This Is America, Charlie Brown: The Smithsonian and the Presidency

AIRDATE: 4/19/89

STORY: Wherein the Peanuts gang--now with 100% more Franklin!--visit some Smithsonian museums and learn about stuff. And by "stuff" I mean fossils, planes, space, culture, and presidents. And by "presidents" I mean--Lincoln and the two Roosevelts. 8

ANIMATION: Neatly rendered, but dated in the way that Rakim's first two albums are dated; meaning that while the look is resolutely of its era, it more than holds up. 8.5

MUSIC: Imagine "Linus and Lucy" reprised to sound like the musical cues between scenes in an episode of Who's the Boss? 7.5

VOICES: The same voice actors were used for the entire miniseries, but the performances of each individual child vary from show to show. While Eric Chase was underwhelming in The Great Inventors, he shines here, giving Charlie Brown the dulled edge of cute he needs to succeed as a loser--9. Brandon Stewart remains serviceable as Linus (8), while Erica Gayle delivers a thin-sounding Lucy (7). Brittany Thornton's Sally dips to a 7; she sounds a bit too Lucy-ish. Marie Cole does Marcie well--a smart kid who sounds perpetually dumbfounded.
8. Jason Mendelson earns a 9 as P. Pat, which is no shocker. Who did make my blotchy jaw-house do the Moe Syslak was Hakeem Abdul Sanad as Franklin. This is the only Franklin who sounds like the sass-gobbed black kid who would have moved in with Fred Sanford after Lamont left and taught the crotchedy old bastard a li'l somethin' 'bout love, life, and not bein' a jive turkey if Redd Foxx had wanted to milk the great glowing cow any further.

"Charlie Brown, you so ugly we can stick your head in a blender with a banana and make us some gorilla shakes!"

Franklin didn't say that, of course, but just the thought of it makes me laugh. 9

I KEEP IT "PEANUTS", LIKE TRUMAN'S DAD

--As part of a fifth grade field trip, my class went to the Natural History Museum. I remember virtually nothing of the journey, which is amazing considering I'm famed among my circle of friends for a fantastic memory. I had a real thing for rocks back then; I used to walk up and down my father's garden during the infertile winter months, digging for them igneous and sedimentary shits. I loved to read up on the rocks, gaze at full-color pictures, and wonder when I would ever find specimens that looked so immaculate. Not quite realizing that since I was unearthing them from a fucking field of dirt, my dream was nigh on impossible. Ah well. I still heart you, rhyolite.

--

"Behold, I am domino canis."

--

Bowler hats are so crazed they can make even a quotidian citizen like Charlie Brown seem cooler than a polar bear listenin' to Outkast in a walk-in freezer.

--Sally sharing what she knows about dinosaurs: "I did a report on the Bronchitis. He coughed a lot." Makes me laugh like a friggin' half-brain.

--Why Teddy Roosevelt and not George Washington? Why not. Schulz adored funny-sounding names. (Hence Schroeder loving "Beethoven", not "Bach".) Well, T.R. had sons named Kermit and Archibald. No funnier names exist in the history of presidential progeny. At least until Sarah Palin takes the highest office in 2012.

--You just kinda threw up in your mouth a little, didn't you?

--I don't give much stock to the adult voices in this series, but Frank Welker is fantastic throughout. From Shaggy to Santa's Little Helper, the man is a national treasure. His Lincoln sounds quite Obama, being pre-Obama and all. Isn't that how we're dividing the world these days? Pre- and post-Obama?

--Among the artifacts gawked at by our heroes are the Lunar and Command Modules of Apollo 10, which were nicknamed "Snoopy" and "Charlie Brown" (incidentally, neither are actually in the Air and Space Museum). They also gaze upon a Peanuts strip in the American History Museum (incidentally, a Peanuts panel does appear in said museum). They are stunned at these "coincidences", but little else. All I know is, I go to a museum and I see a plane named after me, or drawings of my daily routine up on the walls, I'm freaking out and holding some fossils hostage till I get some goddamn answers, goddamnit.

"HISTORY DOES NOT MOVE IN A STRAIGHT LINE, BUT BY ZIG ZAGS"

--

"Did you say 'Wright Brothers' or 'White Brothers'? This place is racist!"

--The show begins rather inauspiciously.

"The Washington Monument is really high!"

"The White House really is white!"

"Gee, the Lincoln Memorial is beautiful!"

Amazingly, Charlie Brown says the least dopey statement of the whole opening sequence. I was prepared to hear, "Golly, the Lincoln Memorial really is dedicated to that guy on the penny!"

--Later, though, while paired up with Linus as paperboys delivering a B & W to Mr. Lincoln, he asks: "Is it hard, being President, sir?" Mendelson and Melendez--they weren't terrible writers.

--They gave Lincoln a nose like the old lady in that classic optical illusion.

--To really appreciate this show, you have to try and view it through a child's mind. If you can, how much you can. You have to temporarily clear your mind of all acquired-as-an-adult unsavory knowledge about the nation's leaders.

Lincoln's incessant anxieties and chronic fear of going insane? Quite Schulzian, but have no place here. Cartoon Lincoln is dedicated to ending the Civil War and giving a memorable speech in Gettysburg. (The most applause-worthy moment of the entire half hour is that Frank Welker recites the Gettysburg Address in its entirety. A close second is the Great Depression footage shown throughout the FDR segment. It really lets children understand the destitution of those times.)

--Teddy Roosevelt was a noted hunter, soldier, environmentalist, and bookworm who cultivated an image of the ideal man that many demand their CIC exude. He was also a classist at best, believing that those who spoke English as a mama tongue (and better, were born with a pale complexion) were destined to occupy the top spot in society's hierarchy, while generally speaking, non-whites were inferior. The subtle racism of great figures is fascinating to uncover with later study, but there's no reason to throw it all at kids in one heaping helping of ambivalent character study. The best you could hope for is this early exposure to the people that shaped the country will encourage them to dig deeper.

--Hell, even seeing a drawing of The Spirit of St. Louis made me think--"Bruno Hauptmann sure got fucked, didn't he?"

Ah well. Kids know nothing of ingrained hatred, war, or scapegoating borne of media frenzy. They just know they need a laugh at the end.

This Is America, Charlie Brown: The Great Inventors

AIRDATE: 3/10/89

(My apologies that this came a day later than promised. The rest of the reviews are in various stages of completion and will meet their deadlines. Swear to Snoopy.)

Peanuts producer Lee Mendelson did not hone his bones with neurotic children. When he approached Charles Schulz to do a mini-documentary on his great creation, Mendelson had already crafted San Francisco Pageant (a Peabody-winning retrospective on the San Francisco World's Fair) as well as A Man Named Mays, dedicated to one of the greatest baseball players of all-time. Having just done a piece on a legendary sportsman, Mendelson saw the next step in the trajectory as a look at the worst sportsman (or sportsboy) in all the wild--Charlie Brown.

After 20+ years of holiday-themed specials, the Peanuts team decided to produce an educational film on American history. After discovering that their collective reach exceeded their grasp, the first-ever animated miniseries was born: This is America, Charlie Brown, an eight-part look at some of the key moments that shaped the grand land.

STORY: The Great Inventors concentrates on some of the more significant inventions thought up by American minds: the light bulb, the phonograph, the phone, and the car. This is America was meant to be "edutainment", meaning that you learn but you don't get bored in the process. At least that's the ideal outcome. We also must not let it slip our mind grapes that Boogie Down Productions had an album called Edutainment. So, does this special shine as it teaches, much like the song "Blackman in Effect", or does it confuse, bore and annoy, much like R.E.M.'s "Radio Song"?

The concept is novel: the Peanuts boys and girls are giving oral reports at school on famous inventions, then the action segues to the relevant time period, where the child is then inevitably doing a report for school on a wholly personable and accommodating genius (seriously, Edison would have snapped some nosy kids left arm clean the fuck off if they'd brought that, "Gee, Mr. Edison, I'm writing for school about you, can I watch you work?" crap). In simple language, the animated versions of these great men explain the thought process as to why their invention is necessary and the progress they've made. The viewer is then treated to the voila! moment of consummation.

It's all very educational and not dull. But it's a tad disappointing as well. I expect untrammelled brilliance from anything that bears the name Schulz. Maybe the fact that the resplendent man himself did not write any of the scripts in this miniseries--those duties went to Mendelson and Bill Melendez--affected the overall quality, making for a very watchable, non-heinous group of specials. But Peanuts shows are, at their zenith, more than "very watchable". They're side-splitting and excogitative. Repeated viewings are cause to revisit delightful lines and moments that stay in you like DNA, as well as opportunities to uncover new joys that you may have missed before.

I had only watched The Great Inventors once on DVD before last night, when I stuck the disc back in the playa for review purposes. Meanwhile, I'll watch A Charlie Brown Christmas seven or eight times this year. 7.5

ANIMATION: Not precisely cracker-crisp, but nor is it wafer-thin. Impressive variety of colors, and honest renderings of period homes, clothing, and furniture. Only a 9, though, because Snoopy's mouth is doing some weird shit.

MUSIC: David Benoit is to Vince Guaraldi as Tom Tom Club was to Talking Heads. No dis at all, 'cause Tom Tom Club made "Genius of Love", which most of us agree is so fuckin' funky it makes Bootsy Collins seem like Pat Boone (glory b!). Benoit has the expected jazzy piano and horn-blasted patriotic huzzahs as his Get out of Jail Free card, a constant sonic undercurrent that keeps tedium at bay. 8

VOICES: Kids-only edition. Given deliberately unspectacular lines, the gathering deliver uniformly appropriate performances. Starting it off, Brittany Thornton's Sally is a jerky-while-trying-to-be-authoritative 9. Erin Chase earns 7.5 as Blockhead, while his best pal Linus (brought to you by Brandon Stewart), is a genuinely childish 8 (many times the producers skewer towards the mature-sounding kids for an underage sage such as Linus). Marie Wise is a nice 9 as Marcie, although you can tell if she were given a larger role, the show would have lost serious momentum. Her voice simply doesn't have that flavor. Marcie's sassy sidekick, voiced by probable producer progeny Jason Mendelson, is a typical 10, pulling off the line of the night: "Hey, that's neat!"

THE PRINTING PRESS

Sally's report, fittingly, deals with more "frivolous" inventions: pizza pie, sneakers, sports, comic strips. All the better for Snoopy to do his show and tell, which naturally provides the show with its moments of highest comedy.

Her unwilling love interest, Linus, naturally traffics in loftier stuff: the phone, trains, typewriters. And his class gets a screen to show slides! When you're in grade school, the older kids always have the cool shit you don't, so they suck. Then when you get to the next grade, you can't even appreciate the cool shit, 'cause now they've moved on to and got the even cooler shit!

Sigh.

Putting the kids in the middle of the action makes these moments of near-unfathomable historical import more relateable to the kids these programs aim to teach. This could have been done quite poorly, revising history to a ridiculous extreme for the sake of a laugh, but the events fold true to documentation, and the children are awed observers rather than irksome meddlers or fortuitously placed onlookers. Points for acknowledging that Edison did not invent electric light (that was Humphry Davy, 1809), but rather perfected a 50-year-old idea, finally making electric light practical for home use.

Not that there aren't liberties taken, namely during the segment dealing with the first ever car race. I mean, I seriously doubt that history overlooked the "Snoopmobile" entry. I can, however, buy that at one time Snoopy drove his doghouse into the back of a horse-drawn carriage. That friggin' dog. Aw, but we love him. He wears Chucks!

BLOW-UP SEX DOLL

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"I only ate the peformance enhancers 'cause I thought they were Chiclets."

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"'I figured it out by hiding behind a bathroom stall at school, where I heard you tell your friend Biff exactly how you'd done it!' What the...this is the worst Encyclopedia Brown ever!"

--"The mornin' sun is shining like a red rubber baaaaaaaalll!"

--
"So while you half-brains were cooped up in here slaving over the push-button hammer, I invented something called a 'strap-on'! This kid in the green will love me for it when she gets older."

--Yes. Yes. Yes. There are honest-to-Isis adult beings in this, as well as all the parts of the miniseries. I have no issue with this. It's absolutely necessary to make the very concept work. The adults must be animated, and they must not be given the wah-nky voices associated with Peanuts specials. They must be coherent for the sake of teaching the viewer about these events. And how can you hate on Alexander Graham Bell's Scottish accent? Next Irvine Welsh novel, that will totally be the male voice in my head while I read the text (replacing the drunk Scot I met in England at ATP 2006. "We're in Room 101. George Orwell, right?" And I swear a Scottish accent makes "George Orwell" sound like "Jim Jarmusch").

However, not everyone understands. To these folk, the presence of adults is anathema to what they imagine Peanuts to be all about. Over at IMDB, it's considered a lapse in judgment at best, and "sacrilege" at worst.

So what should they have done? Just shown kids reading reports with no dramatic action? Should the kids have dressed up to represent the inventors? Linus with a handlebar moustache?

Mr. Schulz not credited as a writer does not mean they trampled his baby. Anything released with the Peanuts brand had to have the great man's pre-approval. If he was fine with clear-speaking adults, no one else has any reason for beef. Thus, it's not in any way "sacrilege", and you'd have to be a semi-coherent dung beetle to think so. And if anyone reading this does in fact believe that they know better than the creators of the fucking shows themselves, and gets turned off by what I'm saying, way too bad. Your belief is idiotic, and it's time someone told you so.

Have a great day otherwise.