Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown
Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown is an animated short directed and animated by Jim Reardon,[1] who would later become director and storyboard consultant for The Simpsons and one of the co-writers of the Oscar-winning 2008 animated feature WALL-E.[2] The cartoon was made in 1986 while he was at CalArts.[3] The black-and-white cartoon has a rough, unfinished-looking style.[4]
| Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jim Reardon |
| Written by | Jim Reardon |
| Starring | Etienne Badillo Rich Moore Mike Reardon William Holden Bret Haaland Ethan Kafner Jeff Pidgeon |
| Narrated by | Rich Moore |
Production company | |
Release date | June 27, 1986 |
Running time | 4 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Synopsis
The short film is presented as a trailer for a faux Peanuts television special.[5] The "special" is said to be due for broadcast on Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m., and to be sponsored by a foods company called Madison Barns, "makers of Ding Dongs, Twinkies, pooftas and wussy cakes," but the advertisements were only announced and was not shown on the picture.
The short begins with the camera moving the left side to Linus, Lucy, and Schroeder, who are freaking out by The Great Pumpkin who literally smokes a cigarette in front of the cast, as he puts a bounty on Charlie Brown's head on a wall, knowing that he is dead or alive, and was prompting the entire Peanuts cast to try to kill him.[6] The first clip demonstrates Charlie Brown backing up while Lucy sets up for Charlie. He tells her that she is ready, but she gives him a moment as she strikes a match as she tries to get Charlie Brown to kick a bomb disguised as a football. When she lights the bomb up and calls him a blockhead, Charlie immediately rushes off to the football but when he kicks, it explodes, and goes to the title card. Schroeder then appears acting like normal without his tiny-piano in his hands. Then Charlie came to him and asked Schroeder a question about his piano, but ends up that he dumps his (full-sized, not toy) piano on Charlie Brown's head while Schroeder disobeys Charlie's question as he continues playing his piano while Charlie apologizes to him. Snoopy then prepares to fly like the flying ace from the Great Pumpkin special from 1966, but ends up getting shot by machine guns. Charlie then holds a York Peppermint Pattie (not the character as it was mentioned, as the character does not appear in the short film), and Snoopy bites off his hand (which gushes blood),. Then it goes to the Kite-Eating Tree who falls on him to the left, and goes into the famous bricks area where Linus begins talking to Charlie, but Linus ends up strangling him with his blanket after Charlie recognizes that everyone is after him.
Finally tired of running and as he turned to the right while wearing a coat and has a bit of hair, finding Linus, Lucy (holding a spiked bat), Schroeder, and Snoopy; Charlie Brown suddenly dons a mohawk and arms himself with a pump-action shotgun, a submachine gun, and an M16 assault rifle, and says to the other characters to burn in heck with the camera showing Charlie's face while his eyes closed tight. He then systematically kills off the entire Peanuts cast one by one (with an exception of Snoopy being almost shot, but with his brain showing). Charlie then gets shot in the left shoulder by Lucy with a pistol, but then Charlie brings the spiked bat and decapitated Lucy, resulting another blood gush. The film then goes on a strange montage in which Charlie Brown guns down everyone in his way: scores of Mexican banditos, a Wehrmacht machine gun nest behind which Adolf Hitler is painting a picture of a flower while 2 other militiamen were hunting (then gets shot), and Richard Simmons doing jumping jacks (who also gets shot. Not only he gets shot, but also falls off a window while shots were fired at him). This is followed by his innocent sister, Sally, being decapitated by an ax. Following this is a montage of a small dragon breathing flames, Pig Pen vomiting profusely in Violet's face, two biplanes colliding in midair, Dagwood Bumstead getting kicked in the groin by his wife, Blondie (which causes his head to pop off, resulting in yet another blood gush), Mickey Mouse getting hit over the head by a lead pipe while laughing, Rocky Balboa getting punched in the face by Popeye, and Godzilla squeezing Dr. Pepper out of a giant soda can. It then ends with the camera moving to the right with various characters, including some taken to the hospital, some lying on ground, and even one committing suicide by hanging on gallows. Charlie Brown then announced while holding his 2 guns that "Happiness is a warm Uzi" in a thick Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, and cuts to him smoking a cigarette in bed with the Little Red-Haired Girl (who, fittingly, is not fully seen), who asks Charlie Brown to turn off the bedroom light and go to sleep.[7][8]
The song "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters plays over the end credits (where it is incorrectly attributed to The Platters). The credits end with a note from Jim Reardon:
The creator of this picture wishes to state that he does not in any way wish to tarnish or demean the beloved characters of Charles M. "Dutch" Schulz's comic strip, "Peanuts". No malice or damage to their goodwill was intended. So please don't sue me, because it will drag through the courts for years, and I haven't got a lawyer – and besides, you've already got half the money in the world, and I haven't got any. OK? [9][10]
References to other media
Jim Reardon makes several references to Sam Peckinpah films throughout the short. For example, the title itself – as well as the basic plot – is a play on Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. The title is borrowed from National Lampoon 's parody of TV Guide.
The Peanuts massacre is a major satire of the climax in Sam Peckinpah's classic film The Wild Bunch. There are slow-motion death scenes intercut with rapid shots, much like Peckinpah's editing style. Violet's death scene, in which she spins around with her revolver, is a copy of Herrera's death scene at the start of the gun battle. The sequence in which Lucy shoots at Charlie Brown from behind and he spins around screaming and consequently kills her with a shotgun is shot-for-shot taken from the sequence where the prostitute shoots William Holden in the back. There is even a part where Charlie Brown waves his submachine gun around, screaming the famous Warren Oates scream, and the camera pan across several Mexican bandits being blown away. An interesting note is that Reardon actually uses sound bites from the movie in these two previous scenes.
The references to Peckinpah are made even more clear at the end of the film when Reardon dedicates it to Sam "The Man" Peckinpah.
There are some non-Peckinpah references made in the short, such as Charlie Brown's mohawk (a reference to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver) and Lucy's speaking in a John Wayne drawl. Reardon also identifies Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz as "Charles M. 'Dutch' Schulz," as in mobster Dutch Schultz.
Godzilla squeezing the giant Dr. Pepper can is a reference to the then-recent Dr. Pepper ad campaign featuring the famed monster surrounding the 1985 American release of The Return of Godzilla (retitled Godzilla 1985 for that release).
When Charlie Brown's arm is bitten off by Snoopy, the screaming sound effect is that from the Tom and Jerry cartoons (and not Peter Robbins's similar-sounding yell that was used in most Peanuts specials up to that point). When Charlie Brown is being strangled by Linus, the sound effects are from the Monty Python skit "Farewell to John Denver".[11]
The brief image of a small fire-breathing dragon is from Snookles, an animated short by Juliet Stroud, which, like this film, was produced at the California Institute of the Arts in 1986.[12]
Cast and credits
- Charlie Brown – Etienne Badillo, Rich Moore, Mike Reardon, William Holden
- Linus van Pelt – Ethan Kafner
- Lucy van Pelt – Bret Haaland
- Great Pumpkin – Jeff Pidgeon
- Additional Voices – Ed Bell, Bruce Johnson, Mike Reardon, Bret Haaland
- Narration – Rich Moore
- "Aided and Abetted by" – Ed Bell, Dale McBeath, Bob Winquist, Mike Giaimo, Craig Smith, Bret Haaland, Nate Kanfer, Doug Frankel, Mike Reardon, Rich Moore, Russ Edmonds, Hal Ambro, Dan Hansen, Jim Ryan, Tony Fucile, Jeff Pidgeon, Bob McCrea, Sarge Morton, Mom, Eileen, and Beverly
- Dedicated to Sam "The Man" Peckinpah
- "Peanuts Theme – Vince Guaraldi
- "Charlie Brown" – The Coasters
- A Jim Reardon Cartoon – Made at Cal Arts, U.S.A.
References
- FilmAffinity
- Dustin Lance Black Wins Original Screenplay: 2009 Oscars
- Wreck-It Ralph Director Rich Moore on his Film Sensibility: ‘It’s a CalArts Thing’-CalArts blog
- "Enjoy the disturbing "Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown"". The Retroist. Archived from the original on 2018-11-10. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
- Cartoon Brew
- Simpsons director's Peanuts parody student film online-Animated Views
- BCDB
- Letterboxd
- David Pescovitz (2012-05-12). ""Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown," animated Peanuts spoof by Simpsons director Jim Reardon". BoingBoing.
- Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown. YouTube.
- Farewell To John Denver by Monty Python-Topic on YouTube
- Snookles (1986)-IMDB