Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown

Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown
Title card for the short.
Directed by	Jim Reardon
Written by	Jim Reardon
Starring	Etienne Badillo Rich Moore Mike Reardon William Hanna William Holden Bret Haaland Nate Kanfer Jeff Pidgeon
Narrated by	Rich Moore
Edited by	Jim Ryan
Production company	California Institute of the Arts
Distributed by	California Institute of the Arts
Release dates	June 27, 1986 1987 (United Kingdom)
Running time	200 seconds
Country	United States
Language	English

Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown is a 1986 American animated short fan film directed and animated by Jim Reardon, who would later become the director and storyboard consultant for The Simpsons, and one of the co-writers of the Oscar-winning 2008 animated feature film WALL-E. The cartoon was made while he was at CalArts. This cartoon, done entirely in black-and-white, has a rough, unfinished-looking style.

Plot

The short film is presented as a trailer for a faux Peanuts television special. The "special" is said to be due for broadcast on Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m., and to be sponsored by a foods company called Madison Barns, "makers of Ding Dongs, Twinkies, pooftas and wussy cakes," but the advertisements were only announced and were not shown on the film.

The short begins with the camera scrolling to the left side to show Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, and Snoopy, who are kneeling in fear in front of the Great Pumpkin, who smokes a cigarette in front of the cast, as he puts a bounty on Charlie Brown's head on a wall, dead or alive, and thus prompting the entire Peanuts cast to try to kill him any way they can. The first clip demonstrates Charlie Brown backing up while Lucy sets up for Charlie. He tells her if she is ready, but she gives him a moment as she strikes a match as she tries to get Charlie Brown to kick a bomb disguised as a football. When she lights the bomb up and calls him a blockhead, Charlie immediately rushes off to the football but when he kicks it, it explodes and goes to the title card. Schroeder then appears, acting normal without his tiny piano in his hands. Charlie comes up to him and asks Schroeder what happened to his piano, only for his (full-sized, not toy) piano to fall on Charlie Brown's head while Schroeder ignores Charlie's question. Snoopy then prepares to fly like the flying ace but ends up getting shot by machine guns, as the narrator introduces him and the "Red Baron". Charlie then holds a York Peppermint Pattie (not the character as it was mentioned, as the character does not appear in the short film), and Snoopy bites off his hand (which gushes blood). Then it goes to the Kite-Eating Tree which falls on him. Meanwhile, in a scene with a wall of bricks, Linus arrives next to Charlie and begins talking to him, but Linus ends up strangling him unconscious with his blanket after Charlie recognizes that everyone is after him.

Charlie attempts to finally escape, but he finds Linus, Lucy (holding a spiked bat), Schroeder, and Snoopy running toward him. Having had enough, Charlie arms himself with a pump-action shotgun, a submachine gun, and an M16 assault rifle. He then executes the entire Peanuts cast one by one (with an exception of Snoopy being almost shot, but with his brain being shown). Charlie then gets shot in the shoulder by Lucy with a pistol from behind, but he turns around with his shotgun and shoots, making Lucy's head explode. The film then goes on a strange and darkly humorous montage in which Charlie shoots and kills everyone in his way: scores of Mexican banditos, a Wehrmacht machine gun nest behind which Adolf Hitler is painting a picture of a flower, and two other soldiers, and Richard Simmons doing jumping jacks, who then falls through a window. This is followed by his sister, Sally, being decapitated by an axe.

Following this is another montage, this time of Snookles the Baby Dragon calmly breathing fire, Pig Pen vomiting profusely in Violet's face, two biplanes crashing into each other in midair, Dagwood Bumstead getting kicked in the testicles by his wife, Blondie (which causes his head to pop off, resulting in a blood gush), Mickey Mouse getting hit on the head with a lead pipe while laughing, Rocky Balboa getting punched in the face by Popeye The Sailor Man, and Godzilla squeezing Dr. Pepper out of a giant soda can. It then ends showing off various characters, including some taken to the hospital, some lying on the ground, one of the aforementioned crashed biplanes, and even one character resembling Billy from Family Circus hanging from a tree by a noose. Charlie Brown then announces, while holding his two guns, that "happiness is a warm Uzi" in a thick Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, though an Uzi was never used. The screen cuts to him smoking a (presumably post-coital) cigarette in bed with the Little Red-Haired Girl (who, fittingly, is not fully seen), who asks Charlie Brown to turn off the bedroom light and go to sleep.

The song "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters plays over the end credits. The credits 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?

Cast and credits

• Charlie Brown – Etienne Badillo, Rich Moore, Mike Reardon, William Hanna, William Holden
• Linus van Pelt – Nate Kanfer
• Lucy van Pelt – Bret Haaland
• Great Pumpkin – Jeff Pidgeon
• Additional Voices – Ed Bell, Bruce Johnson, Mike Reardon, Bret Haaland
• Narration – Rich Moore
• Others – Ed Bell, Dale McBeath, Bob Winquist, Mike Giaimo, Craig Smith, Bret Haaland, Nate Kanfer, Doug Frankel, Mike Reardon, Rich Moore, Russ Edmonds, Hal Ambro, Dan Hansen, Jim Ryan, Tony Fucile, Jeff Pidgeon, Bob McCrea, Sarge Morton, Mom, Eileen, and Beverly
• Dedicated to Sam "The Man" Peckinpah
• "Peanuts Theme" – Vince Guaraldi
• "Charlie Brown" – The Coasters (wrongly credited as The Platters.)
• A Jim Reardon Cartoon – Made at Cal Arts, U.S.A.

External links

• Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown at IMDb
• Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown at YouTube
• Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown on Dailymotion