There's only one each of Charlie Brown and Snoopy in this movie, in spite of what the poster might lead you to believe.
Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!) is a 1980 animated film directed by Bill Meléndez. It was the fourth feature film based on the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, and the last one made until The Peanuts Movie in 2015.
Charlie Brown's school has accepted two French exchange students, and Linus and Charlie Brown will be going over to France as foreign exchange students, with Snoopy and Woodstock in tow, along with Peppermint Patty and Marcie from their school. The same day, Charlie Brown gets a letter from France that Marcie reads as an invitation to stay at a chateau: the Chateau du Mal Voisin, or "The House of the Bad Neighbor".
They initially arrive in London, where Snoopy goes off to have his own adventures at Wimbledon (and do his John McEnroe impression) while the rest of the gang does some sightseeing before heading off to France.
Upon arriving in France, Marcie and Peppermint Patty stay at a farm with another student, and Charlie Brown and Linus continue to the chateau, where there are no lights on and no answer at the door, so they must camp out outside. Food and blankets are sneaked outside by Violette, the young girl who invited Charlie Brown and is defying her uncle, the Baron, to be hospitable to Charlie Brown and Linus. Eventually, Violette is able to explain her secret, and a certain event inspires the Baron to mellow his inhospitable attitude.
The 1983 TV special What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? serves as a sequel of sorts, with the gang visiting WWI and WWII memorials on their way back to London from France. The special earned a Peabody Award.
Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown provides examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: The Baron's dangerously antisocial attitude was well known to the locals. One would wonder why they weren't concerned for Violette's safety. Also, the bartender to whom the Baron confided his intentions to get rid of the intruders (who were clearly identified to be just children) should probably have called the gendarmes as there was no mistaking the Baron's tone and deadly intentions.
- The Alleged Car: The blue Citroën 2CV that the Peanuts gang gets isn't exactly a dreamboat.
- Big Shadow, Little Creature: Snoopy and Woodstock give off one arriving at the chateau, leading to a Scary Shadow Fakeout before Charlie Brown and Linus notice them.
- Bilingual Bonus: The insults Marcie hurls at the other drivers.
- Company Cameo: During the plane ride to France, a movie is shown that contains the logo of Paramount Pictures, the company that distributed this movie.
- Contrived Coincidence: Violette just happens to invite Charlie Brown to stay at the chateau at the same time he was chosen as an exchange student in France (and the same part of it, no less).
- Crowd Panic: Once the fire breaks out in the chateau. And it gets bigger once the Baron arrives. And worst of all, almost everyone just keeps running in place yelling "Fire! Fire!" instead of running away to get help.
- Darker and Edgier: This is by far the darkest piece of Peanuts media to date, with the climax taking place at the chateau Charlie Brown and Linus are staying in, which Violette accidentally sets on fire.
- Demoted to Extra: Sally only appears in the first few minutes, Lucy's only line of dialogue is the Title Drop, and Schroeder doesn't even have any speaking lines of his own.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Snoopy whistles the movie theme and even plays it on a jukebox in the cafe.
- Dinner Order Flub: Played With. Charlie Brown, Linus, Marcie, and Peppermint Patty stop to eat in a British pub while en route to France. However, being Americans, they're clearly not familiar with British cuisine as they are forced to ask the waiter for help in deciding what to eat. This doesn't help, either, as not one of them can understand the waiter's British English.Charlie Brown: What did he say?Marcie: Perhaps I should have studied English, not French.
- Drama Panes: the moment when the kids are taking the train from London to Dover to catch a hovercraft bound for France. Charlie Brown stares out the train window at the passing English countryside while the song "I Want To Remember This" plays over the scene, the lyrics talking about how Charlie Brown understands that this is an important moment in his life that he wants to carry forever.
- Drives Like Crazy: Snoopy. The moment he starts driving he's laughing like a maniac and causes a pileup, not once, but twice in the film. In the real world such actions would have gotten Snoopy's driver's license terminated.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Violette's uncle is identified only as "the Baron."
- The Faceless: Despite being a prominent character, the Baron's face isn't shown at all.
- Foreign Exchange Student: The premise. Charlie Brown, Linus, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie go to France for two weeks as students. In the meantime, Babette and Jacques come to the United States to Charlie Brown's school.
- Free-Range Children: As usual, there is no adult accompaniment, even as the kids board a plane and fly to another continent. At least, no human adults; Snoopy is the only one of them who can drive. Though unusually for Peanuts, human adults are occasionally seen and heard.
- French Jerk: The Baron sometimes speaks French and is distrustful of outsiders to the point of attempting to get rid of Charlie Brown and Linus while in the bar. All of which certainly qualifies him as a jerk.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: The mug Snoopy drinks out of is clearly labeled "ROOT BEER." He still acts inebriated, though.
- Generation Xerox: We're briefly shown a photograph of Silas Brown, who looks startlingly like an adult version of his grandson.
- Heel Realization: The Baron, who only cares for his chateau and not for other people save for his niece, has one after he is helpless to stop his chateau from burning with his niece still inside, and it is other people who come to their rescue.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: Charlie Brown's first attempt to get bread for the gang ends with him sneezing and throwing the loaf in the air.
- Incompetent Guard Animal: Snoopy abandons his guard duties immediately after Charlie Brown asks him to stand watch in order to hang out at the café all night. He also overhears the Baron the next night threatening Charlie Brown and Linus, and he... still sits at the café.
- Jerkass: Lucy, as usual. Her one line in her one appearance in the film is the vile wish to Charlie Brown that is part of the Title Drop.
- Kick the Dog: Lucy's one line in the whole film is the Title Drop's subtitle, and thus a pretty vile wish for Charlie Brown's future well-being.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Peppermint Patty vainly and wrongfully assumes Pierre is in love with her despite the overwhelming evidence he likes Marcie.
- Language Barrier: Charlie Brown does his best to order bread from a French bakery and it isn't meant to be offensive. Marcie speaks French, though, many times in the movie.
- Mandatory Line: Lucy has only one line in the whole movie, and as is typical of her, it's to insult Charlie Brown.
- Musical Pastiche: When the Peanuts characters are in London, a tune that sounds very similar to "Rule Britannia!" is frequently heard.
- Old, Dark House: The Chateau is very creepy. Although it's mostly from the outside, the insides seem normal.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Linus tosses his Security Blanket down so it can be used to catch himself and the other trapped kids when they jump from the burning chateau.
- Recycled Animation: The inflight movie that Snoopy watches uses footage from It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown.
- The Reveal: Violette tells Linus that Charlie Brown's grandfather, Silas Brown, stayed at the chateau during World War I ("The Great War") and fell in love with Violette's grandmother. After Silas was sent home, he wrote to her grandmother and even after letters stopped coming, "she never forgot the charming American."
- Scary Shadow Fakeout: When Charlie Brown and Linus are looking for Snoopy and Woodstock on a stormy evening among arriving at the Chateau, they come across a big menacing-looking shadow and scream, only for it to actually be Snoopy and Woodstock with their destroyed umbrella.
- Separated by a Common Language: Charlie Brown, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Snoopy all run into difficulties both understanding and trying to make themselves understood by the locals during their stopover in London.
- The four children go to a restaurant and have to ask the waiter for recommendations, as none of the dishes on the menu are familiar to them, and his answer (he recommends beef and kidney pie for the boys and shepherd's pie for the girls, and adds that the cheddar and pickle sandwich is "rather toppo") just confuses them further, leading Marcie, the group's only Francophone, to quip that perhaps she studied the wrong language.
- Meanwhile, when Snoopy hails a taxi to go from Wimbledon to Victoria Station, the cabbie can't make sense of what he says (which the audience just hears as growling) and remarks that "it's a bit dicey understandin' these Yanks!" Zigzagged when a repetition of that same growling (possibly combined with Snoopy gesturing with his tennis racket) apparently clarifies his intentions.
- Sequel Goes Foreign: It's the fourth film in the Peanuts series, and appropriately has Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the gang in Europe. Unlike most examples, such as later works like Rugrats in Paris, the entire gang does not go, only Charlie Brown, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Snoopy and Woodstock are featured and the film is not set in Paris, but rather in Le Heron, in a chateau that holds a strong, emotional connection to Schulz.
- Shown Their Work: While the United States is glossed over just like in the comic, once the kids and Snoopy are in Europe, everything changes. Everything is portrayed in surprising detail, from the buses, trains and road signs in London to the little villages they pass through in Normandy, all of which are real. The chateau itself is real; Malvoisine is indeed near Le Héron
, and looks just like it does in the movie. Even the greenhouses they mention are still there and still in operation. This is the result of the film being inspired by a late-1970s trip to France that Schulz took with friends from World War II and going back to some of the places he encountered during the war. - Surprisingly Moving Song: Snoopy, in his persona as a World War I flying ace visits a French tavern, where he plays a series of tunes on an old jukebox that have him laughing, dancing, and even crying unabashedly into his mug of root beer.
- Title DropKids: Bon voyage, Charlie Brown!
Lucy: And don't come back! - Translation Convention: The Baron speaks English to Violette and the bartender, even though they're in France.
- Umbrellas Are Lightning Rods: Snoopy carries an umbrella in a thunderstorm. He gets hit by lightning twice, once on his nose when he sticks his nose out the window, and then the second time hitting his umbrella and vaporizing the waterproof webbing.
- The Voiceless: Averted, along with He Who Must Not Be Seen. Almost every adult in this film talks, is shown or both.
- With Friends Like These...: Lucy's one line in the whole film:
- Would Hurt a Child: It's implied that the Baron would've "gotten rid of" Charlie Brown and his friends himself had the fire not broken out at the chateau. Since he mellows after they save his niece and all, it may qualify as a Heel–Face Turn.
