Let's Watch This - "Charlie Brown's All Stars!" (1966)

Considering how many Peanuts television specials there are, it's surprising that I've only reviewed one of them on this blog thus far. I mean, a good chunk of them are pretty obscure, and not all of them are all that great. For every A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, there's a Happy New Year, Charlie Brown. So why HAVEN'T I looked at more Peanuts specials? Maybe because the Rowdy Reviewer of TV Trash fame has already made a name for himself reviewing these iconic specials (and let me tell you, there are few things as satisfying as watching him call out the needlessly cruel treatment of Charlie Brown), I don't want to step on his toes.

But as a big fan of Peanuts - ironic, seeing as I'm allergic to the franchise's namesake - so I've decided to look at more TV specials starring Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and their friends. Today, I'm looking at the second ever Peanuts TV special (the first, of course, being A Charlie Brown Christmas), Charlie Brown's All Stars!.

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the story arcs in the comic strip about Charlie Brown's baseball team. Most of them are for all intents and purposes the same: Charlie Brown and his team are playing in a game of baseball, everyone on his team sucks, they lose and they all pin the blame entirely on Charlie Brown, he mopes about how he's the "goat". Ha ha? So I've never really been into the specials that focus on Charlie Brown and his friends playing baseball. Fortunately, there aren't a lot of them. But this is still considered one of the more well-liked Peanuts specials... I think. And there was always ONE thing about it that I've always loved, but I won't give it away just yet. This is Charlie Brown's All Stars.

By the way, I should mention that the Rowdy Reviewer did a review of this special himself, and while I haven't watched his review in years I do remember most of the points he made. As a result, I'll probably be bringing up many of those exact same points, but I'll try not to parrot him too much.

So, the special starts off with Charlie Brown (voiced by Peter Robbins) standing atop his pitcher's mound. He pitches the ball... and whoever it is that's up to bat hits it. You ever notice that we never see the other team in these baseball story arcs? And how come every single one of them seem to be master baseball players? Who does Charlie Brown's team play against, the Baltimore Orioles or something?

In fact, whoever it is that's up to bat is apparently such a good hitter that Charlie Brown has to run off the baseball field, through his neighborhood, and through somebody's house in an attempt to catch it. But eventually, it does indeed land in his glove...

Huzzah!

...only to fall out five seconds later, which apparently means he didn't catch it. And then the rest of his team - Lucy (Sally Dryer Baker), Snoopy (Bill Melendez), Patty (Lynn Vanderlip), Violet (Karen Mendelson), Schroeder (Glenn Mendelson), Linus (Christopher Shea), Frieda (Ann Altieri), Shermy (Gai DeFaria), and 5 - walk up to him with angry expressions and shout "YOU BLOCKHEAD, CHARLIE BROWN!".

Hey, jerks, at least he actually made the attempt to catch it. None of YOU did. I mean, while he was running after the ball, we saw Patty, Violet, and Freida playing jump rope as though they weren't in the middle of a baseball game. Where the heck was everyone else as he was trying to catch the ball?

After that, we see Charlie Brown, Linus, and Lucy discussing the baseball season that starts tomorrow. Linus has worked up a few statistics - the previous year, their opponents scored THREE THOUSAND runs to Charlie Brown's team's total of six runs, FORTY-NINE HUNDRED hits to Charlie Brown's team's eleven hits, and FOUR errors to Charlie Brown's team's three hundred and seventy-five errors. In total, Charlie Brown's team lost nine hundred and ninety-nine straight games. Okay, seriously, I'm beginning to doubt that the teams Charlie Brown and his friends play against are children of the same ages. Charlie Brown is eight, right? What eight-year-old is THAT GOOD at baseball?

Are the other kids on steroids or something? How are they such masters of baseball?

Then Lucy has the audacity to claim that it's all Charlie Brown's fault their team never wins any games. Because whenever Charlie Brown's team loses a game, everyone pins the blame on him. And the baffling thing is, the strip repeatedly attempts to validate them - it's a Running Gag that whenever Charlie Brown isn't at one of his team's baseball games, they win. And in one storyline when Linus was the pitcher instead of Charlie Brown, the team was doing much better. The indication here is that Charlie Brown is the only thing keeping his team from being more successful. There's just one small problem with that... EVERYONE ON HIS TEAM SUCKS. It's been shown multiple times that Lucy apparently becomes a massive idiot whenever she steps onto the baseball field, Snoopy falls asleep a lot, and none of the other kids are any better. Look at some of these strips:

That's six strips - SIX STRIPS - that demonstrate what horrible baseball players Lucy, Snoopy and the others are. But apparently Charlie Brown's presence is the only reason his team doesn't win more games? I call bull.

Charlie Brown even points out that night that he's got five boys, three girls (actually four), and a dog who can't throw - but every time they lose, HE gets the blame. They never let him forget the mistakes he makes. And I do mean NEVER. I think that's the motto of everyone in Peanuts: when in doubt, blame Charlie Brown.

Meh, I always liked Earl from Mutts better anyway.

The next day, it's time for the first baseball game of the season, and everyone is ALREADY talking about how Charlie Brown is supposedly the only reason they don't win any games. Charlie Brown decides to arrange a demonstration on how to avoid double plays with Linus and Snoopy, but everyone's too busy griping to care. Freida complains about how nobody in the stands can see her naturally curly hair, and Schroeder just wants to go home and play his piano. Wow, just three minutes in and already everyone except for Charlie Brown has demonstrated how despicably unlikable they are.

Also, Sally (Cathy Steinberg) just appears out of nowhere during this scene, even though she's never been on the baseball team.

Maybe she just came by to watch the game?

Pigpen (Geoffrey Ornstein) tells Charlie Brown that the other team - who, again, we never see - has shown up, which means it's time for Charlie Brown and his team to get their clock cleaned. Charlie Brown pitches the first ball of the season, and whoever's up to bat hits it clear over the backstop. Lucy blames Charlie Brown for this, as if it's Charlie Brown's fault that this kid is apparently Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby combined.

Charlie Brown keeps a-pitching and the other team keeps hitting home runs. Lucy manages to catch one ball completely by accident, then Snoopy gets out his supper dish and demands that Charlie Brown feed him despite how busy he is at the moment. But hey, at least he catches a ball in the supper dish. What's this? Lucy and Snoopy actually being competent at sports (sort of, since Lucy only caught the ball by accident)? Quick, check outside to see if there are any flying pigs.

Eventually, the other team hits a "high fly ball". Everyone screams for Charlie Brown to catch it as opposed to, y'know, actually making the attempt to catch it themselves. I don't see why it's all up to Charlie Brown. And of course, the ball winds up bouncing off of Charlie Brown's glove and lands on the ground AGAIN. So once again, they lose, and Charlie Brown is the goat.

Somebody else could've tried to catch the ball instead of just standing there and
threatening to kick Charlie Brown if he didn't catch it.

Somehow, the other team scored a hundred and twenty-three to nothing. As a result, Violet quits the team. Then Lucy quits too. Then Shermy, who suggests that Charlie Brown gets some sort of neuronic pleasure out of losing all the time (who is he, Sigmund Freud?). Then Snoopy.

I would like to take this moment to point out how unbelievably unlikable Snoopy was during this time period. You always see cute images of Snoopy and Charlie Brown hugging and being best pals, but during the 1960s, Snoopy was just as much of a jerk to Charlie Brown as everyone else was. Remember that scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas where he's laughing at Charlie Brown along with everybody else? Always ticks me off. In fact, Snoopy is such a jerk here that he actually encourages Charlie Brown to quit the team.

Honestly, though, if I were in Charlie Brown's position I would be HAPPY that Violet, Lucy, Shermy, and Snoopy all quit. As we've established, they suck at baseball. Now is Charlie Brown's chance to replace them with much better players. But anyway, Linus emerges from the hardware store that Charlie Brown is in front of and says that the owner, Mr. Hennessey, wants to sponsor their team. That means they'll get real uniforms and everything!

What exactly IS the name of Charlie Brown's baseball team, anyway? Is it ever mentioned
in the strip?

Linus then does a 180 and tells Charlie Brown to forget it because nobody else will want to play baseball again. So instead, he and Snoopy decide to take a dip in Linus' inflatable pool... which somehow turns into an ocean when Snoopy dives in with his surfboard.

"Everybody's gone surfin',
Surfin' USA..."

Shermy, Schroeder, Pigpen, and 5 are riding around on their skateboards. Patty, Violet, and Freida are playing jump rope again. Charlie Brown shows up to tell everyone about Mr. Hennessey wanting to sponsor their team, but Violet declares that they'll never play baseball on the same team as Charlie Brown again. Again, Charlie Brown, I say give these guys the middle finger and get some NEW players. You don't need these tools. And why does Sally look ticked off like the other kids? Again, she was never on the baseball team. Is it mob mentality or something?

Isn't it dangerous to ride a skateboard with your eyes closed?

Eventually, Charlie Brown DOES manage to tell them that Mr. Hennessey wants to sponsor the team, which means they'll play in a real league and get uniforms. All of a sudden the other kids WANT to play on his team now, even Lucy, who says that if they get the uniforms they'll give Charlie Brown another chance.

Later, Charlie Brown gets a call from Mr. Hennessey about the uniforms. But there's a catch - apparently, the higher-ups in the league will only let them have the uniforms if Charlie Brown kicks the girls and Snoopy off the team. This was the 1960s, you see, when girls and dogs playing baseball was frowned upon. "But Mr. Hennessey, they're my friends! And he's my faithful dog!" Charlie Brown claims. Excuse me while I go laugh my head off. Lucy, Violet, Patty, and Freida, Charlie Brown's "friends"? Snoopy being a "faithful dog"? What a load!

Instead of kicking the girls and Snoopy off his team because A) they're jerks and B) they suck at baseball anyway, Charlie Brown has to turn down the uniforms and the chance to play in a real league. He fills Linus in, and Linus isn't particularly helpful. Although he's not wrong that the other kids, particularly Lucy, are going to be ticked off when they find out. But then Charlie Brown gets an idea. He won't tell them until after the next game, believing that all they need is one victory and they'll forget all about the uniforms. Doesn't sound like such a good idea to me, but what do I know? I'm not a baseball player...

And once again, why is Sally there? Did Charles Schulz forget that she wasn't on the
baseball team?

At the next game, Charlie Brown has Linus scout out the other team so he can find out their weaknesses. But because Linus is suddenly a moron, he winds up scouting his own team. Just as well, with their luck the other team probably doesn't HAVE any weaknesses.

The game starts up and the other kids actually manage to get some hits - except for Lucy and Linus, both of whom still suck. Snoopy even hits a home run!

"ALL HAIL SNOOPY!"

Now they're only one run behind, and it's up to Charlie Brown to win the game for them because of course it is. After two strikes, he hits the ball and steals the first three bases. He wonders if he should try to steal home, unaware that Lucy and Patty are talking about how stupid it would be if he tried to steal home. He makes the attempt. "SLIDE, CHARLIE BROWN, SLIDE!" the other kids shout. He slides... but fails miserably. So they lose the game, and guess who everybody gets mad at?

That's right, Charlie Brown! Nobody gets mad at Linus and Lucy even though they also contributed to the team's loss by sucking.

So how come Snoopy was able to slide to home base but Charlie Brown wasn't?

"If it weren't for those uniforms we're gonna get, we'd quit right now!" Lucy snaps. Violet even claims that if they had the uniforms, they wouldn't have lost. How exactly does having uniforms increase your chances of winning? I don't know, but Charlie Brown admits that they aren't getting new uniforms, angering everyone even more... including Linus, even though he knows WHY Charlie Brown turned down the uniforms.

Everyone storms off, seething over Charlie Brown costing them the game and their uniforms. Fortunately, this leads to the most satisfying moment in the entire special. Alas, it doesn't involve Charlie Brown snapping and going on a violent rampage. Instead, Linus suddenly remembers WHY Charlie Brown turned down the uniforms and angrily tells the other kids that he was looking out for their feelings. "The only reason Charlie Brown turned Mr. Hennessey down was because he'd have to get rid of Snoopy and you girls! Mr. Hennessey said that the league wouldn't accept girls and dogs on the team!" he informs them, much to their shock. It doesn't quite make up for Linus' joining the other kids in lambasting Charlie Brown a minute ago, but it's nice seeing them getting served a slice of humble pie.

"Gee, maybe we should've let Charlie Brown explain WHY he turned down the uniforms!"

Schroeder, feeling guilty, proceeds to read the girls and Snoopy the riot act. "You girls are very thoughtless," he says. "Don't you think Charlie Brown has feelings? All of you are the most thoughtless bunch I've ever known! You don't care anything about Charlie Brown! He's been loyal to you because he thinks you're his friends. But do you ever act like friends? No! Those uniforms meant as much to Charlie Brown as they did to YOU! Probably MORE!" Well said, Schroeder. Very well said. It would've been more satisfying if Shermy, Pigpen and 5 were here too considering they were ALSO jerks to Charlie Brown, but this is the only time I can think of where ANYONE in the franchise was called out for their treatment of poor Chuck.

You tell 'em, Schroeder!

The girls and Snoopy feel bad about what colossal jerks they were to Charlie Brown, so they decide to make it up to him by making him a uniform themselves. Linus, who is suddenly gigantic, points out that they don't have any fabric to make the uniform out of. "Oh, yes, we do..." Lucy says just before snatching Linus' blanket. Considering that Linus was acting really inconsiderately to Charlie Brown in this special too, I can't help but find this cathartic.

After whipping up the uniform out of Linus' blanket, the kids present it to Charlie Brown. "It's beautiful..." he says, then declares that tomorrow's game will go much better for them.

I still think Charlie Brown should've kicked them all off his team and gotten the uniforms
anyway.

But the next day, it rains, and Charlie Brown is stuck standing in the downpour atop the pitcher's mound, believing that everyone else will eventually show up and they can get the game going. Hey, if nothing else, you've gotta admire his optimism.

What's the Verdict?

Charlie Brown's All Stars! is a mixed bag. The characters all look crudely-drawn, most of the jokes aren't particularly funny (not even the ones taken from the comic strip), and everyone except for Charlie Brown and Sally is unlikable even for a Peanuts production. It's worth watching just to see Linus and Schroeder read everyone else the riot act, but as a whole the special doesn't have the same charm to it as A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, or It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. There are much better Peanuts specials worth your time, though there are obviously worse too.

Seriously, though, did they have to make Snoopy in particular such a jerk here? It practically makes me ashamed to be a Snoopy fan.