After winning the spelling bee for hisvschool, usual blockhead loser Charlie Brown has the confidence of his classmates including the obnoxious Lucy who has always stepped on his self-esteem, tore away the football before he can kick it and makes him pitch on a baseball mound covered in Dandy Lions. She's continuing to stalk Schroeder here, who is completely uninterested of course, only noticing her when she mistakes a bust of Beethoven for George Washington. It's obvious that these kids have the mind of adults, and that will make this animated feature of Interest to adults who may relate to how the relationship of this group of friends has its highs and lows. Even Snoopy, the dog, without speaking, has his own rules and regulations and human abilities, able to fly a kite Charlie Brown can't. When Lucy and Linus strike out at a baseball game and everybody just accepts it, then yells in frustration in CB does it, the reflection of how cruel childhood really could be towards some hits home. It's hard not to watch the cartoons from TV and the features without looking at the psychological elements Charles Schulz was trying to emphasize.

This animated musical film has its highs and lows, many of them very funny and all of them original, not seen in any of the tv specials although a lot of the familiar sitegags are back. The score is pretty decent, although the clever spelling bee song isn't really melodic. It takes a good half hour or more for them to get to the gist of the plot, the challenge of the spelling bee, and it's surprising to see Lucy actually cheering when he wins the school title. There are definite moments of cleverness, a few insipid oh, and the film does get to be a little bit over long. The psychedelic elements of the 70's may seem weird to children of a decade fifty years later, and Schroeder's nightmare is just beyond bizarre. There's a sense of nostalgia though, but Charlie Brown's desperation to achieve something is definitely a relatable goal after a subject of a song called "Failure Face". As a feature film, after all those annual holiday specials of the sixties, this doesn't measure up to those. Perhaps less in this case is more.

This is another of the few Charlie Brown specials/movies that still sticks around in my mind. In fact, there are some scenes that, for one reason or another, still seem as fresh as ever. It's not the best of the specials, but it is a very good way to introduce one not terribly familiar to the Peanuts world because it makes use of almost all of the main characters and their trials, tribulations, quirks, and gifts. Like Charlie Brown's inadequacy with flying a kite, or Lucy's imperative to mess with the kid's head at most turns, or Linus's compulsive need for his blue blanket, or even Schroder's knack at the piano. Some of these revelations of character are charming and funny.

The animators also bring some interest and imagination to otherwise unnecessary (story-wise) scenes, like Schroder's piano sequence (as a kid I was a little perplexed but not now) and Snoopy's wonderful ice skating scene in the city. The plot is more for the kids than adults as Charlie Brown competes at the one thing that looks like his knack, the spelling bee, reaching to the highest competition and a chance to make himself no longer an outsider. Some of the songs accompanying the film are less than great and hamper on the amusing scenes. However this doesn't exclude how entertaining the special can be, with every spelling-bee scene worth the watch. And the conclusion is wholly satisfying for anyone in the audience, not a happy one but not compromised either.

The beloved Peanuts characters created by Charles M. Schulz make a very endearing feature film debut here. The story has Charlie Brown feeling more despondent than ever due to the fact that his destiny seems to be failing at everything. This isn't helped by the fact that Lucy has actually created a slide show detailing every one of his supposed faults! However, hope is generated when Charlie Brown decides to try out competitive spelling, and has success right off the bat. (In an appropriate touch, this is because some of the first words that he gets are tailored to his personality, like "insecure".) He even goes to compete in the National Spelling Bee.

There's some material here that could be seen as padding, but overall it's an effective means of stretching out a Peanuts story to a feature length of approximately an hour and a half. The animation is slick and there is a wealth of interesting visuals. Rod McKuens' handful of songs are admittedly pretty silly, but they're not long enough or frequent enough to become a true detriment.

The verbal jokes and visual gags are just as funny as they've ever been, and the characters are all well defined in their classic way. Snoopy, as usual, is the biggest cut-up. One example of this: Linus handed over his precious security blanket to Charlie Brown to serve as a good luck charm, and suffers enough withdrawals to seek out Charlie Brown and demand the blanket back. Then, every time Linus keels over, Snoopy fills a glass of water, and you think it's for Linus, but he ends up drinking it himself.

As a bonus, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" features a catchy way of listing various spelling rules; watching this wouldn't be a bad way for kids to learn some of them! Poor Charlie Brown ends up so stressed out and weary that he automatically spells words that he speaks or are spoken to him.

You do feel bad for Charlie, but in the end, you can always leave it to Linus to put everything into perspective for him and the audience.

Many genuine laughs, a solid story, some real heart, and a typically excellent jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi (including some variations on the standard "Linus and Lucy") help to make this a winner.

Eight out of 10.