55th anniversary showing on MeTV

A Boy Named Charlie Brown was released to movie theaters in December 1969. MeTv aired it last night, just a few weeks short of its 55th anniversary. The most amazing thing about this airing was that as best as I could tell, it was complete and uncut. I find this amazing simply because I remember seeing it on TV many times in the 1970s, and it was almost always obscenely trimmed and cut to fit into whatever programming hole (with commercials) they could broadcast it into. Usually, the songs, the National Anthem scene, Schroeder's piano sonata performance, and Snoopy's ice skating/hockey fantasy were left on the cutting room floor. It's easy to understand why these scenes were cut, as they do absolutely nothing to advance the actual plot, which doesn't even really begin until about 35 minutes into the movie anyway.

All that being said, I really enjoyed seeing this, as it brought back a lot of memories. From the music to the "experimental" animation used in the scenes mentioned above, this movie perfectly captured its time. I can't imagine what today's kids would think of it, because almost everything about the Peanuts phenomenon seemed old-fashioned even when it was brand new. If one grew up with the characters like I did, there is still much to enjoy here, even with the late-1960s-early-1970s "dated" feeling looming over everything. In some places (especially when Snoopy is on screen), it's even still funny. I'll leave it to pop-culture enthusiasts and sociologists from that period to try to explain Rod McKuen to future generations.