{"id":57422,"date":"2020-03-24T00:01:33","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T07:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=57422"},"modified":"2020-03-24T12:00:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T19:00:35","slug":"hes-your-dog-charlie-brown-on-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/hes-your-dog-charlie-brown-on-records\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe\u2019s Your Dog, Charlie Brown\u201d on Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

A look at the Emmy-nominated Peanuts TV special as brought to a wide selection of recorded products in the late 1970s as part of Disney\u2019s Charlie Brown Records line.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

\n

\u201cHE\u2019S YOUR DOG, CHARLIE BROWN!\u201d<\/strong>
\nCharlie Brown Records (Disneyland\/Buena Vista) #3703 (with Book) #2603 (LP Only) (12\u201d 33 1\/3 RPM \/ Mono)<\/p>\n

Released in March 1979<\/strong>. Album Producers: Jymn Magon, Warren Lockhart, Lee Mendelson. Running Time: 19 minutes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Instrumental Themes:<\/strong> \u201cHe\u2019s Your Dog, Charlie Brown,\u201d \u201cPeppermint Patty,\u201d \u201cCharlie Brown Theme,\u201d \u201cCharlie Brown\u2019s All-Stars\u201d by Vince Guaraldi.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Voices (Studio Cast):<\/strong> Arrin Skelley (Charlie Brown); Daniel Anderson (Linus); Michelle Muller (Lucy); Patricia Patts (Peppermint Patty); Bill Melendez (Snoopy).
\n\u2028Additional Soundtrack Dialogue:<\/strong> Ann Altieri (Violet); Gabrielle DeFaria (Peppermint Patty).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>He\u2019s Your Dog, Charlie Brown<\/em> is the fifth Peanuts CBS network primetime TV special (after A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em><\/a> (1965); Charlie Brown\u2019s All-Stars<\/em><\/a> (1966); It\u2019s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown<\/em><\/a> (1966) and You\u2019re in Love, Charlie Brown<\/em><\/a> (1967), all of which have been covered previously in Animation Spin). It\u2019s the first one to focus primarily on Snoopy. Peppermint Patty, who would become one of the lead characters in the cartoons and in the comic strip as well, is just beginning to gain prominence here.<\/p>\n

CBS might have held He\u2019s Your Dog<\/em> for another date besides its Valentine\u2019s Day 1968 debut and rerun the more closely themed You\u2019re in Love, Charlie Brown<\/em> instead, but that film is set at the end of the school year. Snoopy was also gaining immense popularity. At this point in history, Snoopy was a little over a year away from his real-life moon landing\u2014albeit by name\u2014when Apollo 10 would land its \u201cSnoopy\u201d landing module (NASA also named the less flashy command module after Charlie Brown\u2014more about both in this Spin<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Because Snoopy does not speak in the cartoons aside from Bill Melendez\u2019s amusing vocal effects (except for the musical specials), He\u2019s Your Dog<\/em> is heavy on funny cartoon gags and a smaller helping of the clever wordplay of Charles Schulz. There are several very clever lines nevertheless, such as Lucy\u2019s self-revelatory comment to Charlie Brown: \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have shown him the leash! You should have decoyed him with a bone and then jumped him and hog-tied him. Then dragged the ingrate home to those who appreciate him!\u201d<\/p>\n

The record cannot supply all the visuals with no narrator, and even the best narrator cannot convey the comedy of sequences like Snoopy\u2019s frenetic housekeeping (with that odd \u201cconvertible\u201d bed). The read-along book provides some images for the audio, but this album was also released without a book. It stands on its own quite well but the challenge of making an audio version of a visual cartoon is evident in the fact that the disc has the shortest running time of all the Charlie Brown albums. <\/p>\n

GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN<\/strong>
\n\u201cHe\u2019s Your Dog, Charlie Brown\u201d<\/strong> (LP Version)<\/p>\n

\n

Some Charlie Brown Records (like It\u2019s the Great Pumpkin<\/em>) are comprised of soundtrack dialogue with additional studio cast lines added to provide visual exposition. Others, like this one, are almost completely recreated with a newer cast, supplemented with earlier soundtrack excerpts here and there. This album featured the \u201cPeanuts\u201d cast heard in such late 1970s specials as You\u2019re the Greatest, Charlie Brown. Listen for the instance in which Peppermint Patty, while talking on the phone, is played by two different people from two different decades.<\/p>\n