YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN

Every time I think I've watched every Peanuts special ever made, another drops into my lap.  And while I happily spend Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with the gang, I have to confess that the love stops there.  As much as I tried to tell myself You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown would be cute and funny, I found it to be the most grating of all.

 

Based on the live action Broadway musical, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown is a noisy hodgepodge of vignettes that find the Peanuts gang in their usual predicaments.  Lucy hangs all over Schroeder's piano and tries to talk her way into her heart.  Snoopy's imagination runs away with him.  Lucy dispenses mean-spirited advice.  Sally complains about the injustices in her life.  Charlie Brown gets everything wrong.  He also continues to pine for the Little Red Haired Girl in that creepy old man way that suggests he has no idea that he is a Little Bald Boy. 

 

All of this would be business as usual if the Peanuts gang weren't constantly bursting into song.  Loud, raucous song reminiscent of kids at camp all sugared-up on roasted marshmallows and yelling at the top of their lungs.  At one point they launch into a full-on marching band number, leaving you grasping for the remote and wishing for the end...of the special, of life, whatever!

 

True Peanuts fans will undoubtedly want to add this special to their collection, but those of us who love the gang a bit more conditionally are safe to steer clear.  The documentary featurette "Animating A Charlie Brown Musical" is actually far more interesting, and chronicles the process of making a Broadway show into an animated special.   It's a novelty in the realm of pop culture, but perhaps not one you'll want to revisit again and again.