Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown

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Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown
Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown Title.png
Title card for the short
Directed by Jim Reardon
Written byJim Reardon
StarringEtienne Badillo
Rich Moore
Mike Reardon
William Hanna
William Holden
Bret Haaland
Nate Kanfer
Jeff Pidgeon
Narrated by Rich Moore
Edited byJim Ryan
Production
company
Distributed byCalifornia Institute of the Arts
Release date
  • June 27, 1986 (1986-06-27)
Running time
3:19
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown is a 1986 American animated short student film written, directed, and animated by Jim Reardon while he was a student at CalArts. [1] Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown is black-and-white and has a rough, unfinished, hand-drawn look. [2]

Contents

Plot

The short film is presented as a trailer for a faux Peanuts television special. [3] A narrator describes the premise of the special: the Great Pumpkin has placed a bounty on Charlie Brown, prompting the Peanuts characters to try to kill Charlie Brown in various ways (Lucy turning a football into a bomb, Schroeder using his piano to crush him, Snoopy bites his arm off, the Kite-Eating Tree falls on him, and Linus strangles him with his blanket), until the narrator announces Charlie Brown, "has been pushed too far." Charlie Brown cuts his hair into a Mohawk, adopts a thick accent similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and loads several weapons. Charlie Brown and the Peanuts characters then engage in a gunfight and a montage of chaotic violence with other cartoon and pop-culture characters/figures including Popeye, Godzilla, Blondie and Dagwood, Rocky Balboa, Adolf Hitler (seen painting before being shot) and two Nazi soldiers, Mickey Mouse, and Richard Simmons. The film ends with Charlie Brown smoking in bed alongside the Little Red-Haired Girl after engaging in sex. [4] [5]

The film also includes several pop-culture and film references: Linus strangling Charlie Brown is a remake of Luca Brasi's death in The Godfather , Charlie Brown's Mohawk haircut is a reference to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, and Charlie Brown screaming, "Bitch!" after Lucy shoots him in the arm is a shot-by-shot remake of William Holden's gunfight in The Wild Bunch. "Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown" is a reference to Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and the end credit to Charles "Dutch" Schultz is a reference to Dutch Schultz.

Production

The song "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters plays over the end credits, which end with a note from Jim Reardon:

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? [6]

Cast and credits

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References

  1. ↑ Wreck-It Ralph Director Rich Moore on his Film Sensibility: 'It's a CalArts Thing' - CalArts blog
  2. ↑ "Enjoy the disturbing "Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown"". The Retroist. Archived from the original on 2018-11-10. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  3. ↑ Cartoon Brew
  4. ↑ Letterboxd
  5. ↑ Simpsons director's Peanuts parody student film online - Animated Views
  6. ↑ David Pescovitz (2012-05-12). ""Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown", animated Peanuts spoof by Simpsons director Jim Reardon". BoingBoing.
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