Attentive readers of this
blog (and is there any other kind?) will recall that back in February I went on
something of an animated Peanuts kick. It was at this time that I ordered a
copy of Charlie Brown’s All Stars!, waited a perishingly long time, and
was finally sent a copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas instead. The people
I ordered it from would not acknowledge their mistake. I gave that copy to my
niece, and after a period of moping and mourning and anger, ordered another
copy of All Stars from a different source. This arrived today, on time
and for much less money than my first order.
Charlie Brown’s All Stars! (the second animated
Peanuts special) premiered in 1968 and was only rerun until 1971, unlike the
more popular holiday-themed specials which played almost every year. My
memories of watching it are dim and iffy. I am much more familiar with the
little paperback we had of it, which we read for years. I popped the DVD into
the machine and started it, wondering what the experience would be like.
The story, of course, was
familiar, both from the paperback and from reprints of the daily strips from which parts of the special are taken. Charlie Brown tries to bring his failing baseball
team back together with the news that a local hardware store owner has offered
to buy them uniforms and sponsor them in a league. For a while, things seem
encouraging, but when he finds out that league rules preclude having the girls
and Snoopy on the team, he feels he must bow out. Still, he wants them to play
one more game before he tells them, hoping the bright prospects will lead to a
win that will keep them playing nonetheless. They almost win, but when Charlie
Brown tries to steal home and fails, losing the game, the team turns on him and
he finally confesses there will be no uniforms. They storm off in anger,
excoriating Charlie Brown, until Linus and Schroeder reveal the reason that he
turned down the offer: to keep his friends on the team. In remorse, the girls
fashion Charlie Brown a manager’s uniform – out of Linus’s blanket! The story
ends with Charlie Brown on the pitcher’s mound, eagerly awaiting the day’s game
in a torrent of rain, with Linus sucking his thumb and holding the shirttail of
his erstwhile blanket.
I watched the show intensely, looking to see if I would
have some response in memory from any animated detail or line of dialogue. I am
disappointed to say it was all very equivocal. There may have been one tremor
of recognition in the opening sequence where Charlie Brown runs through a
number of obstacles to catch a fly ball only for it to bounce out of his glove
at last, but even that is dubious. Much seemed familiar, but there were parts
that completely surprised me, and those were things not in the book. Although
I think I must have seen it at least once, as an exercise in nostalgia it was
almost a complete bust.
On the other hand, as its own experience, it was quite good. It hails from the great old era of Peanuts specials (although still a little rough) and is redolent of period airs. By turns funny, uneasy, and heart-warming, it is an emotional adventure, and not just one darn thing after another. It is accompanied by A Charlie Brown Celebration (1982) wherein “The Peanuts gang is involved in a variety of activities, including a baseball game and a school field trip.” – IMDB. This show can be seen as a marker post ending a certain time before Peanuts specials became It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown or Snoopy: The Musical.
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