My wonderful wife Laurie gifted me some more cool stuff for Valentine's Day, and I think Peanuts week here at the podcast is a good time to share this Super 7 toy. I am not sure if the front is charming or creepy, but I love it either way. It's nice to have Charlie in the lesser-acclaimed blue shirt, too.
I already have a figure from It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown; Super 7 issued a Mr. Sack a few years ago. I wouldn't mind getting a tree-eating Charlie Brown, though, with the maniacal expression on his mug after his big chomp.
Credit to The Entertainment Nut for this pic, and please check out the site for a fine summary of the original storyline from the strip. The Nut confirms that this shot above is an extra for the special and not taken from the source material!
This week, our season finale of the podcast (But stay tuned for the Battys!) looks at It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown; and our YouTube playlist this week is filled with Peanuts. One of the more intriguing clips is this ad for a McDonald's promotional premium (see below).
I can't be alone in thinking that we lost more than just cool glasses when fast food chains stopped giving out stuff like this with value meals (and a 99-cent surcharge or whatever). Nowadays you are lucky to get a small plastic cup with a Happy Meal.
Glasses, whether they feature characters from Peanuts, Garfield, or Star Wars, are cool. They can be reused. They look nice in a cabinet or on a shelf. Also, they have heft! Taking one of those home with the food made it all a little harder to carry, perhaps, but they gave a sense of more. It felt like value! I don't need to tell you that fast food doesn't seem like nearly the same kind of value these days.
But really I just miss getting the cool drinking glasses.
*Thank you for joining us for another fun season of the podcast! This week we look at the 1983 Peanuts special, It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown! The special is available on Apple Plus.
*The motocross special is You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown; and the ice skating special is She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown. The one centered on Lucy and Schroeder is Play It Again, Charlie Brown.
The election one is You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown. Snoopy joins the circus in Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown.
*I just got an e-book version of The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation: Celebrating Fifty Years of Television Specials by Charles Solomon. it looks like it focuses on the art, but it does devote space to most of the specials. I say "most" because it does not have a blurb about It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown!
*This Is America, Charlie Brown is an 8-episode series that CBS broadcast in Fall 1988 to Spring 1989.
*The "What, Me Worry?" gag is in our video playlist this week (See below).
*The Environmental Protection Agency began in 1970.
*Please enjoy this episode's video playlist, with lots of promos, commercials, and more with the Peanuts gang! Click below to go right to it, or you can always visit our official YouTube page for all of our past episodes and similar lists for each one of them! Get happy!
We round out season 13 by taking a look at the Peanuts non-holiday TV specials. Most folks have fond memories of the holiday specials, but do they remember ones about camp, decathalons, school, motocross, and more? We give special attention to It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown, an hour-long special made up of shorter pieces adapted from the comics, including "The Kite-eating Tree" and the classic "Sack." Don't be a blockhead and pass up on this episode.
I had a little fun with Mike's harrowing story of a pelican attack on this week's podcast. At the end of the YT playlist this week is Paddy the Pelican in "Piggy Bank Robbery." You may wonder, what the heck is Paddy the Pelican?
The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican is an animated (and I use the term loosely) series that launched on ABC in 1950 and apparently got some airplay on Chicago stations in 1954 (Maybe other markets as well?). Paddy shows up on many "worst cartoon" lists, and you have to see it to really get it.
1) The Partridge Family: This week on the podcast, we get happy. Boy, do we ever get happy!
2) Dave Madden: My favorite performer on The Partridge Family is also my almost-favorite regular at Mel's Diner on Alice(Can't top Henry Beesmeyer): Madden, whose Reuben Kincaid is always interesting to watch.
3) Dick Clark: I think we undersold his cameo in "Star Quality," the episode we talked about. I mean, sure, it wasn't particularly lengthy or notable, and I can't remember much about it, but--OK, maybe we didn't undersell it. Still, in the dream sequence, Clark's presence provided instant pop idol credibility for Danny as a "single."
4) The kids that played Tracy and Chris: Hey, they tried. I really felt bad for them reading some of the quotes in The Partridge Family Album book by Joey Green.
5) Valerie: The troubled sitcom headlined by Valerie Harper debuted on NBC 40 years ago tonight( The trouble came later).
6) King Kong Bundy: Also 40 years ago tonight, Bundy attacked Hulk Hogan during the Hulkster's world title match against Magnificent Muraco on a taped Saturday Night's Main Event, setting up a main event showdown at Wrestlemania II with Danny Ponce as guest referee (I'm kidding about that last part).
7) The Killing Fields: I can't get away from this night in 1986. This prestigious 1984 film debuted on pay cable March 1, 1986--on both HBO and Showtime. I always thought it was odd when the competitors showed the same movie at the same time.
8) Cartoons: Oodles of Warner Brothers toons from all eras start popping up on Tubi today. A lot of stuff is on the way, but not all of it might be there today. So, folks, be patient; Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels will be there eventually.
9) 227: It's a big week for stars of the Eighties NBC sitcom, which we discuss here. Regina Hall won an AARP Movies for Grownups award, and Marla Gibbs' new memoir, It's Never Too Late, just hit bookstores.
