History WesternAnimation / ABoyNamedCharlieBrown

* WhamLine:[[note]]From Charlie Brown's perspective, anyway.[[/note]] [[spoiler:"The world didn't come to an end."]]

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Schroeder, when discussing the catcher's signals with Charlie Brown:

* {{Angrish}}: After Linus goes on a fruitless wild goose chase through New York City for his blanket, he is too faint to punch Charlie Brown out; as soon as he sees Charlie Brown using his blanket as a shoe shining rag, he lets out an anguished scream and then he rejoices over being reunited with his blanket.

* {{Fainting}}: Linus, suffering from blanket withdrawal, goes to New York to get it back from Charlie Brown, with Snoopy in tow. While greeting Charlie Brown at his hotel room, he can't take it anymore and passes out in the hallway. Snoopy quickly runs to get a glass of water... and drinks it down himself. The gag is repeated [[RuleOfThree three times]].

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: At one point Linus goes to visit Charlie Brown, and Sally answers the door:
-->'''Sally:''' Did you come to take me to a movie? There's one downtown. [suggestively] For mature audiences only.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The dynamic between Charlie, Linus and Lucy are established in the very first scene. Lucy comes off as the authoritarian, Linus sees archaic, intellectual objects in the clouds, Charlie sees just a duckie and a horsie.

Charlie Brown can't seem to catch a break. Whether it being frequently humiliated by his other peers like Lucy, or causing his baseball team to lose the first Little League game of the season, it seems like nothing can ever go right for him. However, things change for him when Lucy jokingly tells him he should join the school spelling bee. Linus convinces him to join and, through determination, wind up making it from the school-wide spelling bee to the national bee. But can he make it through?

* ChampionsOnTheInside: Averted. Charlie Brown is [[HeroicBSOD devastated over his loss]] and gets [[DudeWheresMyRespect absolutely no hero's welcome or even consolation for his efforts]]. Then again, [[spoiler:no one is angry with him -- even Linus tells him that everyone ''missed him'' at school]].

-->You never do anything right!
-->You never put anything in its place!
-->No wonder everyone calls you...
-->FAILURE FACE!

* NotableOriginalMusic: Singer/songwriter/poet Rod [=McKuen=] contributed three original songs: "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" (which he also sang), "Failure Face", and "Champion Charlie Brown". He wrote a few more that didn't get used. And there was one other song, "I Before E (Except After C)." Averted with Creator/VinceGuaraldi's score; he didn't actually write any new music for the film, settling for fully orchestrated versions of his older ''Peanuts'' music.

* KidsAreCruel: Even by the standards of ''Peanuts'', the kids are insanely abusive towards Charlie Brown, especially Lucy, Violet and Patty who go as far as singing a cruel song about him.

* WhamLine: [[spoiler:"The world didn't come to an end."]]

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: In one scene, Schroeder plays most of the second movement (Adagio cantabile) of Creator/LudwigVanBeethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (''Sonata Pathétique''), and during that time, many {{Disney Acid Sequence}}s occur, which is pretty creepy.

* BetterByADifferentName: Since Bill Melendez had worked at [[WesternAnimation/ColumbiaCartoons UPA]] and brought a bunch of UPA animators with him when he started his own production company, and clearly took a lot of his style cues from UPA's early LimitedAnimation work, this can be thought of as the unofficial third UPA feature film (after ''[[WesternAnimation/MrMagoo 1001 Arabian Nights]]'' and ''WesternAnimation/GayPurree'').

* BetterByADifferentName: Since Bill Melendez had worked at UPA and brought a bunch of UPA animators with him when he started his own production company, and clearly took a lot of his style cues from UPA's early LimitedAnimation work, this can be thought of as the unofficial third UPA feature film (after ''[[WesternAnimation/MrMagoo 1001 Arabian Nights]]'' and ''WesternAnimation/GayPurree'').

* NotableOriginalMusic: Singer/songwriter/poet Rod [=McKuen=] contributed three original songs: "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" (which he also sang), "Failure Face", and "Champion Charlie Brown". He wrote a few more that didn't get used. And there was one other song, "I Before E (Except After C)."

* ChampionsOnTheInside: Averted BIG TIME. Charlie Brown is [[HeroicBSOD devastated over his loss]] and gets [[DudeWheresMyRespect absolutely no hero's welcome or even consolation for his efforts]]. Then again, [[spoiler:no one is angry with him -- even Linus tells him that everyone ''missed him'' at school]].
* CoversAlwaysLie: The DVD cover shows Lucy clutching Charlie Brown's arm and staring up at him adoringly. Not only is ''the whole movie'' about the ways in which she ruins his life (without any JerkWithAHeartOfGold moments, either), this also makes no sense if you know a thing about Lucy.
** This is actually a result of editing out important details. [[http://img.soundtrackcollector.com/cd/large/Boy%20Named%20Charlie%20Brown_6009104.jpg On the Laserdisc cover that it is sourced from, there's an extra bit where Lucy has a thought bubble of her own dressing room.]]
* DarkReprise: "Linus and Lucy," the BootstrappedTheme of the ''Peanuts'' specials, has a minor-key variation playing at various points throughout Linus' blanket withdrawal.
** Of course, once he finds it [[note]]in Charlie Brown's hands as he's using it to shine his shoes[[/note]], the regular version plays throughout his rejoicing, serving as a TriumphantReprise.

* FailureHero: Charlie Brown. Of all the ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' animated specials and movies, this is the one that ''really'' hammers in what a miserable failure he is.
** {{Determinator}}: It never stops him from trying.

* TheHeroSucksSong: "Failure Face"

* InvisibleParents: Yes, it is the convention that adults cannot be depicted in the property, but it is pushed to the breaking point for believability when Charlie Brown and Linus arrive home late at night after the National Spelling Bee. Surely, Charlie Brown's parents would logically be there come hell or high water to take their 8 year old, and obviously devastated, son safely home. There's a reason for why the animated movies eventually stopped using this trope, it was just too difficult to portray the world outside the Peanut gangs little neighborhood without any adults.

* KidsAreCruel: Even by the standards of Peanutes, the kids are insanely abusive towards Charlie Brown, especially Lucy, Violet and Patty who goes as far as singing a cruel song about him.
* LimitedWardrobe: Lampshaded; we get to see Charlie open his closet to reveal a rainbow of shirt colors, then choose the yellow one he always wears anyways.

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: In one scene, Schroeder plays most of the second movement (Adagio cantabile) of Creator/LudwigVanBeethoven's ''Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13'' (''Sonata Pathétique''), and during that time, many {{Disney Acid Sequence}}s occur, which is pretty creepy.

* WhenHeSmiles: Mentioned in the ''A Boy Named Charlie Brown'' song:

** The second time is the movie's climax, when Charlie Brown has managed to become one of the two finalists in the spelling bee, and after having managed to spell a whole lot of difficult words right, gets a really easy one -- "beagle." Which he has forgotten how to spell.

''A Boy Named Charlie Brown'' is a 1969 American animated film, produced by Cinema Center Films and Lee Mendelson Films for National General Pictures and directed by Bill Melendez.

The first feature film based on the ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' comic strip, it was also the final animated production to feature Peter Robbins as the voice of Charlie Brown. (Robbins had voiced the character for all of the ''Peanuts'' television specials up to that point, starting with 1965's ''WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownChristmas''.) The film's plot is detailed in the synopsis page.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Charlie Brown loses the spelling bee and his newly gained respect from the kids, but with some encouragement from Linus, he realizes the world's not over and he still has a lifetime to be winner.]]

* CoversAlwaysLie: The DVD cover shows Lucy clutching Charlie Brown's arm and staring up at him adoringly. Not only is ''the whole movie'' about the ways in which she ruins his life (and no JerkWithAHeartOfGold moments, either), this also makes no sense if you know a thing about Lucy.

** [[http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/vq8AAOxyHltSQT4S/$(KGrHqFHJ!8FI9cfR2vuBSQT4RqF!w~~60_1.JPG?set_id=880000500F It makes more sense on the LaserDisc cover, though]]

-->--'''Kids''', "Champion Charlie Brown"

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a_boy_named_charlie_brown_40.jpg]]

-->'''Kids''', "Champion Charlie Brown"

* AdaptationExpansion: The plot about Charlie Brown entering a spelling bee (and virtually all the dialogue and Chuck's inner monologue at the beginning of said spelling bee, as well as his inability to remember the "I before E" rule) is taken directly from the comic strip, but in the strip he only got to the first round as he blew the very first word he was given, the word "maze", which he spelled M-A-Y-S-E because he was thinking of baseball legend Willy Mayse.