There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown (1973)

Starring: Chad Webber and Christopher DeFaria
Grade: C+

Peppermint Patty calling Marcie “Kid” is a lot funnier than it should be. This should happen more often.

Summary

After Sally (Hilary Momberger) oversleeps a little because her alarm clock didn’t go off, she joins Charlie Brown (Webber) in the kitchen for breakfast and says she may have wound the clock up too tight and that’s why it didn’t go off. As he eats his cereal, he states they are all a little that way. The two walk to school and Charlie Brown sees Sally as too uptight about school and how she needs to relax. Later, Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty (DeFaria) walk together and sit by a tree. Peppermint Patty talks about how she’s discouraged because they just had a true and false test, and it followed an essay test. Plus, they still have three months of school. There’s going to be much more of this agony coming up, and she wonders how one is supposed to fall in love with all of these things going on.

Unfortunately, there’s just no time for love.

Sally attempts to write a report on agriculture, and she focuses on melons. She writes how they’re supposed to be planted from May 15th to June 5th, how she doesn’t know what to do if you happen to be out of town, and how she’s glad she isn’t a melon farmer (as we all are). Sometime after, Peppermint Patty is in class and is given the news they have a new science project to do. Sitting in front of her and overhearing this, Franklin (Todd Barbee) tells her that he’s going to do his on the various kinds of metals in the Earth and how each has affected the progress of mankind. Bewildered, Peppermint Patty thinks about doing one on stomach aches. In another classroom, Linus (Stephen Shea) sits in front of Lucy (Robin Kohn) and reads off a math-related story problem determining someone’s age, but it’s so convoluted that Lucy responds like he dialed a wrong number and tells him to redial and call again. Back with Peppermint Patty and Franklin in class, she asks him what he’s reading. It’s a book on psychology. From what he understands, he thinks it’s pretty good, but Peppermint Patty argues, “No book on psychology can be any good if you can understand it”. In some other class, Sally brings a large box to the front of the class for show and tell. After she hypes up whatever is in there and how it’s exciting and terrifying and whatever else, the teacher has her sit down. In another classroom, Snoopy is wearing his “Joe Cool” disguise and tries to get Violet’s attention since she’s sitting in front of him. She turns back and slaps him. Back with Peppermint Patty and Franklin again, she talks about how they’re going to have to learn the metric system because by the time we grow up the metric system will probably be the country’s standard. Honestly, that’s funny by itself.

She starts reading the conversions between inches and centimeters and feet to meters and such. Franklin is bothered by the specifics and promises to never measure anything again for the rest of his life. On the way home, Charlie Brown reads off his recent report card to Linus and how he got a “C” grade in history, math, English, and reading, which is basically everything. He refers to himself as a straight “blah” student. Meanwhile, Sally is in class and guesses some math problem answer to be 12. After the teacher says she’s wrong, she guesses almost every other number under the sun until Sally asks if the teacher has the feeling she’s guessing. Leaning on a brick wall with Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty wonders if she will be beautiful in high school. If she knew she wasn’t going to be beautiful, she wouldn’t bother to have graduation pictures taken. She says this as her and Charlie Brown go and sit by the tree again. She asks if he would want her graduation pictures sitting on his piano, but he explains they don’t have a piano. Peppermint Patty responds by saying she likes how he’s quick to give her a wishy-washy answer. Later, Charlie Brown stands near his seat in class to speak aloud on his report about Africa. Actually, it would have been on Africa, but he never got around to it. He tries to explain things further but panics and yells, “I throw myself at the mercy of the court!”. Later, Charlie Brown and Linus talk by the brick wall, and Linus notes how depressed Charlie Brown looks. He admits he worries about school a lot. They walk right after, and he continues by adding how he worries about his worrying so much about school. His anxieties have anxieties. With Peppermint Patty and Franklin again, Franklin is stuck on the second problem on their worksheet. Peppermint Patty confidently tells him to just put down “11” because that’s what she did. Apparently, “X” is almost always “11” and “Y” is almost always “9”. She offers the advice to him to not take algebra too seriously.

At home, Linus works on his math homework, and Lucy encourages him. However, he doesn’t think he can do new math problems with an old math mind. Sally reads off her worksheet in class and flips out over what it says while still trying to figure out what 2+2 is. At the same time, Peppermint Patty gives an answer of “2” in class, but the teacher tells her she’s wrong, so she calls for the “jury” to “please disregard that last statement”. Sally is given the question of who was Henry IV’s father, and she responds instinctively with how she couldn’t care less. This was just a slip of the tongue, and she apologizes to the teacher for her gut reaction. Peppermint Patty reads one of those confusing story problems about directions, but she is dumbfounded and sees her education as being grounded to a halt.

Once school ends one day, Charlie Brown tells Linus the bad news. They are taking a field trip to an art museum, and he has to get an “A” on his report. Otherwise, he’ll fail the whole course. As they exit the school, he ponders why they have to have all this pressure about grades, but Linus explains life as a response. He sees the purpose as to get good grades, so you can go to high school to study hard and to get good grades. This will allow you to go to college. The purpose there is to get good grades to go on to graduate school, and the purpose of THAT is to work hard and get good grades to get a good job and be successful. This way, you can get married and have kids, so we can send them to grammar school…to get good grades, so they can go to high school and get good grades to go to college and work hard. You get the point. Marcie (James Ahrens) tells Peppermint Patty how she heard they have to go on a field trip and how she’s scared to death of them. When Peppermint Patty explains they are lots of fun and how she will like it, Marcie counters with the possibility of getting sick or lost and how she hears they have to bring their lunch on a field trip. The reason the lunch thing bothers here is because there is a chance she could leave her lunch accidentally on the bus. She even worries about getting on the wrong bus and ending up downtown. Peppermint Patty tries to calm her down because they use the buddy system on field trips, pairing off an older student with a younger one. She guarantees Marcie she will be her buddy. On the way home, Peppermint Patty suggests Marcie come to her house the next morning, and they will walk to school together. Marcie appreciates it and accepts, though Peppermint Patty has to remind Marcie to not call her “Sir”, a recurring gag in this special.

Marcie wakes up in the middle of the night thinking she overslept. Freaking out because she doesn’t want to keep Peppermint Patty waiting and how she promised her she wouldn’t be late, Marcie sprints out the door and heads to her house, leaving her own front door open like a moron.

Marcie gets all the way to Peppermint Patty’s house and enters her room to wake her up. It turns out it’s 4AM, so she angrily tells Marcie to go home and come back later. Marcie exits but realizes there’s no use in going back to bed now, so she reenters the room. Peppermint Patty lets her because it’s not like she can go back to bed either now. She also reminds Marcie to not call her “Sir” again. In the morning, Sally complains to Charlie Brown about having to go on field trips in general, wondering why they can’t just stay in school because they’re just bothering the outside world otherwise. Hilariously, she argues that field trips were invented by school custodians to get the kids out of the building, so they can clean it. She goes on about how they have to ride 10,000 miles on a bus, and they all get sick. As she says this, they wait at the bus stop and Snoopy joins them. Elsewhere, an exhausted Peppermint Patty and Marcie walk to school, with Marcie apologizing for waking her up so early. She says it’s okay but again tells Marcie to stop calling her “Sir”. On the bus for the field trip with Snoopy sitting with her, Sally thinks to herself that she will probably get sick and how she should have stayed home. Sally, Charlie Brown, and Snoopy exit the bus once they get there and they get into a single file line. Sally talks about a day in the future where all the kids get off of the bus for the field trip and won’t have to get in line, though she admits this day will never come right after they start walking. In the other bus, Peppermint Patty and Marcie and their school pull up. All the kids exit, but Marcie has to wake up Peppermint Patty because she dozed off. Apparently, they go to a different school than the others now. After she tells Marcie to hurry up because the other kids are lining up and to stop calling her “Sir”, she walks over and greets Snoopy. She hugs him, so Snoopy kisses her. Peppermint Patty admits he’s a “funny kid”, but he sure knows “how to make a girl happy”.

Peppermint Patty is surprised to see Charlie Brown on this field trip because she didn’t know his school was doing it too. He brings up the report and how he might fail his whole term, and she knows how he feels because her class has to write a report on it too. She suggests Charlie Brown come over to her house tonight so they can work on their essays together. As she tries to flirt and talk about how he’s probably glad to see her, the separate lines of kids start entering the museum. However, the group of Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Sally, and Snoopy still stand and talk. Peppermint Patty brings up how Marcie is scared to death of field trips and how her and Charlie Brown can show her the ropes. Following this, they all look around and realize all the kids are gone and how they need to catch up with everyone else. Just then, Snoopy walks towards Ace Supermarket which is right next to the museum. Sally still doesn’t want to go, but Charlie Brown pulls her by her arm because he doesn’t want her to get lost. Peppermint Patty asks Charlie Brown what building he thinks everyone went into, and he deduces it was the one on the right because it’s the closest. Naturally, it was the one on the left. So, the gang goes through the supermarket and observes the place thinking it’s the art museum. Considering they have an essay to do on this excursion, this does not bode well for them.

My Thoughts:

Love is something the Peanuts gang always comes back to at some point. Though I’ve reviewed most of the Valentine’s Day specials already, there are still a couple outliers with similar themes. There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown is one of these outliers. It’s not technically about the holiday, but it wouldn’t be out of place if you’re in the holiday mood. With that being said, especially when it comes to the main theme at hand, There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown doesn’t satisfy all that encompasses such a message.

Though it’s true that the kids don’t have time for love, as evidenced by the stretched-out first act consisting of a series of cutaway gags back and forth until the plot takes shape, the special never really capitalizes on the developing relationship it teases. The main conflict at hand is Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown’s going back to their on/off flirting and the viewer wondering if it will ever progress. In some specials, Charlie Brown has zero interest in Peppermint Patty or is oblivious to her advances. In others, he’s floored by the attention. You know what? It’s true. Charlie Brown is wishy-washy. He struggles at being consistent in his interest in a lot of ways unless it involves the Little Red-Haired Girl. However, sometimes you can’t help but wonder if he’s treating Peppermint Patty the way he does because he’s thinking about her as a potential sidepiece, at least subconsciously. What is confusing about Peppermint Patty here though is that she’s just as wishy-washy herself. She’s flirting with Charlie Brown nonstop and openly, denies and even gets angry with Marcie when she correctly deduces that she’s in love with “Chuck”, and goes on a rant about how anyone could possibly fall in love with someone so “boring, dull, and wishy-washy”. Now, I can get her overcompensating to not look vulnerable, but the animation needed to at least tease this nuanced explanation. Without it, she seems dead serious. When Charlie Brown overhears it, sighs, and exits the supermarket in front of them, Peppermint Patty is guilty because he heard it. It’s never teased that she’s in love with him secretly and feels bad about that. More detail was needed if it was supposed to be the latter because it didn’t seem like she was into him legitimately at that point in time, especially when she yells to him during her half-hearted apology that, “I didn’t know you were listening!”.

Does that sound like someone who’s in love with someone else? No, that’s just someone who feels bad for someone else because they were caught talking shit about them to her closest friend.

Even on the bus with Marcie, Peppermint Patty acknowledges she messed up, but she comes to the conclusion that Charlie Brown has “fallen for me” and she didn’t realize it. Did he fall for her? I never got that impression. Are we supposed to laugh at her being this delusional, or are we supposed to believe her statement? If the scene ended on her saying this, it would signify the audience to laugh at her ego, but the scene goes on, which makes me think that we are supposed to buy into this. If that was the case, they did a horrible job in showing Charlie Brown having a crush on her. Just a few scenes before, he left her in the supermarket when she fell asleep! That doesn’t seem like someone who’s in love! This is why when he overhears her insulting words, he’s bothered because they are just that, insults. How could Peppermint Patty possibly think he’s in love with her based off anything that’s transpired? When she talks about how tired she is on account of Marcie and hopes it doesn’t offend Charlie Brown, he responds so nonchalantly that it comes off like he could care less about her constant talking. Then, she keeps pressing him and wondering if he likes her, and he doesn’t respond, so she quickly hits him with, “I like how you don’t come right out and say it though. I respect you for that”. Are you telling me all of this has convinced Peppermint Patty that Charlie Brown is in love with her? The intention and conclusion of the arc makes even less sense when Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie meet up at Peppermint Patty’s house to work on their essays together. Early on, Peppermint Patty asks Charlie Brown for an eraser on his side of the table, and he gives it to her and accidentally touches her hand. She points it out as a flirty thing, but it comes off as tonally insincere based off of everything that happened previously.

Obviously in Peanuts lore, we know she likes Charlie Brown, but in this special specifically, it doesn’t work because of how they wrote her part and her reactions. When she brings up the eraser thing for instance, it’s as if she’s trying to build his confidence back up after trashing his entire character when he wasn’t around. If she wanted to apologize legitimately and go back to how things were, while still keeping the tease of her liking Charlie Brown, the dialogue needed to be written with a lot more care. Clearly, she can’t just profess her love to him in private because that would be too definitive for a Peanuts special and would make this an entirely different production, but the way they did things in There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown made it seem like Peppermint Patty is actually more of a tease who likes to mess with Charlie Brown’s head and felt bad when she revealed that she doesn’t like him at all and he overheard it. Now, she’s just trying to make up for it and sounds extremely patronizing while doing so. With our main star, it’s hard to tell how he feels about her too. Does Charlie Brown just feel bad about himself or that he lost out on a chance with Peppermint Patty? It’s hard to believe the latter just because of how he acts up until the point where she assassinates his character, but then there’s the whole confusing scene with him walking Marcie home. After Marcie thanks Charlie Brown for showing up to help on the report, she tells him two wildly different conflicting messages about Peppermint Patty to him. She refers to Peppermint Patty’s disparaging comments as her letting it slip “what she really thinks of you”, which confirms she doesn’t like Charlie Brown, but then Marcie adds, “She really likes you, you know? That stuff about boring, dull, wishy-washy old Chuck was just a slip of the tongue”. What? What is he supposed to think with these conflicting statements? So, she meant it and didn’t like him, but she also likes him and didn’t mean it? Do you see how fucking confusing that is? To add to Charlie Brown’s bewilderment, Marcie thanks him for walking her home and kisses him on the cheek.

Then, to adding even more to the mind games Charles M. Schulz and Bill Melendez are playing with the main character and the audience, Marcie tells the blushing Charlie Brown, “If you don’t want that to be from me Chuck, think of it as being a goodnight kiss from Peppermint Patty because I think she likes you”. How could this help the situation? Does Marcie think her kissing Charlie Brown saves Peppermint Patty, or does she like him and was just leaving the door open? How can one kiss someone and say, “Yeah, I think my friend likes you”. What? Marcie’s actions saving her friend’s standing with Charlie Brown is totally illogical, but somehow, this is exactly how it plays out. He gets kissed by another girl, is happy as hell, and goes home and thanks Peppermint Patty over the phone for the goodnight kiss. Huh? Then, instead of Peppermint Patty being just as confused as we are, she just gets pissed off at him when she didn’t really have a right to be at that point in time. Despite the conflicting messages and storylines, I am becoming a big fan of Marcie. For those who don’t know, this is her first appearance in the Peanuts specials, and they couldn’t have introduced her any better. Over the years, she has really become one of my favorites. She’s a real wildcard and her slow but sincere way of speaking through each voice actor they use is endearing. It was cute to see her lean back in her bus seat while telling a saddened Peppermint Patty, “If it will cheer you up sir, I want u to know that I enjoyed the field trip. Even though the museum did look a lot like the grocery store in our neighborhood, it was very educational”. She is such a sweetheart of a supporting character. Actually, she’s the definition of the “support” part of the word.

The lack of continuity bothered me more than ever in this special. Just to serve the purpose of the story, they start retconning random things that don’t need it. For some reason, Peppermint Patty and Marcie go to a different school now, and I still can’t come up with a reason as to why this was necessary. Next, Sally is portrayed as being in a different class but is somehow old enough to be on the exact same field trip as Charlie Brown and everyone, despite always being significantly younger than the rest of the characters. Then, Linus and Lucy are in an entirely different class than the others. They’re on the same field trip, but they don’t hang out with Charlie Brown and everyone else when they get outside the museum which seems out of character, especially Linus who is always by Charlie Brown’s side. Again, what the hell is going on with the continuity (especially in regard to how we have grown to know these characters and their behavior)? It’s weird how they laid this one out.

Along with Lucy having the best line of the special (“Try not to have a good time. This is supposed to be educational”), Linus has a gem of a moment with his accurate “boiling down” of what life basically comes down to. It was depressingly good, with him repeating the same outcome of getting good grades, going to college, getting a good job, and being successful in one way or another. It was great in an understated way, and you don’t realize the genius of it until the audio tapers off as they walk into the distance. It’s a small scene that momentarily makes you question life. That’s Peanuts in a nutshell. Additionally, having the kids mistake a supermarket for a museum and not realizing it was hilarious (“This is terrible. It looks like the museum is selling off part of its collection to stay open”), especially when the “No Dogs Allowed” sign is visible which makes them even MORE wrong when Snoopy walks in with them. The exchange inside between Marcie and Peppermint Patty was gold too. Marcie thinks they are just looking at stack of tomato cans and Peppermint Patty corrects her by saying it’s pop art. If you’ve ever been to an art museum, it’s funny once you realize they’re technically both right. In You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown, I criticized the “Joe Cool” theme for how lazy it was and the lyrics just detailing exactly what Snoopy is doing in the scene, like here when he acts like a cashier at the supermarket, but I have to admit it’s starting to grow on me. It has gotten to the point where I start singing it in my head when I’m doing mundane chores around the house. Perhaps I judged too quickly on the power of Joe Cool. Also, I did like the subtle joke of Snoopy laughing at a magazine talking about how to housebreak a pet.

On top of everything else, I loved the ending. It works as both an ultra Charlie Brown fuck-up that aligns with his character (“I wrote a report about a trip to a grocery store. I’m doomed.”), and it serves as a great reminder about the arts in school and how teachers will buy into any metaphor or interpretation if you fully commit to the idea and sprinkle in some examples of why you came to such a conclusion. Having the teacher adore Charlie Brown’s supermarket “analogy” in describing the museum is hilariously pretentious, 100% believable, and true to many life experiences we’ve had back when we were in school. What a delightful ending to this storyline. The few scenes following it didn’t match that energy though. Furthermore, I would’ve bookended the special with Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown under the tree talking about love. On that note, I would’ve opened with it as well. The intro scene with Sally and Charlie Brown was a whole lot of nothing. The tone-setter was when Peppermint Patty talks to Charlie Brown and sets up the title. It seems obvious that it should’ve opened the special, so I’m not sure why they went in the order they did. Going along with the first act’s hits and misses, I didn’t like the rapid-fire pace of each joke. In almost every dialogue exchange until they get to the museum, each line said by a character is said in a new location for some reason and it’s jarring to watch because it doesn’t make sense visually.

Sometimes, the Peanuts specials have a little bit during the end credits, but a lot of the time they don’t and just settle for some stills of moments that happened. There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown ends with Peppermint Patty asking why Marcie keeps calling her “Sir” and wondering if she realizes how annoying it can be. Marcie responds with, “No ma’am”, and the credits follow. In the distance, the two characters are standing there and staring at each other. I thought it was a still picture of the two until Marcie walks off in the closing seconds and Peppermint Patty looks away. It makes the below-average joke funnier this way because it made Peppermint Patty look so dumbfounded by Marcie’s last comment that they both stood in silence for like twenty seconds. When you think about it like that, it’s quite amusing. I’m not sure if that was the intention with the credits sequence, but it’s a hell of a lot better when you do think about it like that.

There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown is a mid-tier Peanuts special that has its moments and is completed by a great all-around story, but the specifics of the love angle that is the special’s selling point isn’t very well thought out and brings the entirety of the program down.