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Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown is a short film created by Jim Reardon. It was made in 1986 when he was attending California Arts Institute and is famous but also infamous at the same time. The plot focuses on Charlie Brown's friends trying to kill him to redeem a bounty from the Great Pumpkin.
As you probably expected, this is a more violent and adult-oriented Peanuts. This became famous on its own and spawned internet memes and criticism due to it spoiling people's childhoods.
Bring me the head of TV Tropes!
- Adaptational Jerkass: Even Linus is no exception to the Great Pumpkin's bounty and tries to strangle Charlie Brown with his blanket.
- Adaptational Villainy: All the Peanuts characters become murderous to Charlie Brown, and Charlie Brown himself is no exception as he gets payback.
- Age Lift: The Peanuts cast look slightly older in this short.
- Animation Bump: Due to the advantage of using only pencil and tracing paper, the animation is more fluid.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Everyone who's after Charlie Brown under the orders of the Great Pumpkin is Lucy, Schroeder, Linus, Snoopy, The Red Baron, and the Kite-Eating Tree.
- Asshole Victim: The entire Peanuts gang. Charlie Brown snaps and kills them as payback for them trying to assassinate him under the orders of the Great Pumpkin.
- The Coats Are Off: Charlie Brown unzips his coat when he gets ready for his murder spree.
- Darker and Edgier: Yeah, we would expect the Peanuts gang to continuously attempt to murder Charlie Brown and then him snapping and shooting everyone as revenge. That's totally normal.
- Defying the Censors: Discussed. Jim barely prevented himself from getting sued by Charles M. Schultz by adding this note at the end:The creator of this picture wishes to state that he does not in any way wish to tarnish or demean the beloved characters of Charles M. "Dutch" Schulz's comic strip, Peanuts. No malice or damage to their goodwill was intended. So please don't sue me, because it will drag through the courts for years, and I haven't got a lawyer — and besides, you've already got half the money in the world, and I haven't got any. OK?
- The Dog Bites Back: Charlie Brown grows a Mohawk, carries a pump shotgun, an assault rifle, and begins brutally murdering everyone that tried to assassinate him. He then kills everyone in his way.
- Driven to Suicide: Billy from The Family Circus hangs himself in despair while Popeye cleans the bodies at the end of Charlie Brown's murderous rampage.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Even Snoopy is after Charlie Brown, but is the only one who gets away scot-free and without being harmed much.
- Going Postal: Charlie Brown finally gets pushed too far after several assassination attempts and goes completely machine gun-happy on the rest of the Peanuts gang.
- Informed Equipment: Charlie Brown says "Happiness is a warm uzi", though he never uses one during his murder spree.
- Karma Houdini: Snoopy never gets punished for biting off Charlie Brown's arm and just barely misses getting shot by him (though his scalp gets ripped off).
- Misplaced Retribution: Charlie Brown kills everyone, including everyone in his way, his own sister who did nothing wrong, and other innocent cartoon characters.
- Mythology Gag: The kite-eating tree tries to body-slam Charlie in reference to A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
- Precision F-Strike: Charlie says "bitch" before shooting Lucy as payback for shooting him in the shoulder during the massacre.
- Shout-Out:
- The title is a parody of that of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
- When his arm is bitten off by Snoopy while he is holding a York Peppermint Pattie in place of the real Peppermint Patty, he screams Tom's famous scream from Tom and Jerry.
- Godzilla briefly squeezes a water tower-sized can of Dr. Pepper as part of the chaos that's happening. This is a reference to a commercial of him doing the same thing for a campaign promoting The Return of Godzilla, which was released the time of this short's release.
- Lucy briefly shoots Charlie on the shoulder, which references the scene from The Wild Bunch in which William Holden is shot by a prostitute. The audio of Lyle Gorch's screaming of the climactic shootout is also spliced in when Charlie goes trigger-happy.
- When Linus strangles Charlie Brown with his blanket, the audio uses sounds from Monty Python's "Farewell to John Denver".
- Sibling Murder: One of the people Charlie Brown kills in his rampage is his sister Sally.
- Unexplained Recovery:
- Charlie Brown manages to survive each and every assassination attempt by his friends.
- Also, Snoopy somehow survives being shot by the Red Baron when pretending to fly at his doghouse.
- Vocal Dissonance: Every character sounds like an adult man, given that they were voiced by adults. Bonus points for Charlie Brown declaring "Happiness is a warm uzi" in Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent towards the end.
- The Voice: The little red-haired girl is portrayed in her usual Peanuts fashion, and is sleeping next to him on a bed. She says "Turn out the light, will ya!" in the last frame.
- "Wanted!" Poster: There's a poster that says "Dead or Alive" on a brick wall when the hunt is on for Charlie Brown.
- What Could Have Been: In-Universe and parodied. It is implied that this short was a Peanuts special that was never released nor finished, given that it is on pencil and animation paper, and its dark subject matter.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After Snoopy gets his scalp torn, he never appears again for the rest of the short.
- Your Head A-Splode: Lucy and Sally's heads blow off when Charlie shoots them.
