St. Paul, Minnesota, mayor Norm Coleman visits Bemidji, Minnesota, on August 23, 2001, bringing along one of the 102 "Charlie Brown Around Town" statues that grace the streets of St. Paul.
Coleman was promoting the celebration that runs September 8-16 in St. Paul. (AP photo/The Pioneer of Bemidji/Monte Draper)
These articles are arranged from the most recent down, so you'll always find the newest news about Charlie Brown and his friends toward the top; older articles will be located further down, or on previous pages.
It's been too long, Charlie Brown
The Peanuts gang returns to TV with the first new production in eight years and the first since the comic strip's creator died
February 14, 2002
By Eric Deggans
The St. Petersburg Times
The Peanuts gang returns to TV with the first new production in eight years and the first since the comic strip's creator died.
These days, it's considered a classic of TV animation -- a happy collision of low-budget creativity, a perfectly composed music score and now-legendary comic characters.
But when animation director Bill Melendez and executive producer Lee Mendelson put together their first TV special based on Charles M. Schulz's popular Peanuts comic strip -- 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas -- they had a different reaction.
"We thought it was a disaster," said Mendelson, who was a documentary producer making a film on Schulz' life when the opportunity came to produce A Charlie Brown Christmas.
"We thought we had ruined Peanuts. Too slow. Too religious. What's the jazz music doing on there?" he added. "I thought the show was awful. CBS hated it. (But) he liked the show. He was smarter than us."
The "he" in Mendelson's story was Schulz -- known as "Sparky" to his friends -- the humble, competitive, complex creator of Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and the entire Peanuts universe.
Schulz drew nearly 18,000 Peanuts strips from the comic's October 1950 debut until the last original strip was published Feb. 13, 2000 -- the morning after his death. And he worked with Mendelson and Melendez on every TV production that featured the Peanuts gang.
Until now.
When A Charlie Brown Valentine debuts tonight, it will mark the first Peanuts special produced for broadcast TV in eight years, and the first produced after Schulz's death.
But Melendez and Mendelson said they have the perfect source of inspiration to ensure their new Peanuts specials -- and they hope to produce one a year for current franchise owner ABC -- are close to Schulz's particular vision the comic strips.
"We agreed with the family that we would rely on the comic strips (for plotlines and jokes)," Mendelson said. "Schulz's main theme, one of his main themes, has been unrequited love, going back to the days when he lost a girl in St. Paul. So we wanted to revisit the subject. Valentine's Day is hard to Charlie Brown."
Indeed, every serious Peanuts fan knows Schulz based his character of the Little Red-Haired Girl -- a classmate of Charlie Brown's that he worshiped from afar, but who remains out of his league -- on Donna Wold, a woman the cartoonist met in the 1940s while working as an instructor at a Minneapolis art school.
As the legend goes, outlined in a 1989 biography, Good Grief The Story of Charles M. Schulz, Schulz asked her to marry him at the same time another man did, and she chose the other man. So, in the world of Peanuts, love is rarely rewarded; Lucy chases piano-playing Schroeder, Sally chases Linus, and Peppermint Patty chases Charlie Brown, who chases the Little Red-Haired Girl (never actually seen in the strip).
"Schulz was snubbed big-time, and I think that was a scar he wore for the rest of his life. ... he channeled that rejection back into the strip," said Brian Walker, a Connecticut writer who works on the comic strips Hi and Lois and Beetle Bailey (both created by his father, Mort Walker).
"Like all great entertainment, (the Peanuts TV specials) really work on two levels," added Walker, who also curated an exhibit on Peanuts for the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton and is working on a book about the history of comic strip art. "I don't think Schulz ever wrote his strip down to a juvenile level. The kids can just enjoy the characters, and the adults can read all this extra stuff into it."
Such themes continue in A Charlie Brown Valentine, which finds Charlie Brown trying to work up his courage to approach the Little Red-Haired Girl as his pals work through their own Valentine's Day challenges. The first Peanuts special to tackle romance, 1975's Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, covered similar ground, minus the redhead.
In many ways, tonight's Peanuts special echoes stylistic touches considered groundbreaking when A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted 36 years ago
Voices are provided by children, instead of adult actors (which is why they've had 14 voice casts over the years). The instrumental jazz score passes up big production numbers for gentle, enduring tunes. No adults are fully shown on camera (even their words are only represented by squawking trombone riffs). And even now, Melendez creates the voice of Snoopy by reading the lines himself and speeding up the tape until the words are unintelligible.
Somehow, all these flourishes came together to create an animated franchise that has sustained its popularity for nearly 40 years and 45 TV projects.
"They're instant nostalgia," said Derrick Bang, entertainment editor at the Davis Enterprise newspaper in California, and author of the book 50 Years of Happiness A Tribute to Charles M. Schulz.
"Charles Schulz had a spooky ability to convey a sense of nostalgia for a life we never experienced ... which sounds like a weird contradiction," Bang added. "I am led, watching those shows, to believe that I had those experiences ... even though I didn't."
Mendelson and Melendez have at least two other Peanuts TV specials planned (ABC, which acquired the classic holiday Peanuts specials a few years ago, has been more aggressive about developing the franchise). The next project is called Lucy Must be Traded, Charlie Brown (in which C.B. might actually win a baseball game), and another is a holiday show centered on Snoopy.
Through them all, the pair will rely on 40 years' experience working with Schulz to anticipate how he'd want them to bring Peanuts into the 21st century.
"I call him a humble egotist ... never swore, never drank ... he wanted to be the best, but didn't want to show about," Mendelson said of Schulz. "He said to us once that he always thought there would be a market for innocence in the country. And God knows that's true."
As a longtime fan, Bang looks forward to another heady dose of Peanuts-fed nostalgia.
"I'm going to be anticipating the warm feeling, the glow of familiarity," he said. "That's hard to define beyond corny words ... like trying to define love. But if it comes through, I'll know it, because my wife and I will look at each other and smile."
A television Valentine for Charlie Brown fans
February 14, 2002
By Suzanne C. Ryan
The Boston Globe
PASADENA, California -- When "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz died two years ago, his 49-year-old comic strip died with him.
But Charlie Brown lives on. Tonight, he will appear in the first "Peanuts" television special to be created since Schulz's death. A Charlie Brown Valentine will air on ABC (WCVB-TV Channel 5) at 8 p.m.
Although Schulz insisted for years that no one else would ever draw his characters in a strip, he was interested in producing more television shows, said Lee Mendelson, executive producer of tonight's show.
Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez worked with Schulz for 37 years in producing 45 TV specials, many of them classics such as A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. After the cartoonist's death, the Schulz family agreed that the duo could proceed by using content from some of the more than 18,000 comic strips created over the years, as well as new material, Mendelson said.
"We were working on six or seven different outlines before he passed away," he said. "He liked television because he could do things that he couldn't do in the comic strip. He could animate Snoopy. He could focus on subjects such as cancer or war. It gave him greater latitude.
"A lot of people are purists. They say the strip stopped, so everything should stop. But when you work with somebody for 37 years, it's really a seamless continuance. We all knew what each other thought all the time."
In tonight's program, Charlie Brown fumbles in his attempts to give his crush - "the little red-haired girl" - a Valentine. When he finally gets the courage to telephone her, he misdials and calls Peppermint Patty by mistake and ends up taking her and Marcie to the Valentine's dance instead.
Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, is looking forward to the show. " 'Peanuts' was one of the nicer things about the 20th century. It's nice to see it come into the 21st century," he said. "Charles Schulz left a very clear recipe. He'd done a ton of these specials. There's no reason why some good people can't continue to do Charlie Brown by proxy."
Peggy Charren, founder of Action for Children's Television, said, "Death, in animation, causes an interesting set of problems, ... (but) it's easy to copy the ideas and characters of an icon. I don't think that's so bad. When Jim Henson died, I wondered how 'Sesame Street' was going to manage the characters. It has survived very well."
Valentine's Day is the first holiday to be featured twice in a "Peanuts" special. Schulz's original Valentine's Day show, Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, aired in 1975. Mendelson and Melendez said Valentine's Day was a ripe subject because there were lots of Schulz strips on the subject, as well as characters who hadn't been featured prominently in a television special before, including Peppermint Patty and Marcie.
"Both Peppermint Patty and Marcie have sort of a friendly competition for the affection of Charlie Brown. And so it made just a perfect set-up to bring it to a head during this show," said Melendez during a recent Television Critics Association meeting in Pasadena.
Mendelson said that one of Schulz's main themes has been unrequited love. "You have Sally chasing Linus, and Lucy chasing Schroeder, and, of course, Charlie Brown has no clue about any of it."
Schulz - called "Sparky" by his friends - fell in love with a redhead himself in the mid-1940s, Mendelson said. He planned to marry her, but she married someone else. That woman, Donna Johnson, became the inspiration for Charlie Brown's "little red-haired girl" - a person who was talked about frequently in the strip but only seen once in silhouette. She appeared once in the 1977 special It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, Mendelson said. Tonight, viewers will see her when she drops a pencil at school, and then at the dance.
The Valentine's Day special is just the beginning of a new chapter for "Peanuts," Mendelson and Melendez said. Going forward, they plan to produce one new "Peanuts" special a year, without fear of offending Schulz's legacy. "I have a good idea of what he would accept or not accept," said Melendez. "I can truly say 'Sparky would never do that' or say 'Linus would never say a thing like that.' "
The next show in development is the first special to feature baseball since 1966's Charlie Brown's All Stars. In this, Charlie Brown realizes that after years of losing, he has a lousy player on his team.
His solution? Tune in to Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown to find out. The show is still in production, but is expected either to air on television or be released for home video in 2003.
Valentine to Charlie Brown
New 'Peanuts' special misses notes, stays in tune
February 14, 2002
By Steve Johnson
The Chicago Tribune
The temptation is to assume that A Charlie Brown Valentine can't be good, considering that it's the first new Peanuts special since Charles Schulz, creator of the strip, died in 2000.
And it certainly would be easy to point to a couple of way-too-contemporary lines in this chronicle of unrequited love (7 p.m., WLS-Ch. 7), the title character's greeting-card-holiday quest to woo the long-coveted little red-haired girl.
A key to the best Charlie Brown specials, from A Charlie Brown Christmas onward, has been their feeling of timelessness. Brown using "bungee-jumping from the moon" as a fantastical point of comparison here feels entirely and awkwardly timeful. Ditto for the fretting over the health benefits of french fries.
But these are quibbles. For the most part, executive producers Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, Schulz's longtime collaborators on animated specials, capture the sweet and mournful tone and texture of "Peanuts." More than a Charlie Brown Valentine, this is a valentine to Charlie Brown, a reminder of his comic strip's existential elegance.
Schulz was one of the first (and still the few) to admit to the sadness in childhood, to bring black humor to the comics pages. And we can see here, in a script that is drawn from the strips, that cloudy-day humor at work.
"She'd probably laugh right in your face," sister Sally warns Charlie Brown, about his plan to approach the girl.
"At least," he responds, "I'd be near her."
And at another moment entirely typical of "Peanuts," he's fretting about the end of the relationship before it has ever begun "I just had a terrible thought," he muses. "What if the little red-haired girl gives me a Valentine and she really likes me?"
With a perplexing happy ending, this does not hang together like the Christmas or Great Pumpkin specials (my recollection of the original Valentine's Day special is less than dim).
The fun here is more moment to moment, in spending time with these enduring characters again and in trying to spot the three panels of the specific strips that are being drawn on.
More than that, it's a reminder that it's time to pull out and reread those great early "Peanuts" collections, where Schulz's congenial Midwestern bleakness and dry comic genius created a two-dimensional world like no other.
Boy, can we relate, Charlie Brown!
February 14, 2002
By Hal Boedeker
The Orlando Sentinel
Charlie Brown obsesses over the Little Red-Haired Girl more than Joey does over Rachel on Friends, but Joey has an advantage At least Rachel knows he exists.
Marcie, Peppermint Patty, Lucy and Sally go after males who ignore or rebuff them. The women on Sex and the City are treated with more respect.
Lucy, Linus and the whole bunch engage in neurotic banter that the friends on Will & Grace would understand. "Charlie Brown, you are hopeless, completely hopeless," says Lucy, dispenser of 5-cent psychiatric advice.
A Charlie Brown Valentine, the first new Peanuts special for television in eight years, offers as much insight into modern love as any popular sitcom. Our romantic insecurities start early, and they can take relentless patterns. You have to feel for Sally as she pursues her "sweet babboo," Linus, who wants nothing to do with her.
The ABC special, premiering at 8 tonight on WFTV-Channel 9, may not rival the classics A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Yet the show captivates with its easy charm and never-cloying sweetness despite an abrupt ending.
"It's so Schulzy," says executive producer Lee Mendelson of the show.
Cartoonist Charles Schulz died two years ago, but he is credited as writer of the special.
"About a year before his passing, he started to think about retirement," Mendelson said in a phone interview. "We decided there's such a wealth of material in the strips, we thought it was time for a new valentine show. It had been 25 years since the first one.
"One of his themes is unrequited love. We outlined the show six months before his death. We went through 49 years of valentine strips and picked the best ones for a valentine show."
Mendelson, 68, has produced 45 prime-time Peanuts specials, starting with A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. He also wrote the lyrics for "Christmastime Is Here," which he calls "my only song," to Vince Guaraldi's theme. (Jazz pianist David Benoit performs the late Guaraldi's music in the new special.)
From the beginning, Mendelson collaborated with Schulz and animator Bill Melendez, who Mendelson says is "85 and going strong."
The specials, long a staple on CBS, jumped to ABC last year. "When you start up a new relationship, it's like a rebirth," Mendelson says. He says he values ABC's promotion and interest.
Since Schulz's death, Mendelson consults the cartoonist's five children on almost a daily basis. He says the family is "all on the same page" about the TV specials.
"I was up with him the day before he passed away," Mendelson says. "He wanted to keep doing these shows. I think the material justifies it. If we didn't think they were entertaining, we'd stop. We'd never presume to go and do originals. We're protecting the legacy but entertaining people."
As someone who has lived with these characters a long time, Mendelson knows them well. He calls Lucy "the ultimate fussbudget" and attributes Charlie Brown's appeal to his willingness to keep fighting and coming back.
"Charlie Brown is the way Schulz looked at himself, and Snoopy was the other side, full of fantasy, able to do whatever he wanted," Mendelson says. In A Charlie Brown Valentine, Snoopy does everything from pretend to be the Little Red-Haired Girl to pass himself off as a boy in a dog costume.
The special presents Linus as the wise adviser to the lovelorn Charlie Brown. "I know Schulz said if the kids were to grow up, Linus would be the most stable," Mendelson said. "He has such a mixture of intelligence and innocence. He's the smartest of the group but still sucks his thumb."
During the eight-year break from television, the collaborators took a breather and made two programs for Paramount Home Video. But the move to ABC has given Mendelson and his colleagues the incentive to do more.
The next show, Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown, has a baseball theme and should appear next year. They're working on a Snoopy show called I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown.
Mendelson says that the Christmas and Halloween specials cannot be topped because they are classics, but he tries to maintain their standards and match the children's voices to those in the first special. He considers the new valentine show to be the best Peanuts program in a long time.
"There are more jokes in this one," he says. "It's a lot like Seinfeld. They would take a subject and they'd react to it for a half-hour. That's what we're doing and how the characters respond."
Yes, but Seinfeld never had Snoopy.
Charlie, You Gotta Have Heart
February 14, 2002
By Daryl H. Miller
The Los Angeles Times
Seize the day, Charlie Brown.
The little round-headed boy's feelings for the little red-haired girl are stronger than ever during the Valentine season. But he just can't work up the nerve to approach her in A Charlie Brown Valentine, tonight at 8 p.m. on ABC.
This all-new show, the first in eight years, comes from the creators of the other, now-classic "Peanuts" specials executive producer Lee Mendelson, producer-director Bill Melendez and the cartoon's beloved creator, Charles M. Schulz, who was working on the show before his death. Filled with gentle humor and quiet insight, it arrives two years and two days after his passing - a keepsake Valentine and a bittersweet reminder, rolled into one.
The half-hour, animated program follows the romantic misadventures of the whole "Peanuts" gang but focuses in particular on the pint-sized Everyman, Charlie Brown, as he pines for the little red-haired girl while letting opportunities to impress her - by returning a dropped pencil or saving her from a playground bully - slip through his fingers.
At one point, he buys her a gift, telling the unseen saleswoman "I'd like to buy a box of candy for a girl who doesn't know I exist. No, ma'am, nothing too expensive. I'll never have the nerve to give it to her anyway."
We know just how you feel, buddy.
No more Charlie Browns Valentine's Day is different now
February 14, 2002
By Keith Roysdon
The Muncie Star Press
MUNCIE - In a memorable 1975 television special, Charlie Brown didn't get any Valentine's Day cards - not even from the little red-haired girl who had captured his heart. Charles Schulz's enduring comic strip character suffered an elementary-school disappointment familiar to many who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. Kids decorated cards, made mailboxes from shoeboxes and eagerly hoped for a small pink-and-red sentiment - sometimes to no avail.
Teachers and administrators have for years implemented a practice that would prevent those type of traumas. Some schools have policies and others have informal practices, but most work to ensure that no one's Valentine's Day mailbox will be empty.
"I remember those days," said Donna Biggs, principal at Burris Laboratory School. "I think it's better now.
"There's a new awareness. Schools deal more with the whole kid than they did in our day."
"It is a rule for each classroom that everyone that gives valentines must give one to everybody," said Michael Garringer, principal of Cowan Elementary School.
"We've not had a policy because we've not had any problems," said Lee Steinbarger, principal at Randolph Southern Elementary School. "But the majority of teachers ask kids to bring in something for everyone."
Administrators at local schools said they could count on their teachers to make sure students were not alienated or disappointed on Valentine's Day or other special occasions.
"If the student doesn't have a valentine, they (the teachers) make sure they do have one," Biggs said. "They do a real good job."
"This staff is pretty in tune with the feelings of kids," Garringer said. "The same goes for other holidays or birthday parties."
At Cowan, Garringer said, the policy is that if parents want to celebrate a child's birthday at school, they must bring enough treats for the entire class. Likewise, if invitations are distributed in class for an out-of-school party, all classmates must be invited.
Garringer said elementary classes at Cowan enjoy Valentine's Day. For first-graders, the cards help students with reading skills and instill a sense of friendship.
By sixth grade, he said, kids are becoming social and will offer thanks to others for cards.
"They probably like it better than they would want you to believe," Garringer said.
Teachers enjoy Valentine's Day too. "It's my favorite party, because (students) really enjoy it," said Jody Thomas, a fourth-grade teacher at Cowan.
"I think we're more aware of some of the kids who might be in a needy category than we used to be," Biggs said. "We want to make sure everyone feels good about that day."
A valentine for Charlie Brown
ABC airs first new Peanuts show since creator's death
February 14, 2002
By Laura Fries
Variety
HOLLYWOOD - The essence of Charles M. Schulz and his beloved Peanuts characters are alive and well in this production, the first original TV special since the creator's death in 2000. Culled from more than 18,000 daily comic strips penned by Schulz, A Charlie Brown Valentine (Thurs., 8-830 p.m., ABC) uses the same formula and production team that made Snoopy and the gang synonymous with major holidays.
ABC, which bought the rights to the Peanuts franchise from CBS, plans to air more of these all-new specials in addition to the classics. Although CBS was blasted for letting go of Charlie Brown after 35 years, the Alphabet has recently been accused of manhandling the Peanuts legacy by airing It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Christmas amid formidable competition or in forgettable time periods. A Charlie Brown Valentine marks the first step toward redemption by giving it a holiday primetime premiere.
A better timeslot means Charlie Brown gets humiliated on a larger scale with, Valentine's Day eliciting more disappointment for the guy with the big round head. Charlie is smitten with the little red-haired girl and hopes to become her valentine. But when Charlie finally works up the nerve to call her, he accidentally reaches Marcie and sets off a friendly rivalry between the bespectacled girl and her friend Peppermint Patty.
Meanwhile, Snoopy is hacking out Valentine s Day love notes for the neighborhood kids, but his prose, which includes the likes of Chocolate is brown, roses are red, leaves much to be desired.
Unrequited love
Several themes remain a constant in the Peanuts universe, the most pervasive being unrequited love. The second is problem-solving, which is accomplished through prophetic wisdom imparted by elementary school kids.
Although the same animation team is behind this production, the colors don't look as rich and the backgrounds don't appear as detailed as in previous specials. David Benoit's rendering of the now-famous Vince Guaraldi tune is a case where more would be better. As is, the music is a bit watered-down. Schulz still gets the writing credit, but the script is peppered with modern vernacular such as "Hold it right there, dude," which is jolt of realism in the timeless universe of Charlie Brown.
And perhaps it's nitpicking, but it sure looks warm out for Valentine's Day. The voice talent is obviously new, but for the most part, manages to keep the integrity of the characters intact. Noticeably absent however, are Woodstock, Violet, Frieda and the kid who does the cool zombie dance in the Christmas special.
Still, director Bill Melendez continues to deliver dependable family entertainment, if not anything new and innovative. In the Peanuts world, psychiatric help is only 5 cents, please, Charlie never gets any respect, and Lucy can't win the affection of Schroeder.
And that's just how it should be.
St. Paul welcomes Lucy with open arms
February 14, 2002
By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
Lucy Van Pelt is the consummate fussbudget, but it will be a friendly version of the "Peanuts" character that greets St. Paul visitors this summer in the city's third annual tribute to cartoonist Charles Schulz and his work.
The foil of Charlie Brown will be cast in 103 different roles as area artists decorate the 5-foot-tall "Looking for Lucy" statues that will be on public display around the city.
Two summers ago, St. Paul's "Peanuts on Parade" showcased 101 statues of the beagle Snoopy, and last summer, "Charlie Brown Around Town" offered 102 versions of the cartoon strip's lovable loser. Both tributes drew thousands of visitors to the city and created an almost universal response of, "This is fun."
At Thursday's unveiling, St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly called the Lucys a great "addition to the streets of St. Paul" and said he looks "forward to a great summer filled with events and visitors."
Lucy is described as loud, bossy and crabby on the official "Peanuts" Web site (www.snoopy.com), but the design that will decorate St. Paul streets shows her, like the two preceding statues, with open arms.
Her temperamental personality will add a certain flare to the event, organizers said, but the happy pose still will be inviting and will encourage hugs from children. The statues will be made by TivoliToo, the St. Paul firm that made the previous statues.
The celebration also will operate as the last two did, with many of the statues being auctioned at the end. Funds from the auction will go for scholarships at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul and the Art Instruction Schools, based in Minneapolis. Proceeds also will help fund permanent sculptures of Schulz characters planned for a downtown St. Paul park.
Since summer 2000, following Schulz's death, there has been a debate about continuing the event. Some said once was enough, but others demanded a second and then a third celebration, and they eventually won out. The announcement that the event will continue seems to have pleased most observers, although there was some hesitancy from a few former sponsors.
Jeff Johnson, one of the owners of the West Seventh Street Pharmacy, 1066 W. Seventh St., which sponsored two previous statues, said his store will consider another.
"We did it for the neighborhood, so they would have a statue here and not have to go downtown to take part," he said. He added that his wife's name is Lucy, and she's always wanted the celebration to do that character.
Tom Johnson of A. Johnson and Sons Florists, 1738 Grand Ave., where "Garden Party Snoopy" from the first summer is still on display, said the store also will consider sponsoring a Lucy.'
He said the store did not keep its Charlie Brown statue because of changes in the way the promotion was run. The first year, sponsors could keep or donate "Snoopy." A fee of $4,000 was charged if the statue was not donated to the auction.
"I thought they might not do a third summer, but they must think they can get the sponsors," Johnson said.
But Eagan artist Lois Maag has eagerly awaited Lucy.
"I kept watching the last two summer events and wondered, 'Why not a girl?' " Maag said. "Lucy is different than Charlie Brown. She has her own outlook on life."
Darlene Lazer of St. Paul spent the summer of Snoopy visiting all 101 statues, taking pictures of them with her mother. Because of bad weather and family commitments, they were unable to spend much time on Charlie Brown last year, but she is looking forward to "Looking for Lucy."
"I've got a new camera and will use it out on Lucy. We made a scrapbook of Snoopy. It was a lot of fun," she said. However, she did wonder why the event did not include Lucy's brother Linus.
"Maybe they'll just bring out all the characters one at a time," Lazer said.
More than 50 characters have appeared in "Peanuts" in the 50 years Schulz drew the comic strip. Most were very minor, but the strip's official Web site has brief written sketches of 12.
It's official 103 Lucy statues coming to St. Paul
February 14, 2002
By Joe Kimball
The Minneapolis Star Tribune
It's official Statues of Lucy van Pelt will grace the sidewalks of St. Paul this summer in the third annual display of Peanuts cartoon characters in state capital.
It started with Snoopy statues in 2000, then Charlie Browns last summer. And even though some of the artists who decorate the statues worried that the city is going to the Charles Schulz well once too often, business leaders are certain that the public loves the gang so much that, once again, the city will have hundreds of thousands of picture-taking tourists seeking out the 103 Lucy statues that will be scattered out around town.
Randi Johnson, friend of Charles Schulz and owner of Tivoli Too, the company that makes the statues, said the Lucy character - who can be pouty, mouthy, bossy or sassy - will offer new challenges to the local artists who actually design and paint the figures.
Corporations are being solicited to sponsor the Lucys, and as in the past, many will be sold at auction at the end of the summer, with proceeds again going to help pay for the bronze Peanuts characters to be installed in the new Landmark Plaza park next summer. Some of the funds also will be used for scholarships for young cartoonists.
Good Grief! It's Cupid, Charlie Brown
'Peanuts' tackles love
February 13, 2002
The New York Daily News
When you think about Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts," the first things to come to mind are likely to be Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown just before he kicks it, and Snoopy fantasizing about aerial dogfights with the Red Baron.
Yet on ABC's new Valentine's Day special - the first new "Peanuts" TV production in nine years - it's love, not Snoopy or Charlie Brown, that's in the air.
A Charlie Brown Valentine (tomorrow night at 8 p.m., ABC) numbers some of the contributors who made A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown the best cartoons in the series. It's created and written by Schulz, produced and directed by Bill Melendez, and has Lee Mendelson as its executive producer.
A Charlie Brown Valentine is the first new 'Peanuts' special since Charles Schultz passed away.
And what the show doesn't have firsthand, it takes great pains to re-create. The jazzy music of Vince Guaraldi, lifted from previous specials, is back, this time interpreted anew by David Benoit.
The animation has the same intentionally static look as the original specials, and the voices of the kids - provided by kids - come close to matching the tones of the original youngsters from that first special in 1965.
The one thing this new special doesn't have is a solid story or message.
Based on a treatment by Schulz (written in the last two years of his life) and his original "Peanuts" comic strips, A Charlie Brown Valentine plays like what it is a series of vignettes.
The great "Peanuts" specials had those, too, but they also had strong central themes the true meaning of Christmas, the power and importance of faith. The closest Valentine gets to a story is Charlie Brown's quest to get to know the Little Red-Haired Girl - a quest that, like his attempts to kick the football while Lucy holds it, seems doomed to failure from the start.
Most of the scenes will be very familiar - word for word - to longtime fans of Schulz's strip. But it's surprising how clearly the theme of unrequited love ran through the "Peanuts" playground.
Charlie Brown pines for the Little Red-Haired Girl, while Peppermint Patty is attracted to him. Lucy adores Schroeder, who has no eyes for her and ears only for Beethoven.
Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally, has a thing for Linus, but he's attached to his security blanket.
And Snoopy, well, he's the one who gets all the valentines - and he gives a few of them, too.
"Your eyes," he types in one, "are like two supper dishes."
That kind of simile almost makes your eyes - or your mouth - water.
Valentine's Day special for Charlie Brown 'Peanuts' show first in many years
Feburary 13, 2002
By Nancy McAlister
The Jacksonville Times-Union
Valentine's Day is hard on Charlie Brown.
He finally musters the courage to call the little red-haired girl but, alas, it's the wrong number. He gets Peppermint Patty instead. And so the rivalry between Patty and Marcie for his affection comes to a head.
Charlie, of course, is clueless about these goings-on, just one of several crushes that develop during A Charlie Brown Valentine (8 p.m. tomorrow, ABC). On other fronts, Sally chases Linus. Lucy is in her usual pursuit of Schroeder. How will it all end? One thing for sure is that Charlie will persevere, even in the face of failure.
The first newly created Peanuts special in several years, A Charlie Brown Valentine is from the same creative team that produced more than 68 TV specials and four feature films about life among the Peanuts gang. Though Charles M. Schulz, creator of the cartoon strip that started it all, died two years ago, he worked with animator Bill Melendez and executive producer Lee Mendelson on outlines for future TV projects prior to his death.
The men told TV critics at the midseason press tour that they plan to release about one special a year. Each will be based on some of Schulz's more than 18,000 syndicated strips.
As Schulz battled colon cancer in the last years of his life, Melendez said, his interest in creating television shows never waned.
"He said he wouldn't mind stopping the strip, but he thought he would like to go down and work on the animated shows," said Melendez. "But, of course, he didn't have a chance to."
A Charlie Brown Valentine is not the first Peanuts TV special to focus on that particular holiday. But this one is a completely new story, according to Mendelson, who in 1965 produced the Emmy-winning A Charlie Brown Christmas and, with Schultz and animator Melendez, went on to produce 45 Peanuts prime-time specials that won four Emmys and 15 nominations.
There were so many strips that dealt with Valentine's Day, in fact, that there's enough material for yet another show on the theme.
Schulz had one particular wish for this redo.
"He felt after 32 years that Charlie Brown should get a Valentine," Mendelson said, although he noted that one of the cartoonist's recurring themes in his work was unrequited love, "going back to the days when he lost a girl in St. Paul."
Melendez collaborated with Schulz for more than 40 years, starting in 1959 when he prepared animation for Ford Motor Co. using Peanuts characters to sell cars on TV. Prior to that, he had contributed to Walt Disney Studios classics such as Pinocchio and Fantasia and to Warner Bros. cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Since he worked alongside Schulz - who friends and colleagues called Sparky - on every story, he has a good idea what the Peanuts creator would accept or not accept.
"I can truly say, 'Sparky would never do that' or say, 'Linus would never say a thing like that.' Because it's been established in my mind certainly, and their characters are very well formulated and they're all so different that you can't confuse one from the other."
TV's versions of the Peanuts gang has required about 14 casts over the years. Child actors have this habit of growing up and no longer sounding like kids. CBS hated the initial show - the 1965 Christmas special - and Melendez and Mendelson thought it would be a disaster. Schulz had nixed the idea of a laugh track and insisted there be quotes from the Bible.
"We thought we had ruined Peanuts," Mendelson said. "Too slow. Too religious. What's the jazz music doing on there?"
To their amazement, Time magazine wrote a glowing review and the special got a whopping 50 percent share of the audience.
"He (Schulz) liked the show," Mendelson said. "He was smarter than us."
Charlie Brown Our Funny Valentine
February 12, 2002
By Charlie Mason
TV Guide Online
This week is going to be hard for us singletons.
We'll go through our little black books, calling one ex after another in hopes of scoring a sympathy date. We'll keep up appearances at the office by sending ourselves flowers and candy. We'll rent Fatal Attraction and Romeo and Juliet to convince ourselves that love really does stink. But, through it all, we'll tell ourselves, "Things could be worse. At least, we aren't Charlie Brown."
"Valentine's Day is very hard on Charlie Brown," acknowledges Lee Mendelson, the executive producer of A Charlie Brown Valentine, the first new Peanuts special since the February 2000 death of the comic's creator, Charles M. Schulz. "Charlie Brown finally gets the courage to call (the object of his affection), the little red-haired girl, but he misdials and gets Peppermint Patty by mistake and (winds up taking her) and Marcie to the dance.
"Then," he adds, "bad things happen."
As Charlie Brown himself would say, "Good grief!" If Valentine, airing Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC, is only going to deliver more heartache to our hapless hero, why bother reissuing a bow and arrow to Cupid? Wasn't 1975's Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown crushing enough?
"One of Schulz's main themes has always been unrequited love, going back to the days when he lost a girl in St. Paul," Mendelson points out. So, in the new half hour, based entirely on Schulz's strips, "you have Sally chasing Linus, and Lucy chasing Schroeder, and, of course, Charlie Brown has no clue about any of it.
"That's the reason we wanted to do a new special - to show the new romances going on," he continues. "This isn't a redo, it's a whole new story. (Schulz) felt that, after 32 years, Charlie Brown should get a valentine."
If that's true, if that really can happen, then - sniffle - maybe there's hope for all of us blockheads.
Welcome back, Charlie Brown
New special is first since cartoonist's death
February 12, 2002
By Neal Justin
The Minneapolis Star Tribune
Charles Schulz had a lot of rules Linus never meets the Great Pumpkin. Charlie Brown always misses the football. It never costs more than loose change for Lucy's advice. Most important, no one messes with his Peanuts gang. No one.
So the idea of new animated specials being produced without Schulz seemed about as likely as Charlie Brown going to the fourth-grade prom with the red-haired girl.
Well, pucker up, Chuck, because an all-new TV special, A Charlie Brown Valentine, debuts Thursday, the first since 1993's You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown! It's likely to be the first in a string of new Peanuts cartoons.
When Schulz, a St. Paul native, died in February 2000, family members said they were opposed to any more animated specials. Even though United Media owns the Peanuts characters, the family maintains the right to approve all creative projects.
The family said Schulz didn't want the cartoons to continue without the strict but loving guidance he provided over four full-length movies and 62 animated specials. That incredible catalog includes such treasured holiday classics as A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, featuring a feast of popcorn and toast, as well as more obscure titles including It's Magic, Charlie Brown, in which our hero turns into the Invisible Blockhead.
But the family lifted its objections when Schulz's longtime collaborators -- animator Bill Melendez, 85, and producer Lee Mendelson, 67 -- promised that future scripts would continue to be based on the original 18,000 Peanuts strips.
Still, you can imagine Schulz's spirit hovering over the production.
Mendelson remembers when he and Melendez went to visit Schulz in the early 1980s. The artist had suffered a heart attack and was about to undergo a quadruple bypass operation.
"He said, 'What will you do if I die on the table?' " Mendelson said. "And I said, 'We'll do four shows a year instead of two.' I think that kept him alive for 17 more years."
The first Peanuts special, 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas, almost didn't get off the ground because of Schulz's stubbornness. Long before primetime was touched by an angel, Schulz insisted that Linus read from the Bible at the Christmas pageant. There also was jazz music and a muted trombone playing the schoolteacher ("wah-wah").
"I suggested at one meeting that we have a laugh track," Mendelson said. "Schulz stood up and walked out of the room. I looked at Bill and said, 'What does that mean?' He said, 'I think we're not going to have a laugh track.' "
Everyone thought the show was going to be a disaster.
"A guy from CBS told us he hated it and that there would never be another one," Mendelson said. "Then we got nearly a 50 share" -- half of all TV viewers, a phenomenal rating. "The CBS guy called up and said, 'We'll do four more. But my aunt in New Jersey didn't like it, either.' "
Schulz and the animators threw out most of the drawings from the first five shows, figuring they weren't very good. The ones that are left are worth about $50,000 apiece.
'He should have been the happiest person in the world'
Not all of the Peanuts specials have endured. While the holiday ones are often broadcast, others are available only on video. In fact, there's a good chance you haven't seen two of Schulz's favorites What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? (a poignant 1981 tribute to World War II veterans) and What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown! (1978, with Snoopy imagining himself as an arctic sled dog).
Before he died, Schulz sketched out an idea for a new special It's Only Marbles, Charlie Brown. Before they develop that one, Mendelson and Melendez are working on a couple of other stories, a baseball special called Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown and a Snoopy holiday show.
Melendez is convinced Schulz would still be around working on the new shows if he had relaxed and enjoyed his fame a little more.
"I would tell him, 'Get on a tramp steamer, take your drawing board and your fountain pen and go around the world,' " Melendez said. "He'd say, 'Why would I want to do that? I don't like to leave my studio.'
"If he had taken my advice, he'd still be alive today. To have a few drinks every night, to live it up more, to not be such a recluse. He should have been the happiest person in the world."
Melendez said Schulz never comprehended how much the strip and the specials meant to people.
"Cartoonists live a very solitary life," Melendez said. "He did 18,000 strips -- term papers, he called them -- and every day was a new term paper. They don't always get a reaction from the outside world. But he certainly got one when he retired," a couple months before his death of colon cancer at age 77.
"When I was up there near the end, we were talking about the Christmas show and he was grateful we got to make it when none of us knew what we were doing."
'Peanuts' Lucy next in line for tribute
February 11, 2002
By Karl J. Karlson
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
After summer flings with a beagle and his insecure owner, St. Paul this year is turning to temperamental Lucy for its third tribute to the life and works of the late Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz.
On Thursday, Mayor Randy Kelly will announce details for the city's summerlong "Looking for Lucy" event that will feature the character known as a crabby fussbudget.
Schulz, who was raised in the Snelling-Selby neighborhood of St. Paul, died two years ago Wednesday of colon cancer. At the time, a planned city tribute to him quickly grew into a summerlong "Peanuts on Parade'' event that featured 5-foot-tall artist-decorated statues of Snoopy scattered throughout downtown and around the city.
The event's success exceeded all expectations, and although there was no way to accurately track attendance at the free event, city officials were thrilled with the thousands and thousands of visitors who came to St. Paul to scout out and photograph the 101 statues in 2000. At summer's end, about half the statues were auctioned, raising $1 million for a permanent tribute to Schulz.
Last summer, the tribute continued with "Charlie Brown Around Town,'' which featured 102 statues of the cartoon strip's lovable loser. About half of the statues were auctioned, with the money going for scholarships and the permanent tribute.
Since then, there has been discussion about whether to continue this summer with another Schulz character Would the public keep coming to see statues? Were there enough sponsors willing to pay $3,000 to $6,000 per statue? Would the Schulz family still be willing to take part? If so, who would be featured Linus? Lucy? Woodstock?
With those questions apparently answered and details worked out, officials are ready for a Valentine's Day announcement.
When members of the Capital City Partnership were polled about whether to continue the summer tribute, the area businesses responded, "We can't wait for this to happen,'' said Lee Koch, vice president of the partnership, which will oversee the event this year.
"We hope the artists embrace the fact that Lucy's a woman and have her as feminine heroes,'' Koch said.
The Peanuts comic strip, which appeared in 2,700 newspapers around the world at its peak, continues in reprints.
Schulz, who stopped drawing the strip shortly after being diagnosed with cancer in late 1999, died Feb. 13, 2000, a day before the last original Sunday "Peanuts'' strip was published. He was 77.
