After winning the spelling bee for hisvschool, usual blockhead loser Charlie Brown has the confidence of his classmates including the obnoxious Lucy who has always stepped on his self-esteem, tore away the football before he can kick it and makes him pitch on a baseball mound covered in Dandy Lions. She's continuing to stalk Schroeder here, who is completely uninterested of course, only noticing her when she mistakes a bust of Beethoven for George Washington. It's obvious that these kids have the mind of adults, and that will make this animated feature of Interest to adults who may relate to how the relationship of this group of friends has its highs and lows. Even Snoopy, the dog, without speaking, has his own rules and regulations and human abilities, able to fly a kite Charlie Brown can't. When Lucy and Linus strike out at a baseball game and everybody just accepts it, then yells in frustration in CB does it, the reflection of how cruel childhood really could be towards some hits home. It's hard not to watch the cartoons from TV and the features without looking at the psychological elements Charles Schulz was trying to emphasize.

This animated musical film has its highs and lows, many of them very funny and all of them original, not seen in any of the tv specials although a lot of the familiar sitegags are back. The score is pretty decent, although the clever spelling bee song isn't really melodic. It takes a good half hour or more for them to get to the gist of the plot, the challenge of the spelling bee, and it's surprising to see Lucy actually cheering when he wins the school title. There are definite moments of cleverness, a few insipid oh, and the film does get to be a little bit over long. The psychedelic elements of the 70's may seem weird to children of a decade fifty years later, and Schroeder's nightmare is just beyond bizarre. There's a sense of nostalgia though, but Charlie Brown's desperation to achieve something is definitely a relatable goal after a subject of a song called "Failure Face". As a feature film, after all those annual holiday specials of the sixties, this doesn't measure up to those. Perhaps less in this case is more.

As a kid, I loved this film when I saw it in the theater and when I saw it years later as an adult, I found it still had a lot to offer. You can't say that about MOST kids' movies! Charlie Brown is, as usual, an outcast and nothing goes right for him when the movie begins. However, when he decides to enter a spelling bee and he wins, he is thrilled because he finally is good at something and the other kids treat him better. He doesn't realize that because he won he will be going to the state competition, and when he does, he's a nervous wreck. However, in the state competition, he comes in second. The kids reward this performance by once again demeaning him by calling him a block-head! Despite the very simple outline I gave above, the film actually has a lot more depth and character development. Plus, being the funky 1960s, the visuals at times are pretty indicative of the era (i.e., splashy and loud).

I know he never would have been allowed to do it, but when Charlie Brown came home after having come in second, I really wanted to see him administer a well-deserved butt-kicking to Lucy and the other nasty kids!

This is another of the few Charlie Brown specials/movies that still sticks around in my mind. In fact, there are some scenes that, for one reason or another, still seem as fresh as ever. It's not the best of the specials, but it is a very good way to introduce one not terribly familiar to the Peanuts world because it makes use of almost all of the main characters and their trials, tribulations, quirks, and gifts. Like Charlie Brown's inadequacy with flying a kite, or Lucy's imperative to mess with the kid's head at most turns, or Linus's compulsive need for his blue blanket, or even Schroder's knack at the piano. Some of these revelations of character are charming and funny.

The animators also bring some interest and imagination to otherwise unnecessary (story-wise) scenes, like Schroder's piano sequence (as a kid I was a little perplexed but not now) and Snoopy's wonderful ice skating scene in the city. The plot is more for the kids than adults as Charlie Brown competes at the one thing that looks like his knack, the spelling bee, reaching to the highest competition and a chance to make himself no longer an outsider. Some of the songs accompanying the film are less than great and hamper on the amusing scenes. However this doesn't exclude how entertaining the special can be, with every spelling-bee scene worth the watch. And the conclusion is wholly satisfying for anyone in the audience, not a happy one but not compromised either.