It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown

Plot synopsis:
It's homecoming at Charlie Brown's school, and Charlie Brown and Linus are among the escorts for the Homecoming Queen and her court. During the Homecoming Parade, Linus tells Charlie Brown that he (Charlie Brown) will be the escort for the Queen, but Charlie Brown is shocked when he sees the Queen is none other than the Little Red-Haired Girl herself (whose name is said to be Heather, though neither her name nor appearance were chosen by Schulz). He is even more shocked when Linus tells him about the Homecoming tradition—that he has to escort Heather and give her a kiss before the first dance. Hearing this, Charlie Brown hyperventilates and falls off the float.
The Homecoming Game begins with Snoopy as the referee and Charlie Brown on the team as kicker. But unfortunately, even in a real football game with many spectators (and Woodstock as a TV cameraman), Lucy, also on the team as the placekick setter, can't resist humiliating Charlie Brown, again pulling the ball away just as he tries to kick it. To make matters worse, even though Lucy is clearly the one at fault, the team (particularly Peppermint Patty) blames Charlie Brown for the failed kicks. With just thirty seconds left in the fourth quarter, Charlie Brown has a chance to become a hero and kick a field goal for the win, but Lucy again pulls the ball away, and the team loses by only one point.
Despite the humiliation, Charlie Brown still arrives at the dance to the surprise of his teammates (including, oddly enough, Lucy, the real culprit behind the team's loss), some whom think it would have been better if he didn't show up at all. But remaining faithful to his duty, Charlie Brown escorts Heather to the middle of the dance floor and somehow summons the courage to kiss her on the cheek. From that moment forward everything is a composite blur, with Charlie Brown having euphoric visions now that he has kissed the Little Red-Haired Girl—an accomplishment previously thought to be unattainable.
Charlie Brown wakes up the next morning, having no memory of anything that happened after the kiss. He walks to the wall, his usual hangout, and meets up with Linus, who proceeds to tell Charlie Brown that though he might have lost the game, he definitely took the honors at the dance. According to Linus, Charlie Brown surprised everyone when he kissed Heather, but even more so when he took to the dance floor with her—and even the other girls in the court—doing all of the latest dances. In essence, Charlie Brown was the life of the party according to Linus.
In disbelief, Charlie Brown replied saying "What good is it to do anything, Linus, if you can't remember what you did?" Regardless, Linus reminds him that at least it was his first kiss and the story ends with Charlie Brown smiling with quiet satisfaction.

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
Lucy should be thrown off the team..
It makes the huge mistake of showing the Little Red-headed Girl.
She is supposed to be a figure of mystery, the object of Charlie Brown's unfulfilled desires.
Sparky should have made them change this.The most amazing aspect of this is that Charlie Brown gets all of the team's ire, when it's that little b**** Lucy who keeps pulling the football away on every kick attempt.
I don't advocate violence against women, but Lucy deserved a swift kick in the tuckus!Stick with the classics, although it is fun to crank up the sound when Charlie Brown misses the football..
I'm not all that familiar with American educational traditions, but surely elementary school-kids don't have homecoming dances?
and the Peanuts gang are always supposed to be kids in elementary school.
So right from the start, I'm jolted out of my enjoyment of this special by that.Then we start adding other sources of incredulity.
Charlie Brown has, for some reason, been picked to be the escort for the Homecoming Queen (the Little Red-Haired Girl.) Yahbuhwha?
And the peanuts gang are playing football -- against much bigger kids, I might add -- while wearing helmets over their usual clothes.
Everyone knows that Lucy is going to pull the football out of the way when Charlie Brown goes to kick it.
And then they blame Charlie Brown for screwing up?
Doesn't anyone see Lucy holding the ball?
While Snoopy is, in our world, a big time celebrity, in the milieu of Peanuts, he's just Charlie Brown's dog (and to a degree a neighborhood mascot.) While I can suspend disbelief enough to have him driving the kids in "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown", and being treated as human by most of the kids, the idea that he'd be the subject of cheers from people who probably don't know who he is strain my suspension to its breaking point.There's one good moment in this special, that being of course the raptures that Charlie Brown flies into after he gives the Little Red-Haired Girl a kiss on the cheek.
Another Predictable Peanuts Cartoon.
I remember seeing "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown" when it first aired in the 70s and to me it was interesting to see the little red haired girl, who is named Heather but never, ever seen in the comic strip.But unfortunately like many of the Peanuts cartoons, it suffers from predictability, especially in the football game scenes when Charlie Brown is the kicker and Lucy is the holder who pulls the ball away.
The gag was funny in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving but becomes repetitive.
And Charlie Brown, not Lucy takes the blame for losing the game.
It just shows that I never liked Lucy in the cartoons.
It gets worse when she ridicules Charlie Brown at the homecoming dance.However, the best scene is when Charlie Brown finally kisses the little red haired girl but unfortunately the next day, he doesn't remember anything that happened.
It's a result of years of being bullied by Lucy and suffering from low self-esteem.
It was something that he accomplished in his own life and he still felt depressed.Of all the Peanuts cartoons that have aired, I would give it a major "Good grief!".
Since I am not American, I have no idea what a homecoming queen is and I am not familiar with their football rules.
This Peanuts TV special is mainly about both so I was a little bit lost for most of it.The story has Charlie Brown struggle (and unfairly lose) a football match and then finally get to meet his wannabe girlfriend (the little red-headed girl who finally see and is called Heather) at the Homecoming Ball (whatever that is).
The build of dread as he approaches her is quite amusing and when he finally kisses her the reaction is brilliant.
Though the scenes with Woodstock pretending to be a TV cameraman and flying around on Snoopy (who's ear act as chopper blades) are typically surreal and undoubtedly the best moments..
How can Lucy get away with everything when it's obvious that everything is her fault?.
First of all, I don't think I have ever seen this before.
It's not bad, it actually has that charm associated with Peanuts.
Artwork isn't fabulous, but simplicity is a characteristic of Peanuts's artwork.The story focus on Homecoming at Charlie Brown's school.
Charlie and Linus are possible escorts for the Homecoming Queen and her court.
Funnily, during the Parade, when Linus tells Charlie Brown that he will be the escort for the Queen, Charlie gets shocked because the Queen (whose name is Heather) is the Little Red-Haired Girl (who looks a bit like Lila from "Snoopy Come Home") and his shock is even greater when Linus tells him he must give her a kiss on the cheek before the first dance.
By hearing this, Charlie feels very much like Linus without his blanket.A Homecoming Game is included in this story.
Charlie Brown is the team kicker.
Unfortunately, Lucy is the placekick setter, which is an enormous mistake.
Whenever Charlie Brown is about to kick the ball, Lucy pulls the ball away, sending Charlie Brown into the air.
She is famous for this infamous trick, just as much as her well known bad temper.Poor Charlie Brown!
And then, of course, he gets blamed for the failures, while Lucy gets away all the time.
They should chose someone trustworthy - like Linus, for example.Not even when Charlie Brown has a chance to become a hero can Lucy be nice to him.
No wonder Charlie Brown has such a shaky self-esteem.
He is too young to feel as miserable as he does, but Lucy contributes a lot for that.And yet, Charlie Brown still goes to the dance.
Peppermint Patty and Lucy maliciously mock him and Lucy even has the nerve of mouthing off «Who would want to be your date after today's game?».
Lucy annoys me.
Lucy is rude, aggressive, hostile, selfish, mean and unfair.At least Charlie has the chance to kiss the Queen on her cheek, which makes him smile and feel so good in a way we rarely see on him.
It's a pity, though, he doesn't remember this good thing that happened to him..
Not that bad, but not that good.
I'll hail for the traditionalists that love to see The Little Red-Haired Girl as an unseen entity.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), this would have jettisoned half of the show's plot of Charlie Brown trying to impress his heart's desire.
Pedestrian, but not bad.The other half, concerning the football game, is where a golden opportunity for karmic payback was missed for comedic effect.
Lucy, on the last play, decides to pull the ball away *yet again* from Charlie Brown trying for a field goal.
Savvy football fans should know that that ball is *still* alive, in the case of this being a *fake* field goal.
In Lucy's case, she would be the target of the defenders trying to sack *her* with the ball.
My humble rewrite would have Lucy, in full panic, run up and down the field in sheer terror, and despite herself, still end up scoring and winning the game!
Lucy the hero, after all this?
Well, it *is* still a Charlie Brown world..
One of the Weakest Peanuts Specials.
The fully-drawn figure of the Little Red-Haired Girl made its debut in 1977's It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown.
Here, the Little Red-Haired Girl is the Homecoming Queen, and the football team is serving as her escorts.
Linus explains to Charlie Brown that each escort must walk with her at the Homecoming Dance and give her a kiss on the cheek.
Because Charlie Brown is on the football team, he realizes that he has to kiss the Little Red-Haired Girl.
While this special is decent and it is a nice setup, it suffers from some big story blunders that viewers were able to point out when it first aired.
It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown drew controversy from the fanbase over the Little Red-Haired Girl.
In the comics and previous specials, the Little Red-Haired Girl was only mentioned, but never seen.
Here, it turns out that the Little Red-Haired Girl not only has a fully-drawn figure, but also a first name (Heather).
After already seeing The Peanuts Movie, the debut of her fully-drawn figure doesn't really bother me as it did to everyone else in 1977.But that's not the real complaint that I have with this special.
During the Homecoming game, despite the fact that Charlie Brown did make a few mistakes, it was Lucy that blew the game because she pulled the ball away from Charlie on not 1, not 2, not 3, BUT FOUR FIELD GOAL ATTEMPTS!!!!!!!!
In fact, even Lucy herself told Charlie that she has no need to pull the ball away from him.
So if you know that the game is on the line, and you know that you shouldn't do it, then DON'T DO IT!!!!!
Sure, this football gag has provided funny moments in other times when they were just practicing for fun.
They're not in that setup here, THEY'RE IN AN ACTUAL GAME!
Then after the game, when everyone's at the Homecoming Dance, Lucy and the girls gang up on Charlie and blame him for the loss.
I know it's part of your character to criticize him, BUT LUCY, LAST TIME I CHECKED, YOU PULLED THE BALL AWAY FROM HIM FOUR TIMES!
OWN UP A LITTLE!And here's another complaint that I have with this special.
After Charlie Brown gives a kiss to the Little Red-Haired Girl, he has a dream sequence where he's flying through clouds and hearts, and then he wakes up in his bed.
So, the Homecoming Dance, or even the game, was all a dream, right?
The next day, Linus told Charlie Brown that they lost the game by one point, AND THAT HE DID KISS THE LITTLE RED- HAIRED GIRL AT THE DANCE, AND THAT HE DANCED WITH HER AND EVERY OTHER GIRL THERE, AND THAT HE WAS THE LIFE OF THE PARTY!
I JUST SAW HIM WAKE UP FROM A DREAM!
HOW DOES THAT WORK?Overall, I don't hate It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, but I was very disappointed by it, and the Peanuts have done better than this..
One of my favorite Peanuts specials of all time!.
This was one of my favorites, despite being also the most controversial of all the Peanuts specials.
This was also the first post-Vince Guaraldi special that aired since he died (the last one Vince scored was "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown" which aired a year earlier).
Ed Bogas (who also scored the third Peanuts movie "Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown" which also came out in '77) and Judy Munsen took over for Vince, even including "Linus and Lucy", although it sounded real different.
The music was real funky and the groove was down-pact.The special itself was a departure for Charles Schulz and company.
For the first time ever, The Little Red-Haired Girl was seen, AND given a name: Heather.
Plus, the Peanuts gang was on a Football team playing in a Homecoming game.
Heather is the Homecoming Queen and Charlie Brown is her escort (how lucky is he!!!!!!!!!).
He tries to impress her because he is the place kicker for the team (who was being coached by Peppermint Patty), but, alas, Lucy was holding the ball (CB even tried to use a kicking tee before being stopped by Ms. Van Pelt) and, in classic Peanuts form, pulls the ball away from Chuck, and you know the results.
Because of Lucy (NOT CHARLIE BROWN, WHO GETS THE BRUNDT OF THE BLAME) they lose the game by one point.
Then the Homecoming dance comes and CB must escort the Queen (Heather) and give her the traditional kiss (as pointed out by Linus throughout the program).
The kiss leads to Chuck in Dreamland.I like this special for many reasons: 1.
Some of the girls (Not the normal Peanuts girls) sported lashes (a Peanuts special first); 2.
Snoopy is all over the place on this special (Woodstock's helicopter, referee, cheerleader's squad man, band member); 3.
The Little Red-Haired Girl is finally seen (even though Schulz wasn't responsible for how she would look-Bill Melendez and co.
have that distention-however she would finally appear in the strip in 1998 in a Spring Dance story as a silhouette dancing with Snoopy).
She would appear in 1986's "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown", 1988's "Snoopy: The Musical", and most recently in 2002's post-Schulz special "A Charlie Brown Valentine"..
Charlie finally gets his girl.
In the tradition of the Peanuts Valentine's Day movies, "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown" is, as the title already states, another love-themed Charlie Brown movie.
Charlie is basically busy during the entire 25 minutes drooling over the cute redhead girl from his class.
And the only thing that distracts us from it is a football game, in which Charlie, as usual, is the one that costs them the victory.
Well, actually it's Lucy's fault, but Charlie once again has to take the blame.
So was it just a dream or did it really happen?
I usually like the redhead girl references in these films, but a whole movie on the matter seems too much in my opinion.
Also this one totally lacked other story-lines or even scenes that do not involve Charlie with his crush.
It's always nice to see a bit about the other characters as well, but not so in this one.
In my opinion, it's no surprise this one wasn't Emmy nominated as these Peanuts half hour films usually were.
In the football game, Lucy repeatedly pulls the football away.
This is the long-running gag, but the second time, she asks if she would pull the football away in a game this important.
Of course, it happens again; they should have called this "You're A Moron, Charlie Brown," just for this point.
My main issue here is that this happens in plain sight of everyone, but they all blame Charlie Brown, booing him or making caustic comments at his expense, but no one seems upset with (Satan's daughter) Lucy.
If this were real, they would turn en-mass on Lucy in a kind of mob rule kind of way here.
To take this to unbelievable extremes, it happens for a total of five times, getting similar responses each time.I have been re-watching many of these childhood specials recently, and I've been struck at how outright nasty the kids are in them.
I mean, I know kids often are cruel to each other, but if any child grew up with this kind of torture, he or she would likely socially degrade to the point of becoming a columbine-style school shooter.
Yet in this one, the kids have very little reason to be angry with CB.
Again, these kids would be shouting for Lucy's blood.
Peanuts were apparently not as heartwarming as remembered from youth.
Additionally, the little red haired girl was supposed to be the girl CB never gets.
Apparently, even though he can't remember it (and we don't get to see it,) he supposedly sweeps her off her feet and is the life of the party at the ball.
This kind of blows the whole point of this unapproachable girl in the story-line..
Enjoyable Peanuts TV special.
Charlie Brown tries desperately to impress his redhead dream girl Heather at a football game only to have Lucy continually foil his attempts at kicking a winning field goal.
However, despite losing the game Charlie still attends the homecoming dance so he can be Heather's escort.
Schulz's bright and compact script offers the usual winning blend of well-defined characters, a pleasant sense of humor, and a little pathos mixed in with all the silliness.
The best and most inspired running gag has Snoppy popping up all over the place during the big game as the referee, a helicopter for Woodstock (his ears act as chopper blades), a member of the cheering squad, a member of the band, and even a doctor.
Charlie Brown once again makes for a likable hard-luck protagonist: You just have to admire Chuck for having the guts to go to the dance after losing the game and having the courage to confront his dream girl (it's a gloriously sweet and lovely moment when Charlie Brown kisses her).
Moreover, the football game is a memorably fierce and funny set piece, with Peppermint Patty giving vague instructions to her teammates and Lucy constantly pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown.
Worst Peanuts special ever.
I have to be honest, I was never a big Peanuts fan mainly because of specials like this.
This is one of the few shows which made me want to kick my TV because it made absolutely no sense.
The only good thing about it is Charlie Brown finally gets a chance to kiss the little red-headed girl he has been chasing.
But the events leading up to it I found were totally unfair to Charlie Brown.
The Peanuts gang are playing a football game and Lucy does what she always does to Charlie Brown: she pulls the ball away whenever Charlie has to kick a field goal or kick off, She even pulls it away when he has a chance to win the game.
What gets me mad is the fact that everybody blames Charlie Brown for losing the game.
Does no one on the team see Lucy pulling the ball away!!
To add more insult during the homecoming dance Peppermint Patty continues to belittle him and to make it worse Lucy joins in the teasing!
We know Charlie Brown is supposed to be the hard-luck loser but this time it wasn't his fault!
It was Lucy!
(Did I mention how much I hate Lucy.)It is a shame that Schultz passed away without letting Charlie Brown finally kick the football.
But this special is a disgrace.