“Happiness is a Warm Gun” isn’t the only connection between The Beatles and Peanuts. Both groups exemplified the optimism of the 1960s era. Charles M. Schulz’s Charlie Brown was so assured of positive outcomes he repeatedly tried to kick a field-goal-placed football held by the town’s resident five-cents-a-session psychiatrist, Lucy, in spite of the knowledge she would pull it out from under him at the last moment. He faced defeat and realized “the world didn’t come to an end.”
When Schulz’s comic strip moved into animated TV specials, much of that expectant wonder was expressed through the music. Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi joined the Peanuts’ creative gang in 1964, when he was hired to score a TV documentary about Schulz, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. The documentary never aired, but jazz label Fantasy Records released the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack, Jazz Impressions of A Boy...
When Schulz’s comic strip moved into animated TV specials, much of that expectant wonder was expressed through the music. Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi joined the Peanuts’ creative gang in 1964, when he was hired to score a TV documentary about Schulz, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. The documentary never aired, but jazz label Fantasy Records released the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack, Jazz Impressions of A Boy...
- 3/11/2023
- by Mike Cecchini
- Den of Geek
The 1966 animated television special It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown has become a perennial Halloween standard. Starring the Peanuts gang created by Charles M. Schulz, it is not, however, a horror classic. “It’s not even on the scale,” says film analyst and Peanuts historian Derrick Bang. “It’s too sweet and gentle. The only thing mildly spooky is the title credit sequence.” What the special lacked in fear it made up for in wonder. Much of that magic came from the music.
While Lucy, Linus, and even Snoopy come home with sacks of candy, Charlie Brown’s trick or treat bag is filled with rocks. That’s not how Halloween is supposed to roll. Lee Mendelson, co-creator of the Peanuts animated specials, brought in someone who could make it swing.
San Francisco Bay area jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi had been part of the Peanuts’ creative gang for two...
While Lucy, Linus, and even Snoopy come home with sacks of candy, Charlie Brown’s trick or treat bag is filled with rocks. That’s not how Halloween is supposed to roll. Lee Mendelson, co-creator of the Peanuts animated specials, brought in someone who could make it swing.
San Francisco Bay area jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi had been part of the Peanuts’ creative gang for two...
- 10/27/2022
- by Mike Cecchini
- Den of Geek
Like the early Peanuts holiday specials, the 1969 feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown can sneak up on a viewer. Early on, it’s little more than an adaptation of a few unconnected Charles Schulz strips, intercut with musical interludes. Vince Guaraldi’s score—arranged by John Scott Trotter, and peppered with Rod McKuen songs—is more lavish than the music in the TV series, and the tone’s more sentimental than befits Peanuts. But then the movie develops a plot, having to do with Charlie Brown’s effort to prove he’s not useless by winning a spelling ...
- 3/30/2011
- avclub.com
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