Scott LeBrun The beloved Peanuts characters created by Charles M. Schulz make a very endearing feature film debut here. The story has Charlie Brown feeling more despondent than ever due to the fact that his destiny seems to be failing at everything. This isn't helped by the fact that Lucy has actually created a slide show detailing every one of his supposed faults! However, hope is generated when Charlie Brown decides to try out competitive spelling, and has success right off the bat. (In an appropriate touch, this is because some of the first words that he gets are tailored to his personality, like "insecure".) He even goes to compete in the National Spelling Bee.There's some material here that could be seen as padding, but overall it's an effective means of stretching out a Peanuts story to a feature length of approximately an hour and a half. The animation is slick and there is a wealth of interesting visuals. Rod McKuens' handful of songs are admittedly pretty silly, but they're not long enough or frequent enough to become a true detriment.The verbal jokes and visual gags are just as funny as they've ever been, and the characters are all well defined in their classic way. Snoopy, as usual, is the biggest cut-up. One example of this: Linus handed over his precious security blanket to Charlie Brown to serve as a good luck charm, and suffers enough withdrawals to seek out Charlie Brown and demand the blanket back. Then, every time Linus keels over, Snoopy fills a glass of water, and you think it's for Linus, but he ends up drinking it himself.As a bonus, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" features a catchy way of listing various spelling rules; watching this wouldn't be a bad way for kids to learn some of them! Poor Charlie Brown ends up so stressed out and weary that he automatically spells words that he speaks or are spoken to him.You do feel bad for Charlie, but in the end, you can always leave it to Linus to put everything into perspective for him and the audience.Many genuine laughs, a solid story, some real heart, and a typically excellent jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi (including some variations on the standard "Linus and Lucy") help to make this a winner.Eight out of 10.

Zebrafil Shultz (Great man though he was) had a flaw. Charlie wins 2nd place in the national spelling bee and thinks he is the goat. Linus admonition that the world had not end could have easily been followed by him pinning the second prize ribbon on Charlies door. His fair weather friends did not matter that much in the face of such a thing. Shultz was a spiritual man who lacked faith in people (likely correctly) but Schroeder for example had stuck up for Charlie before. The point is failure is often a perception. Had this film made that point how many kids would have seen life differently. Just a thought. Otherwise a thoughtful study in the good and evil of competition.

LarryBrownHouston I'm an adult seeing this for the first time, and I have an adult viewpoint. Simply not good. Animation is primitive, music is bad and tedious, not funny at all, and the weak climax does not make up for two hours of painful situations. Charlie, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, and Schroeder are decently colorful characters. The rest don't even make it to cartoon quality. I did grow up reading Charlie Brown comic strips in paperback form, and I liked it. But it loses its charm in this format.2 hours is way too long, forcing time killing extended sequences. Overuse of the "Linus and Lucy" theme gets tedious and shows a lack of diligence. Overuse of the minor key "Linus and Lucy" theme got annoying. It's not funny at all. There is one funny opening joke, and then Snoopy gets just a few funny bits, and that's it. You're in severe pain for 90+% of the movie. That's not entertainment.Way too mean with name calling and ridicule. Personally I find name calling and ridicule very offensive in any situation, even more so when it's this extensive. I just don't see the payoff in this movie. CB is a loser, a dumb, dull, unliked, untalented kid that ends up losing and "the world doesn't end." I don't see how that's a worthwhile lesson to anyone. The lesson is: no matter how much people call you names, ridicule you, no matter how much you lose in life or no matter that you can't seem to do anything right, somehow it's OK. There may be a nugget of truth in there, but basically having the movie makers essentially preach to me for two hours that I share those qualities - that's a little condescending, isn't it? But anyway, even if the message were worthwhile, the ending message is so weak and watered down that it doesn't give me a good feeling and erase all the misery I've experienced in the last two hours.It always felt like they were killing time with extended animation exercises. Extended segments: spelling rules, Linus looks for blanket, Snoopy ice-skating, and the Beethoven segment. Except for the spelling rules segment, the other extended segments did not move the story along, with Snoopy and Beethoven completely superfluous. These segments also came across like animation experiments, "Let's see how realistically we can make Snoopy appear to glide over the ice." "Let's make an extended high art collage set to Beethoven's music." That said: The Beethoven segment was very good and was the highlight of the movie. In fact, it's the only portion I saved for repeated viewing. As a short animation segment it's great, but as far as moving the story of a 2 hour movie along, especially for kids, no.I can't see anyone learning spelling rules from this movie - so educational value is not much. Show this movie to any kid and then see if he can recite even the I before E rule, I don't think so. Music was no good - the spelling bee song was not good.I know it's apples to oranges, but this 1969 movie compared to the work and storytelling that Disney was doing as far back as 1937 (Snow White)? Like Rembrandt vs. kids with crayons.Climax did not even come close to paying off, or making up for all the setup. The climax is two lines: "The World didn't end," and "Welcome home Charlie Brown." That simply doesn't cut it.

rebeljenn This isn't my personal favourite Charlie Brown episode. I liked the Christmas special the best. It's been years since I have seen this. I probably first saw it when I was six and last saw it when I was about ten. I think that ideally one needs to be older to enjoy Charlie Brown. I never did understand some of the dialoge because they use a lot of large words that adults would understand but not children. Despite it being a cartoon, I don't think it was made with children in mind. You have to feel sorry for poor old Charlie Brown though...but then he has that cool dog Snoopy. I think a lot of the humor of Charlie Brown goes over the heads of young people, with the expection of the holiday specials.