You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown (1972)

Starring: Chad Webber and Stephen Shea
Grade: A-

“It’s hard being a campaign worker. We’re completely at the mercy of our candidate. We do all the work, and the candidate gets all the credit. We ring doorbells, and make the posters, and build up the candidate’s image, and then he says something stupid and ruins everything we’ve done“.

Well, Lucy…welcome to politics.

Summary

School is finished for the day and a frustrated Sally (Hilary Momberger) returns home, slams the door shut, and throws her books on the ground. When Charlie Brown (Webber) approaches, she yells she is never going to school again. Wanting to make her feel better, Charlie Brown asks what is making her so upset and brings up topic after topic like if her teacher is giving her trouble again, if it’s a class she’s having an issue with, if math is bothering her, or if the kids on the playground are bothering her. Thankfully, it’s none of these things. Her actual problem is that she can’t get her locker open.

The next morning, Charlie Brown wakes Sally up for school. She doesn’t want to go but ends up getting out of bed once Charlie Brown says he will help her with her locker. She also wants Charlie Brown to promise to help her at school with something else but doesn’t say what. He agrees without question. They go down to have breakfast, and Sally inquires what he will have to eat. When he suggests a piece of toast because he’s never really hungry in the morning, Sally can’t believe this because according to her, all of America’s presidents started each day with a rousing breakfast. So, Charlie Brown makes cereal for the both of them. Just then, Snoopy (Bill Melendez) wakes up and makes a full breakfast for himself consisting of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and toast, and it pisses off Charlie Brown. Following this, the two get ready for school, Snoopy makes their lunches for them, and they head out. On the way to the bus stop, Charlie Brown asks Sally if she knows the combination to her locker, and she does. When they get to a sign that says, “School Bus Stop 100 Feet”, Sally deduces that this means each bus holds 50 kids because each kid has two feet. On the bus, Charlie Brown reminds Sally that sometimes you may have to tap the lock on the bottom after you put in the combination. When they finally get to her locker in the school, Sally explains it won’t open because she can’t reach it. Unfortunately, he can’t reach it either. Pivoting, Sally brings Charlie Brown into her class because she needs her big brother to be her “Show and Tell”. Volunteering to be first, Sally brings Charlie Brown to the front of the class and presents him to everyone. Once it’s over, Charlie Brown exits and considers this to be the most embarrassed thing that’s ever happened to him in his entire life, which is saying something considering all the stupid shit he’s done over the years.

In the hallway, he joins his peers who are staring at the paper for the upcoming election for student body president on the bulletin board. Linus (Shea) thinks Charlie Brown would be a great student body president. Charlie Brown doesn’t think anyone would vote for him, but Linus insists he would. Lucy (Robin Kohn) joins them and asks what’s going on, with Linus filling her in on his suggestion for Charlie Brown to run for student body president. He’s still not sure if he could win and hates the idea of no one wanting him to be president, so Lucy takes on the job of his campaign manager. Right off the bat, she decides to take a poll to figure out his chances of being elected. Once she leaves momentarily, Linus tries to excite Charlie Brown on the possibility of him winning and how great it would feel for everyone to come and tell him, “You’re elected, Charlie Brown!”. Unfortunately, Lucy comes back with the results of her poll, and she tells him he will never be elected. Meanwhile, Snoopy walks in the school with books and tries to disguise himself as a student, putting on sunglasses and a pullover that says, “Joe Cool”. He tries to hang by the water fountain to attract girls but to no avail. Next, he takes off the sunglasses and sweater and goes into a classroom. Almost immediately upon opening his binder, he gets his finger caught in the clip (been there) and he yelps in pain. Then, he takes it upon himself to solve an addition problem on the chalkboard. Going up to the front of the class, he just puts a pawprint as the answer and is kicked out of the school. They throw his binder at him too, and the clip opens and snaps to his foot, which causes him to yell in pain again.

On the playground, Lucy once again mentions the results of her poll giving Charlie Brown a zero percent chance of winning. They have to put up another candidate, so Sally suggests Linus, hoping for him to do something about the lockers none of the kids can reach. Lucy takes a poll on his behalf to gauge interest. However, she coerces almost everyone she asks to vote for Linus by threatening them. One kid didn’t need it to be convinced though. He just happily remembered the one time Linus gave him half of his peanut butter sandwich and admits he’d vote for anyone if they took him out for lunch. The last boy she meets with, Russell Anderson (Todd Barbee), refuses no matter what scenario she conjures up to make Linus look good, and she can’t believe why Russell still has no interest in voting for him. Well, it turns out Russell is the one running against him. Embarrassed, Lucy takes her poll back to the others with the results being 99% for Linus and 1% against him. In the auditorium, students and teachers alike are there for the nominations. Schroeder (Brian Kazanjian) goes up first to make a speech to nominate Linus. Comparing him to Beethoven, Schroeder brings Linus onstage, and he accepts the nomination to a lot of cheers from the crowd. Once again, Lucy makes herself Linus’s campaign manager and makes Charlie Brown her assistant. If he needs assistance, Lucy tells him to make up his own staff who will handle things like signs and posters. Naturally, Charlie Brown hires Snoopy for the task to paint signs and tells him to line up his own staff. Of course, Snoopy hires Woodstock (Bill Melendez).

The student body presidential race is on!

My Thoughts:

Considering the contentious state of politics in recent memory, a TV special like You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown is a nice change of pace to lampoon certain aspects of the campaign trail, as well as be an entertaining premise for Charles M. Schulz’s characters to play around in. It’s not necessarily acute social commentary or anything, but the Peanuts special has fun with the topic and includes a lot of amusement in this fight for a grade school election.

In a case of no one really knowing what they are doing, the Peanuts gang finds themselves in areas in which they are clueless but think they are being helpful. Lucy is a campaign manager that doesn’t do anything but boss others around, Woodstock paints campaign signs in his bird language, Charlie Brown gave Snoopy a job that led to Woodstock being hired, and Schroeder is completely unqualified to nominate anyone. The only job he’s given is to call up Linus, but this motherfucker is relentless as he states, “…but first, I’d like to say a few words about Beethoven”. I rolled my eyes along with Lucy. Above all else, the main character of this story is the premier example of the unofficial theme of being humorously ignorant and unprepared. Of course, we’re talking about Linus. Once again not wasting his opportunity to be the star, Linus’s general story was consistently funny. Usually, Linus plays the logical and smart friend when talking with Charlie Brown, but there is something to be said with how much Linus shines when more and more holes are noticeable in his general thought process. For instance, he’s not necessarily interested at first in being president because he saw Charlie Brown being a better fit for the job, but once Lucy gains him traction, he’s all-in and is adamant in the decisions he seems to be making on the spot without a second thought. You can’t help but chuckle when Lucy asks about random questions regarding his platform like what he thinks about drinking fountains, and he just screams “I’M FOR THEM!” or what he will do about recesses (“LONGER RECESSES I SAY!”). He treats it like an actual presidential race once he gets more comfortable on stage and gains more confidence in each scene, not realizing that his grade school self doesn’t actually have the power to increase the pay of the custodians or teaching staff. Not once does it occur to him until the closing minutes of the special.

He just starts feeling himself on stage and responds to the crowd in kind. It’s very reminiscent of Dwight Schrute’s infamous speech at that work convention in The Office where he just starts going crazy out there. Linus starts spewing nonsense like “I will purge the kingdom! My administration will release us from our spiritual Babylon!”, as well as talks of bringing down the “false idols in high places” to the point where it is noted that the principal is looking pale wondering what in the absolute fuck is going on with his assembly. It’s pretty damn funny watching Linus go completely off the rails and get mad with power he doesn’t have.

Having it all lead to a callback to It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, where he loses half of his voters going off script to talk about the lore of the mythical Halloween character, was a phenomenal decision by Charles M. Schulz. The setup was so great because if you don’t remember the storyline from the comic strip, you really don’t see the joke coming. The timing and delivery of it was flawless. Linus pretty much has the race in the bag and was the overwhelming favorite before things even got started. However, since we are Peanuts fans, we’re all waiting for the moment where the character fucks everything up, and this moment delivers on said expectation. Linus steps down from the podium and dedicates his final speech to explaining the lore of the Great Pumpkin out of nowhere, and the echo in the room is never more present than in those seconds. I imagine you can hear a pin drop in the auditorium from Linus’s POV as the student body and the staff look at him in horror because of how insane he sounds before laughing him out of the building. He’s right. This was a move that could have blown the election for him. This one stunt alone lost him 50% of the vote according to Lucy when he started out with 99% of it. Without a question in mind, Linus’s blockheaded misfire is an all-time moment for the character and solidifies the legacy of this special. It’s great character development for Linus while showing his flaws, it rewards fans for reading the comic strip and watching all the specials intently rather than forgetting they exist after the next one comes out, and it was flat-out priceless watching Charlie Brown and Lucy see the entire campaign almost go up in flames because the one thing they can agree on is that Linus is an idiot for still believing in this thing. The follow-up joke of Linus sighing and being sad for the rest of his classmates was the best quote of the special with, “It’s depressing to think that there are students who don’t believe in the Great Pumpkin”, as if he thinks he’s one of the very few who are LUCKY enough to still believe in the nonexistent holiday icon.

Just like in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, the “Joe Cool” theme tries to fit the same vibe of the bluesy “Little Birdie” song, but it’s not quite the same thing. It also started to toe the line of parody when the lyrics started to just describe everything Snoopy was doing in the sequence. It was kind of lazy. The jazzy tune played over the end credits was nice though.

Admittedly, not all the jokes land. For his television special debut, Woodstock was just wasting time. The whole segment with Violet reporting on Linus for the school newspaper (“The press is against me”) and Schroeder following it up with a picture for the paper to inform people of his campaign didn’t hit, but there were enough segments to make up for it like (1) part of Linus’s speech saying they will welcome any dog that wanders onto the playground instead of chasing them away, which prompts loud cheering from Snoopy, (2) Linus taking back his promise to appear before the school board because it’s a half-hour past his bed time, and (3) the very funny talk show bit where Linus attempts to answer call-in questions from voters about his campaign. Lucy gets increasingly frustrated with each caller wasting time, and it’s chuckle-worthy throughout like the kid asking about rivers that don’t even exist at the school, the person who keeps saying “You know” but never saying anything (we all know a person like this), a wrong number asking for a guy named Harold, and the person who goes on so long that they forgot their question. Each time, the impatient Lucy hangs up and it leads to her ending the show and concluding by talking about how this thing has cleared up a lot of issues on the minds of the new voters.

Great work all around.

I will concede that I laughed out loud when Lucy smacked Linus’s headset on straight when he had it on incorrectly. The sound effect they used for it was hilarious. Going along with this, a smiling Lucy following Russell’s short and sweet speech with, “That was the worst speech I’ve ever heard in my whole life” was laugh-out-loud funny. Honestly, these two moments tipped the scales for me when it comes to the grading system. Also, kudos for how they tied everything up with the locker gag. The cold open felt like a waste of time, but they tied it all together neatly. It surprised me.

Question, why was part of Linus’s campaign doing away with kindergarten graduation and “6th grade dance parties”. This felt incredibly random, but it got a huge response from the crowd as if people were clamoring for such a decision to be made. Was this a real argument or something? Actually, what grade are these fuckheads even in? It’s hard to say since there are so many kids who are balding for some reason.

For a special centered around politics, You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown is another harmless, amusing, underrated, and eventful 25 minutes coming from the Peanuts gang. Though I don’t necessarily agree with Russell that the Great Pumpkin-raving lunatic is the better option out of the two of them to be president of the student body, it’s always great seeing one of our favorites getting a win even if he does sell out in the end. Just like Lucy, Sally learns a valuable lesson in politics that the viewer can’t help but internalize just as well. Though things end on a light note, we are basically reminded of two key things regarding politics. There’s always someone bigger controlling things behind the scenes, and all of these politicians will more than likely weasel out of their promises once they are elected, but hey, it’s better we teach them while they’re young whether consciously or subconsciously, am I right?