May it never be forgot

Seventy-nine years ago today.

That's a still from the animated special What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?  It was the follow-up to the film Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown.  Charlie Brown Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcy, and Snoopy are on their way back to America.  They stop and camp for the night and Linus thinks they're something familiar about the place.

Wow.  That premiered forty years ago last week.  It's well worth tracking down and watching.

Remembering all who came ashore at Normandy on this day nearly eighty years ago.

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Check out this poster for THE PEANUTS MOVIE

Love the appearance of the CGI here. It's a spot-on merging of modern animation style with Charles Schulz's classic look.

But the highlight of course is the characters.  Looks like most of the Peanuts gang all in one shot, including Snoopy's siblings (even Olaf made the cut!).  And ya gotta appreciate the Little Red Haired Girl's face hidden behind the bag of popcorn...

The Peanuts Movie arrives on November 6th.

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BRING ME THE HEAD OF CHARLIE BROWN

In 1986, CBS Television was presented with the following roughly-animated proposal for a new Peanuts holiday special. Apparently it was decided somewhere that Charles Schulz's classic characters needed upgrading to become more timely and "Eighties" in order to "reinvigorate the franchise". Network execs saw the proposal - a short film by Jim Reardon - and immediately and quietly chose to bury it within the CBS vault. More than twenty years later and thanks to YouTube, it has finally seen the light of day! Here is Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown...

(For the real story of Reardon and his hilarious short, mash down here.)

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PEANUTS animator Bill Melendez has passed away

This is the third death that I've had to report in the past day or so. Hope this is not about to become a trend...

Bill Melendez has passed away at the age of 91. He was an animator who began work at Disney, and then moved on to Warner Bros. But it was a 1959 meeting with cartoonist Charles M. Schulz that would propel Melendez to everlasting fame. The two became fast friends after Melendez was hired to work on a series of commercials featuring Schulz's Peanuts characters. And after that, Melendez was the only person that Schulz gave permission to animate Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and the rest of the Peanuts gang. A few years later Melendez collaborated with Schulz to produce A Charlie Brown Christmas: forty years later it remains a seminal classic of the holiday season.

In addition to the various Peanuts movies and television specials, Melendez also was involved with commercials using the characters (like this terrific spot for Regina vacuum cleaners featuring Pigpen: the only time he was ever depicted as clean!) and Melendez even contributed his voice for that of Snoopy.

Apart from his Peanuts work, Melendez was involved with animated versions of the comic strip characters Garfield and Cathy. And he also was part of the production of the 1979 animated The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe: to this day one of the most enchanting things that I ever saw on television.

Melendez earned 19 Emmy nominations for his work, and won six awards.

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