A Boy Named Charlie Brown/Trivia

==Trivia==
*Snoopy's dream (where he battles the Red Baron atop his doghouse) consists of footage from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
*The first of the five theatrical, feature-length Peanuts films (the first four were written and overseen by creator Charles M. Schulz).
*This was Peter Robbins's last voice-acting role as Charlie Brown before leaving the series.
*The memorable "Aaaugh!" scream from Peter Robbins as Charlie Brown originated from this film. (Oddly enough, it was also heard from Linus in one scene.) Robbins' scream would become a stock sound effect in almost all subsequent Peanuts specials & movies up to the late 1990s, and is used as a scream, not only for Charlie Brown, but any other available character (excluding Snoopy and Woodstock, who had their own variants).
*This film premiered at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
*The main story line of this movie, involving Charlie Brown's participation in a spelling bee, was taken from a sequence that originally appeared in the comic strip. In that story, however, Charlie Brown lost in the first round of the competition, misspelling the word "maze" M-A-Y-S. He later loses his temper at the teacher and is sent to the principal's office; as he waits in the hall, he reflects that the reason he misspelled the word was that when he heard the word "maze," the first thing he thought of was the surname of famed baseball player Willie Mays. This last half of the story had been used in You're in Love, Charlie Brown, when Charlie Brown inadvertently yelled at the teacher for "missing the stupid bus" (after he overslept).
*Peppermint Patty makes a brief appearance in one shot (behind Frieda), among a group of children cheering for Charlie Brown upon successfully spelling "perceive" in the class spelling bee. She would finally become a major character in the next film, Snoopy Come Home.
*The version of "Linus and Lucy" heard when Linus is reunited with his blanket is the opening track of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. A different arrangement of "Linus and Lucy" was done for this scene, but was never used in the finished film. It was, however, heard in the Columbia Records story LP released in conjunction with this film.
*A Boy Named Charlie Brown was the very first animated film produced by Cinema Center Films, CBS' film arm at the time (whose final film, ironically, was Snoopy Come Home).
*The opening scene with Charlie Brown, Linus, and Lucy looking at the clouds in the sky (translated from one of Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" strips, became the subject for one of the songs, "Clouds," in the 1975 musical, "Snoopy, the Musical," one of two musicals based on Schulz's famous characters. (The other being "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," from 1967.)
*Not to be confused with the 1963 documentary A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
*The 1964 LP and CD "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio (Fantasy FCD-8430-2), long since available by Fantasy Records, is not the soundtrack for this film, but for the earlier unaired TV documentary of the same name, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. A storybook record for this film, featuring the music & song tracks (by Guaraldi, John Scott Trotter and Rod McKuen), and the dialogue (with narration by Peter Robbins as Charlie Brown and Glenn Gilger as Linus Van Pelt), was released by Columbia Records to coincide with the release of this film, but has since been out of print. Another LP album by Rod McKuen (SR-5010) was released on his Stanyan Records label in 1970, featuring new arrangements of the songs he did for the film (along with an instrumental track, called "Something For Snoopy," originally intended for the film); it was finally released on CD and digital in 2015. However, in 2017, Kritzerland Records has released the long-awaited complete score for this film (KR-20031-8) with bonus unused/alternate tracks) on CD, albeit limited edition (1,000 copies).
*The pre-credit scene and a portion of the opening titles of this movie appear on the 1991 Fox Video VHS release of The King and I; a voice is eventually heard mumbling that it is the wrong movie, and King and I starts instead.
*When Snoopy imitated playing hockey while at Rockefeller Center ice rink, the penalty he was called for was for high sticking.
*Here are the Rod Mckuen penned lyrics for the theme song of this movie: "Like the shadows of the morning, 'climb up to the August afternoon. Charlie has a way, Of picking up the day, Just by walking slowly in a room. Maybe its a kind of magic That only little boys can do. But seeing Charlie smile, Can make you stop awhile, And get you feelin' glad youre you. Hes only a boy named Charlie, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Hes just the kid next door, Perhaps a little more, Hes every kid in every town. Well the world is full of lots of people, Here and there and all around. But people after all, Start out as being small, Were all A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Now the shadows of the morning Have gone beyond..." Leonard Maltin, the film critic, said of this movie: "Peanuts gang makes surprisingly good Feature film debut. With ingenious visual ideas adding to the usual fun. Only debit: Rod Mckuen's absurd songs."
*At the completion of its fourth week at Radio City Music Hall, the film had set an all-time box office record for that venue. The four-week gross of $1,133,433 bettered the theater's previous high by $79,170. This was accomplished despite snow, rain, and sub-freezing weather.
*In what is the second to last spoken line of the movie, Linus mentions that "the world didn't come to an end" when referring to Charlie Brown not winning the spelling bee and how he at that moment felt. Earlier in the movie, while trying futilely to find his blanket, he complains that "the world is ending" when complaining about Snoopy abandoning his help with the search.
*Snoopy, while walking with Linus in New York, is actually shown walking on all fours. A rarity for him.
*The phrase, "It's Sydney or the bush.", was used twice (once by Charlie Brown, and the other by Pig Pen) in the movie, both to describe Charlie's predicament in the spelling bees. The phrase is actually an Australian saying basically meaning "all or nothing", or living an easy life in the city ("Sydney") or a hard life in the Outback ("the bush").
*When the film was first released in theaters in 1969, it was released with a Mono soundtrack. Its 1983 VHS, however, features a stereo remix, and the 1991 FoxVideo re-release features a stereo surround track.
Category:Trivia facts