You're in Love, Charlie Brown

'You're in Love, Charlie Brown' is pretty good and pretty cute.

Given it was released in the 1960s it is still finding itself with some of the characters, but this special is a pretty good tone setter for decades to come. Bringing the comic strip characters to life is no easy feat but this special succeeds with charm.

Charlie Brown is in love with the Little Red Haired Girl and after realizing it he must get the courage to talk to her even when faced with outside actors not making it easy.

To put it simply, this special is lovable and too endearing to not feel for Charlie Brown. This was the first special to deal with love and certainly sets the standard for the Peanuts and poor ol' Charlie Brown.

Its cute! Its a classic! Give it a watch!

Fourth animated special based on the Charles M. Schulz cartoon strips is a non-holiday tale about how poor lovesick Charlie Brown becomes enamored of the Little Red-Haired girl in his class that he doesn't have the courage to talk to. His friends Linus and Peppermint Patty try to help, but only make his embarrassment worse. Meanwhile, the school term is ending, and Charlie has only one more day to tell her before the long summer, assuming he doesn't botch it of course! OK story isn't one of the best, but does feature the debut of both Peppermint Patty and the Little Red-Haired girl, and is amiable enough to keep the viewer interested. Stay with it until the end.

I used to pretend I was the little red headed girl....seriously=o) Who doesn't feel an "ouch" moment when thinking back to that first crush. Well Charlie Brown's life is one huge "ouch" moment. But that's why we LOVE him!

It's springtime, and love is in the air, as Charlie Brown tries to muster up the courage to talk to the Little Red-Haired Girl. This video is a laugh riot, due to physical humor and several good scenes. Lucy, told by Charlie Brown how the Little Red-Haired Girl's pretty face makes him nervous, goes on a tirade: "Why doesn't MY face make you nervous? I have a pretty face! Wasn't I the Christmas queen? You haven't answered me!" Also funny is an odd "tryst" between Lucy and Charlie Brown: Peppermint Patty, hearing Charlie Brown's frustrations over love, arranges a meeting between the two, mistakenly thinking she's Charlie Brown's object of affection. Upon seeing each other, the two, shocked, in unison, yell "YOU?! BLECCCH!!" (It actually seems as if this subplot was made just to write Peppermint Patty into the special, in her animated debut).

Though some (unintended) humor comes from odd animation: in one scene with children boarding a school bus, several characters can be seen boarding twice. More bizarre is a scene of Linus walking, as if he were a ghost, through 3 girls swinging in their schoolyard. I guess the animator though no one would notice.

At times the story takes strange turns, like with the previously mentioned Charlie Brown-Lucy tryst. Were it not for some sloppy animation, this would probably rank as a classic. Overall, though, this 1967 special, well scored by Vince Guaraldi, is cute, watchable, and often uproarious. I can't remember the last time a Peanuts cartoon made me laugh out loud!

Charlie is in love with 'the little red-headed girl', the very one he fancied in 'Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown'. But he's not got the courage to talk to her and frequently makes a laughing stock of himself with every attempt. Plus, everybody is making fun of him and Snoopy is not lending a sympathetic ear, as usual.

The emotional turmoil Charlie suffers is alarmingly true. Everybody remembers their first crush and how awkward it made them feel. It's little touches of reality like this in the far-fetched but wonderful world of Peanuts that make it so timeless. Though it was made in 1967 there is nothing in this TV special that dates it in any way.