Trailer
Plot summary
Charlie Brown's baseball team loses its first game of the season, and he takes it as proof that he will never win at anything. Even the toy boat he tries to sail in his bath sinks. Lucy, Violet and Patty mock him, and a session at Lucy's psychiatry booth, where she shows a slideshow of his faults, only makes him feel worse. When the school announces a spelling bee, Linus encourages Charlie Brown to sign up despite the girls' jeers. He and Linus study together, and Snoopy plays a Jew's harp as they go over a spelling mnemonic. Charlie Brown competes, wins his class bee, and moves on to the school contest.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 1971, the Associated Press said the reception of A Boy Named Charlie Brown "broke the Disney monopoly" on animated films that had existed since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Animation producer Fred Calvert responded by hoping the industry would not be misled into thinking animation was the only thing, saying it also needed a solid story and good characters.
- The film was partly based on a Peanuts comic strip storyline published in newspapers in February 1966, but that version ended with Charlie Brown eliminated from his class spelling bee for misspelling "maze" as "M-A-Y-S" while thinking of baseball legend Willie Mays.
- The film included several original songs with vocals for the first time in a Peanuts production, among them "Failure Face", "I Before E" and "Champion Charlie Brown". Rod McKuen wrote and sang the title song.
- During Christmas week the film grossed $315,253 at Radio City Music Hall, which distributor Cinema Center Films claimed was the biggest single week gross for one theater anywhere in the history of the cinema.
- The film premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, only the third animated feature ever to play there, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Bambi (1942).
