course he is. Life ain’t a special-ed class, kid! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/35 "2010-11-30T10:57:30Z")
I don’t know whether Charles Schulz was clinically depressed, but I think that _Peanuts_ goes beyond merely appealing to people who are clinically depressed. It’s not true that being sad can only arise from clinical depression. Sometimes life really is depressing. The interesting thing about Charlie Brown was how the development of his character spit in the face of the character archetypes of standard American fiction. In most romantic comedies, the hero wins the girl, although she may not be the girl of his dreams. In some tragic variants of them, he may date the girl for a while although they eventually break up or one of them may die tragically, but at least there is some brief period when they are together. Charlie Brown can’t get a date with the girl of his dreams. He can’t even manage to talk with her. That happens sometimes, and it happens more often than it’s ever portrayed in American fiction. Similarly, most American sports fiction has the underdog winning at the end. Sometimes it merely has him getting better at his sport and making a decent showing. Charlie Brown never gets better at baseball, no matter how much he loves the sport. This is also something that happens sometimes. Charlie Brown never learns how to fly a kite right. He never learns not to trust con artists like Lucy. He’s not even as smart and imaginative as his dog, let alone the other humans in the strip. This is why for a lot of its run _Peanuts_ was a popular and even hip thing to read. It was one of the few items in any artistic media in the U.S. that was willing to say that life really was difficult and one can’t expect a happy ending to every story. One can’t even expect a tragic ending. Sometimes life is just difficult day after day. The _Peanuts_ TV specials weren’t the best forum for the ideas of the strip. They tried to stretch out the themes of the strip into a standard length for a movie, and that really doesn’t work. They either try to create a happy ending for the story or they try to build Charlie Brown’s woes into some larger tragedy. The _Peanuts_ stories in the comic strips were about everyday unhappiness, not about tragic endings. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/36 "2010-11-30T11:40:38Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Similarly, most American sports fiction has the underdog winning at the end. True, but the best sports fiction goes against type. Rocky loses the big fight. Casey strikes out. Fast Eddie beats Fats, but it’s still a tragedy. The Bad News Bears lose the championship game and get a lame apology from the winners, then they pop open some beers and tell the other team to go screw themselves. That’s how to end a sports movie. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/37 "2010-11-30T12:19:16Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > The football? I wanted him to kick LUCY in the face! I’ve got one word for you: [Roadhouse](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDURfLc9u0g) ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/38 "2010-11-30T20:04:24Z")
I remember watching a really out there Peanuts episode, where Charlie Brown gets turned invisible and kicks the football away from Lucy…does anyone else remember that one? ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/39 "2010-11-30T20:10:14Z")
> [@Skara\_Brae](#): > > I remember watching a really out there Peanuts episode, where Charlie Brown gets turned invisible and kicks the football away from Lucy…does anyone else remember that one? Yeah, I do. That was one of the later ones where they really strayed away from what the strip was like. And, for the record, while some of the Peanuts TV cartoons and movies are enjoyable, they are _not_ canon. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051/40 "2010-11-30T20:15:47Z")
> [@gregorio](#): > > What the hell did you expect? The movie is from the USA (USA! USA!). You know, the place that comes up with ads stating that you don’t win silver, you lose gold (1996 Olympic games Nike ad). Yeah, I’ll agree with you. That’s fucked up. reading this got me all sorts of riled up; like Mighty Ducks 2 pumped up. USA! USA! USA! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-boy-named-charlie-brown-is-one-f-ed-up-movie/562051.md?page=3)