"A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is the first of 4 Peanuts specials and also the first full-length Peanuts movie. It is the movie that made Charlie Brown and his friends movie stars.

As the movie's title suggests, it is about a boy named Charlie Brown, the main character of Peanuts. Here, more than in any other movie or episode, Charlie Brown shows his emotions at the maximum: when he's shy or nervous, when he's sad and depressed, when he's angry, when he's hopeful or desperate, when he feels that nothing seems to be going well in his life and so on...

Charlie Brown is a lovable loser. He's the kind of character that wins our hearts with his losing ways. And yet, he is also a funny little guy.

This movie has some of the best known scenes of Charlie Brown's lack of luck: his failures on the baseball games and the infamous trick that Lucy always does to Charlie Brown whenever he is about to kick the football - she pulls it away!

Charlie Brown even asks for help on Lucy's Psychiatry Booth in this film. She claims that her method is "unique" and what does she do? With a slide projector and a screen, she shows all of Charlie's faults, which only makes poor Charlie feel more miserable than ever.

An interesting and distinguish detail about this film is that Charlie Brown often spells the letters of the words he is saying, something called «spelling bee». The spelling bee is going fine (even the most difficult words) until he has to spell the word "Beagle" (Snoopy's breed). Unfortunately, he misspells it as "B-E-A-G-E-L". I believe it is because of the nerves - after all, it was an easy word for him to say. But the screams given by him and the whole gang are hilarious, as well as Charlie's face when he realizes he misspelled the word.

Funnily, Linus borrows Charlie Brown his blue blanket to wish him good luck. Not much later, Linus feels miserable without his blue blanket. He just keeps passing out! I guess one could say «What would Linus be without his blanket?». A funny scene related to this is that, when Charlie Brown is shining his shoes, Linus stares in shock because the cloth he's using is Linus' blanket - Linus yells "Arrrgh!" and quickly grabs it and holds it. The blanket even seems to win a life of its own.

The kite sequence, for some reason, reminds me about the kite scenes in "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" and "Mary Poppins", especially the one in the first movie I mentioned because they both deal with a kite's failed attempt.

Surprisingly, there are 2 characters that do not appear in this movie: Woodstock and Marcie. Peppermint Patty (aka «Sir») practically doesn't appear either, but if you look carefully, you'll clearly see her appearing twice, although very briefly.

The movie's major downside is, in my opinion, some bizarre and strange sequences that I hardly can explain. All I can say is that they remind me about the segment "Night on Bald Mountain" from Walt Disney's "Fantasia", which is my least favorite part of that great Disney classic. But at least those scenes have the touch of Beethoven's classical music as background. As for the rest of the soundtrack, it is nothing special, but I like the songs "I before E Except after C" and "A Boy Named Charlie Brown".

The artwork here is quite simple, typically Peanuts. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a critic, just an honest evaluation. However, the movies "Race for your life, Charlie Brown" and "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown" have far superior artwork. Nevertheless, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is an okay movie, even if not as unique or distinguish as "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown".

Charlie Brown is a depressed little boy whose actions are constantly met with failure, humiliation, or some combination of both. However when Charlie Brown wins a spelling bee he finds himself representing his school at a national level with an opportunity for great success....or possibly even greater failure.

Released in 1969 Peanuts had already made themselves quite well known with their number of prime time TV specials usually themed around various holidays. A Boy Named Charlie Brown marks the first of four feature length films from the same team and not only was it a success upon release breaking records at Radio City Music Hall (only the third animated feature to be screened at the venue) but broke Disney's near monopoly on animated features. The movie for all intents and purposes is Charlie Brown through and through.

The movie is less of an overarching narrative and more of a character piece just following Charlie Brown through his various activities. Be it trying to fly a kite, playing baseball, or at one point getting out the front door of his home, Charlie Brown finds himself either in abject failure or humiliating mishaps that often wear down on him. The movie features many of the familiar Peanuts cast in varying degrees of importance. Linus is still the fragile know-it-all who has withdrawls when he's seperated too long from his blanket, Lucy is still the deviant sadist who revels in kicking Charlie Brown when he's down, and Snoopy is still just his usually weird self. It's a very slow paced film that takes its time moving from one segment to the next. In many ways it's like watching a (slightly) real life, albeit a very depressing one.

While the movie does have a purposefully slow plot with the Spelling Bee point not introduced until a little under halfway through, there's clear usage of padding in several musical interludes. Some such as Schroeder playing his piano only for the imagery to drift away and reveal painted work of cathedrals and European cities, the Star Spangled Banner playing with abstract shapes of Red, White and Blue, and a lengthy sequence where Snoppy skates and imagines himself playing Hockey in front of Rockerfeller center go on a smidge too long and are clearly there just to extend the running time, but others such as the opening title song "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" or "Failure Face" a musical insult directed at Charlie Brown sung by Patty, Violet, and Lucy fit a bit better.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown is a faithful adaptation of the beloved characters as well as the strip from which they came. It keeps the tone fitting with the established canon and while it's story is simple it deals unapologetically with ideas of putting your all into something only for that to not necessarily pay off in the end. The same reasons that people like this movie will be the same reasons people don't like it. And for all intents and purposes that's more or less how the whole of the Peanuts franchise should be approached.

1st watched 10/30/2004 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Bill Melendez): Charming characters, unique animation, and a great lesson. Excellent slow-paced introduction to each character in this Peanuts cartoon with all the trademark character traits being brought out one at a time. Some very psychedelic-type animation matches the era(the late 60's) during a musical piece by Schroeder as well as a well-done rendition of the national anthem initiating the baseball season for the Peanuts gang. The only down-points are some of the songs, especially a small ditty called "Failure Face" sung by the girls to Charlie. The story follows the down-in-his-luck hero Charlie and his attempts to do something as a winner by entering a spelling bee contest for his school. The lesson here, which you have to wait till the end to see, is that as long as you keep trying there will be little victories in life and that you can't change others but you can do the best for you and that's whats important. Schulz doesn't try to color-coat life, he shows that it is as it is which is another appealing trait. Aside from these deep meanings embedded, this is also a very funny and light-hearted film(with many great moments from Snoopy, of course, for comic relief) that I consider a classic since these characters very rarely made it to the big screen and this effort is done very well.