Other Studios: M: M- Miscellany: Lee Mendelson Films: A Boy Named Charlie Brown

A Boy Named Charlie Brown Production Information

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Production Notes:

The first of four feature-length theatrical releases for the Peanuts Gang.

Debut showing was at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

The words Charlie Brown has to spell are: failure, insecure, stomach-ache, perceive, unconfident, fussbudget, disastrous, incompetent, beagle.

The movie was the #1 top grossing film for the week ending December 17, 1969, grossing a total of $290,000, before being bounced from #1 the following week by the latest James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Many sources list this movie as opening on Dec. 11. However, it opened for limited release a week earlier.

The Fox and Paramount video versions and television versions are edited: they are at least missing scenes where Lucy plays an "instant replay" of Charlie Brown missing the football during his psychiatric appointment, and where Charlie Brown orders room service from his hotel.

Charlie Brown is competing in the "National Elimination Spelling Bee, 2nd Grade," which would imply that he's in 2nd grade.

Footage of Snoopy as a World War I Flying Ace in his Sopwith Camel from 1966's It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown can be seen in Snoopy's nightmare sequence.

Songs:

• A Boy Named Charlie Brown
• Failure Face
• I Before E
• Champion Charlie Brown

Classical Music Sources:

• Lucy asks Schroeder if he thinks Charlie Brown could win the spelling bee: Beethoven, piano sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 ("Pathetique"); 3rd movement.
• Schroeder's solo: the 2nd movement of the same sonata.