You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown

"You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown" includes one of jazz genius Vince Guaraldi's greatest compositions: "Joe Cool". The short sequence is truly great and worth every Peanuts fan's attention. The rest of the 25 minute long special is pretty unremarkable, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Still worth the full and solid 7 Stars I gave it, but I watched it the same night as I watched 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' and I just can't rate this one as high as I did for the Great Pumpkin. I really like the Snoopy and Schroeder scene at the piano. Snoopy is a funny character in this cartoon. Still quite enjoyable and definitely a classic cartoon for the growing children.

The Peanuts gang tackles politics as Linus (not Charlie Brown, despite the title) runs for student body president. Lucy is his campaign manager. Lots of funny bits of business to be had here. Linus' campaign speeches are hilarious. This is an underrated gem among the Peanuts specials. Aside from the great political satire and all-around good fun that comes from Charlie Brown & friends, this one offers up the first animated appearance of Snoopy's best alter ego: Joe Cool. Vince Guaraldi crafts a wonderful song to introduce him ("Joe Cool, back in school, hangin' around the water fountain actin' a fool"). The version currently being shown by ABC, following the Great Pumpkin, is edited. Particularly the beginning and ending have been altered. It's still enjoyable but try to catch the unedited version. This is a very fun cartoon. Peanuts fans will, of course, love it.

This showcases the time when Linus Van Pelt (Stephen Shea) tried to run for class president. Linus is backed by his best friend Charlie Brown (Chad Webber) and his sister Lucy Van Pelt (Robin Kohn). This one doesn't really focus too much on Charlie and I think that's what makes it weaker than the others. It's still good, but it doesn't really hold a candle to the other Peanuts films. The story is all right, and the acting is good so it succeed there, and there certainly are some memorable moments like when Snoopy does the Joe Cool segment. But overall it just doesn't seem to be as good or as memorable. I actually watched this around the time of the 2008 election. Certainly not my favorite Peanuts movie. But overall it's just okay.

"The song at the title screen, it sang: 'You're elected Charlie Brown!', but they should of sang: 'You're NOT elected Charlie Brown.'"

There's a reason for this; the first time it aired, it was called, "You're Elected, Charlie Brown," and used the theme music with that title. However, sometime after that, presumably somebody noticed that, as Charlie Brown wasn't actually elected, the title made no sense, so the title was changed, and the theme music changed to a different song without lyrics. (It is possible that the on-screen title was changed at the last second, but note that CBS commercials for the show's first airing used the original title.)