She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown

AIRDATE: 2/25/80

STORY: The first Peanuts special of the new decade wastes no time heralding the creative teams determination to explore within a fine-tuned formula. Just two years prior, What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown eliminated every kid on the block bar Chuck as it immersed the willing viewer on a wordless Call of the Wild. The opening moments of She's a Good Skate feature a sleek, delicate figure skating routine set to an even more precious orchestral backing. The young girl's clothes blend with the nascent morning sky. While her moves practically sing, her stubborn, steely coach is a ball of hyper-perceptive judgment on the sidelines. Regardless, his pupil has a refreshingly pragmatic understanding of her mentors grumpified airs. She knows that both of them are chasing one goal: an ice-skating championship trophy.

While it may seem odd that Peppermint Patty should enter a competition requiring grace of movement and the wearing of a dress, it really isn't. The desire to play and win is strong within her, and she will do whatever it takes to be a champion--even waking up at 4:30 AM to take cantankerous instruction from a dog, a training plan with obvious benefits (perfecting her routine) and detriments (falling asleep in class).

Patty never frazzles beyond the point of no return, although the pitfalls are considerable: hockey brutes on "her" pond, last-minute fretting over a suitable outfit, a mishap with the cassette player at the venue on the day of competition. Her patience and resolve pay off as she cops the trophy. Which rather looks like an Emmy with the globe ripped off and the ladys wings pulled back and twisted with industrial strength pliers. 10

ANIMATION: Linus has his security blanket, the very same that gave the world that term in the first place. It has come to indicate anything (or anyone) that provides solace that permeates beyond the physical comfort. The animation of this show is much like a security blanket for the story. The colors are season-appropriate; the children are drawn masterfully, not one stroke gone awry. Their actions and reactions are as "sensible" as one dare use such a word when discussing a cartoon. 10

MUSIC: Ed Bogas and Judy Munsen were like the Gerry Goffin/Carole King of childrens show music, except they weren't. As with any Peanuts special that they helmed the pit for, the sounds are very of their time, the playing and arrangements almost always competent but almost never spectacular, the exceptions coming when the instrumentation gets far too "busy" for such a steadily-paced program. 8.5

VOICES: Oh, this here is funky. Not Ohio Players circa Honey funky, or even armpits that smell like the dumpster out back of a Turkish restaurant funky. I mean more like seeing a snowman in the summertime. Or listening to--and I mean really listening to--a Big & Rich song.

Peppermint Patty and Marcie get the bulk of the lines here, with a brief pipe from their mutual crush (Lucy, Linus, Sally, and Schroeder are all shown in the audience cheering Patty on but do not speak). Despite having the greatest possible name anyone voicing Peppermint Patty could have, Patricia Patts only gets a 9. She's fine, but the bar is high. Blame Linda Ercoli and Gail DeFaria for that. Casey Carlson knocks it out of the park as Marcie, with just the right mixture of wit, concern, and pinheadedness. 10

The hockey bully is straight out of Race For Your Life...not really complaining. 9

Oh wait, I forgot some other speaking roles. No I didn't.

No I didn't.

IF SHE NAILS THAT LUTZ, I'M GONNA PLOTZ

--No one ever accused Peppermint Patty of especial creativity in confrontation. She'll just generally utter some playground insult and knock yer block off. Standing up to the hockey bullies, she gets off one of the best namecalls I've ever heard: "Get lost, neckhead!" Neckhead? Does that mean a head like a neck, or that your neck is bigger than your head? It's brilliant either way, one of those exclamations that will send the target reeling mentally as he or she tries to figure out if they should feel insulted and if so, exactly how insulted they should feel.

--No one ever accused Peppermint Patty of having a reasonable sense of self-worth. The night before the competition she freaks out over needing a dress sewn up, a task Marcie takes on, fails horribly at, then of course is completed to OTT perfection by Snoopy. She also complains that her hairstyle needs a Higgins, because it is so "mousey-blah". The way she runs that phrase together makes it sound French.

--No one ever accused producers of getting it right the first time. The initial name of this special was "She's a Winner, Charlie Brown", until someone surely realized that the word "winner" and the name "Charlie Brown" not only do not go together, they have a rather cobra vs. mongoose relation to one another. Gotta love, also, the very Schulzian ring "She's a good skate". Not a good skater, mind you. How friggin' Minnesota.

--Unlike Lisa Simpson, Patricia Reichardt has no beef with Vassar.

--Patty's superbly fluid skating sequences were done with the relative magic of rotoscoping, a technique that would be revisited on the unsung classic It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown. (The model in this case was Amy Schulz.)

--"Even the ice is still asleep at 4:30." I fucking love you, Marcie.

--Snoopy Fassi. "I'll show you how to do this."

--Someone switched Snoopy's tape of Illmatic with Electric Youth.

--When Patty's tape gets mangled and disqualification looms, a quick-on-his-wings Woodstock takes to the mic and whistles out a grand accompaniment for a prize-winning glide around the rink: "O Mio Babbino Caro", a piece from Puccini's opera Gianni Schicchi. Just proving yet again that where there's a will, there's a way to write yourself into it. Not content to wing it--holy shit I'm hilarious--Schulz and friends got a pro to deliver this command performance: professional whistler Jason Serinus. Try writing that on a tax return sometime under "occupation".

I DISLIKE OLYMPIC ATHLETES WHO WHINE OVER WINNING SILVER AND BRONZE MEDALS. AT LEAST IT'S A MEDAL! SERIOUSLY, THE FOURTH PLACE FINISHER WOULD PERFORM ORAL FAVORS ON A FARM ANIMAL TO GET THAT BRONZE FROM YOU.

--I have one problem with Good Skate, but it's not insignificant. Adult voices can be heard in this special. Speaking clearly, not that "wah wah" stuff. Lucid, perfectly enunciated, bizarro Jimmy Onishi English. There's the teacher, a store employee and finally the emcee at the event. Unfathomable. Focusing a show on a so-called "second tier" character is an unorthodox choice that works, much like I Want a Dog For Christmas 23 years later. The decision to interject grown up voices into the special is the only blemish on the whole 25 minutes, but it's one that's an absolute bitch to treat. I still cringe a little when I hear them.

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Patricia Reichardt is an odd duck in the (sometimes frozen) pond. She has Charlie Brown's desire to be loved, Linus' faith, Lucy's temper, Snoopy's hope. She lacks Charlie Brown's athletic ineptitude, Linus' intellectualism, Lucy's girlishness, and Snoopy's luck in landing a taciturn best friend. She rocks striped shorts and shirts, hippie chick sandals, and freckles that dot her face like sunspots. Her hair is unmanageable; her voice is a ball of bubble wrap being lovingly prepared for popping by a pair of mischievous hands. She has two nicknames: one that everyone calls her and one that only one person calls her. As irrelevant as parents are in the Peanuts galaxy, at least the other kids have a complete set of them. Patty only has her father, a man given to spoil his only child in both material and emotional ways. Almost everything about her musses up the tidy neurotic world of Charlie Brown and friends. She's swaggering, brash, a be-all to-all tomboy who worries about calories only after she's eaten the meal.

But to type her as a young girl of negligible feminity is to ignore the deep-seated yearnings inherent in any females soul. She's a Good Skate opened up a new drawer, the one at the bottom of the dresser that practically no one gets around to using. From it was pulled the desire to be a beautiful, desirous young lady that exists uneasily alongside the drive to succeed in areas not traditionally considered appropriate for girls (that would be the contents of the top drawer). Patty will always value a no-hitter over a triple axle...but she's too interested and interesting to not try both.

Some of the latterly Peanuts specials had critics and fans scratching their heads off premises alone: a Flashdance take off? Snoopy's nightmare? Linus at a birthday party? With Good Skate, the inspiration could not get more pure. In the following links, you will find the series of 27 daily strips from November 4th to December 7th, 1974 that detail Patty's journey from the cold and lonely pond out back to the world of competitive skating (one of the longest runs in the history of the strip, showing how much Charles Schulz loved writing for the character).

You will note some key omissions as you read. For instance, in the very first strip, Patty makes the ultimate testament for the worth of Title IX; she also makes a brief, wistful reference to her absent mother; and finds time to zing the NHL.

Of course, as you progress from one strip to the next you will notice key twists that simply couldn't fit within the limited TV time the producers had, which just makes the panels that more special. It would have been delightful to see Marcie stammer and faint from her own sweethearted prudishness, for one; however, for those of us lucky enough to partake of the immaculate panels as hungrily as we do of the made-for-box moving pictures, we can consider these moments our own little secret. Especially the real conclusion of the story.

Enjoy the rest; number 337 ranks on my top 20 favorite Peanuts dailies.

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