The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show

I suppose "Peanuts" is the most popular newspaper comic ever. Shultz did what all leaders do, perfected the four-panel abstraction of grand emotions. Its a matter of abstraction and his intuitions were perfect. Part of the formula was that the situations weren't inherently comic: loneliness, betrayal, failure, irrational fantasy, obnoxious behavior, sometimes theology. Compare it to Garfield for instance.

Its a sort of Norman Rockwell formula — deep values, cute presentation — but so much better tuned. When you read it, you get a few lines on the page and very few words that sketch a sometimes profound emotion. It forms a spine around which you can fill in your own riches.

In 1965, and enterprising guy made a TeeVee cartoon, "Charlie Brown Christmas." It worked, and has since become a staple. It worked, I think, because Christmas is a ball of notions that are in the center of Shultz's world, so enriching the images by movement, color and voices couldn't hobble it. Especially since the music was that remarkably apt Guaraldi tune.

Over the next 40 years the same enterprising guy has been mining the Peanuts vault, giving us ever more than the idea can tolerate. This is the worst, a TeeVee series that was supposed to be as everyday as the comic.

But in this case, the overloading of the abstract 4-panel spine is so overloaded with TeeVee jokes and pratfalls, plus ordinary child stuff, not the abstract stuff of Shultz.

I doubt whether any recurring show can be made of this material (and stay a cartoon) and keep the abstract nature of thing, the pure thing that gives it its power.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Despite being a bit depressed and boring, I thought it was a very good message and had one of the best characters ever. Highly recommend.

If anybody has read any previous comments by me then they have been on cartoons, which tells you I am an expert Cartoonist and cartoonist critic at age 12. To second with, I don't bother writing a comment unless it's a good one, so all comments are good. Anyways this is a great show for adults and kids alike, it involves many of the truths in life in the humor of Charles Schulz' acclaimed cartoon. It involves many of the comic strip themes into the show (e.g. "Baseball", "The Cat Next Store", "Show and Tell".) What cracks me up though is that these children act so adult part of the time and completely ignorant the next. I just love sweet old Charlie Brown always being so good yet such a complete failure that he makes us laugh. I love Linus' intelligence and "Security Blanket", as much as I love his sisters crabbiness. I would also like to comment on Schroeder's music craze, and Snoopy's humanlike attributes. Although these are my favorite characters what cracks me up in the show is Sally's comments, like when she's playing football with Linus "Why should I kick the ball, it hasn't done anything to me." "Just kick it" "What if it kicks me back...I've decided not to kick the ball" (Air leaks out of the ball). "The ball is hissing at me" "Maybe it's sprung a leak" "No this ball is definitely hissing at me..." (the ball goes flat) "I think it passed out". To me this is funny, these are events that happen to most regular people through kids. If you like Peanuts or feel you need to laugh at life then see this movie, you'll enjoy it.