A Post About Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown: Scotland Bound, Charlie Brown

Peanuts 

            After a long debate that caused 402 injuries and 3 wars, and somebody to lose a tooth, we are doing this blog post. What is it? Well, this time we are doing a post about something Peanuts related (there's no way that caused that much problems, this place is very much doing Peanuts stuff)  about a graphic novel ( that's it bring in the tanks!). So why? Well this graphic novel that came out this year, 2021 AD, is based off storyboards for a special that went unproduced (yet, they made It was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown, this world is sad) that was maybe called "Will Ye No Come Back Again, Charlie Brown?"  I say maybe because we don't know if it was ever going to have a different name and that was a developmental name. The graphic novel is called "Scotland Bound, Charlie Brown". 

  

      The graphic novel was written by Jason Cooper, the art was done by Robert Pope and Hannah White. The idea was to take some of the original storyboards and make a story out of them. Let's take a look at this undone special now. 

        It starts with Franklin visiting Lucy's  booth which is something we really don't see much, and interaction is funny and leads into the plot of Charlie Brown who has a pen pal, something we see in the strips, and he's exited it's from his Scottish Pen Pal from Scotland, Morag.   (Fun fact: Morag is a Gaelic name meaning great; the story mentions that it's the Gaelic equivalent  of Sarah)  Charlie Brown being Charlie Brown has fallen smitten with her. While the story is based off story boards the writer put his own work into this story and Cooper did a great job capturing the Peanuts character's characterizations. Anyway, in the letter Morag mentions that in a few months there's an annual international arts and music festival and that it would be fun to see him come some time. Charlie Brown being Charlie Brown takes that as he should go right now. 

  

           Charlie decides he wants to go so he has to make money and starts with a car wash. This turns into a bike, roller skate, etc wash.  It's kind of cool to see Charlie Brown's optimism and never give up sprit work through this arc as he tries to figure out ways to get money to go to Scotland; after Lucy gives him an idea, he inspires Lucy, Schroder, and Linus to help him and encourages them to come with him. Lucy with golf at St. Andrews,  Schroder playing at the festival, and Linus apparently is interested in the Loch Ness Monster because Great Pumpkin.  (what?)  Also Charlie Brown is trying to write a poem to preform.

        Since the story is called "Scotland Bound, Charlie Brown" and not "Charlie Brown doesn't make it Scotland, after failing a few times" he and his friends made enough money to fly on an airplane to Scotland. This being Charlie Brown we need something to bring his high down slightly, on the airplane he opens his latest pen pal message from Morag and finds out that she won't be there because she's in Mexico City, visiting a different pen pal of her thirty pen pals. (30? My writing hand is tried) 

      Anyway, at the airport in the great city of Edinburgh, there's a girl holding a sign that says "Charles Brown" (I like how a) Lucy mentions when Morag wrote to him as just Charlie and this girl as Charles, as they aren't getting his name right, and b) it's the same thing Marcie calls him) Anyway this girl is Nell, her family is hosting the Peanuts gang. 

         Nell is fun character to be introduced, the Scottish girl has a nice optimistic attitude to her. In the interview about the novel (that's included in the novel) the original storyboards were going to have a love triangle thing with Linus/Nell/ Charlie but Cooper decided to not have that in the story and I'm glad he didn't go with the love triangle thing.   Since this is a story in Scotland, let's talk about Scotland in the book. I like that how they depict the Edinburgh airport's distinct tower,  and the welcome sign those were nice touches. 

      Back to Nell, she provides a way for the Peanuts characters which are in a nice paired down basic amount of characters ,including Snoopy, to get to know things around Scotland and the festival plot line as well. She also provides a nice balance to the cast, by helping Charlie Brown when plans don't go the way he was expecting. She doesn't seem to mind Linus' odd quirks, even gets on well with Lucy.  There are some nice hints of Nell and Charlie Brown crushing splashed in. 

   

                   "Life's not really about what you wish were happening. It's about what  is happening.--Nell

                  We get to meet Nell's family's farm with Coos, which are like hairy cows. I like how Lucy takes  a liking to the creatures, it shows her sentimental side that's not seen too much and I'm glad they had that in this story.  There are some fun jokes and gags that'd you expect in Peanuts, but I'm happy the didn't do a football gag or something we'd expect.  

            

                   They go to different things like Lucy's golfing at St. Andrews (Peanuts characters have that power to visit exclusive golf clubs), then seeking out Loch Ness Monster.  There's a sweet moment of them thanking Charlie Brown for the fun trip, before something goes wrong, weirdly it's a Linus reason not a Charlie Brown reason. Linus thinks he saw the monster and gets too excited and cause the boat to fall over.  They are safe, but Schroder's piano is ruined.   He feels stressed about using a real piano for the show but he gets some encouragement thanks to Lucy  which provides another great moment. 

               

                    Charlie Brown who has been very confident this whole thing is up next, and he presents his poem (he's even wearing a kilt) and finds a creative way to present his poem to make it work out for him and the audience. It was creative and a cool tie in from an earlier scene. 

                 The story ends with Charlie Brown back at home writing to Nell,  and now I want a sequel.

    The art work is befitting a Peanuts media. The coloring and shade allow things to pop out well and provide a nice feeling of warmth when needed. There's also the classic feeling of Peanuts Sunday comics (since it's in color) with the simple backgrounds, but the detailed stuff is well done. The character expressions are well done and bring out their emotions.

               "Scotland Bound" is a great novel, I kind of would love to see it be animated as a special, it's a great story  and a fun ride. 

  This was pretty fun to read, and I'm kind of sad that it wasn't a special, maybe they should get on that. There's some good stuff with Scotland in it with out it feeling stereotypical , minus Loch Ness monster stuff, but you know.  It's all the great fun of Peanuts well told in a  great story. 

   That's it for now, tune in next time when the Peanuts go to Wales.  

 

 

I don't know, but MTV is 40 years old

One Shot Posts  MTV 

     I think that early cable is one the most interesting things in television history besides early television itself.  Streaming hasn't really interested me as much it's movement from interesting to novelty to weird cash grab as accelerated in a way I wasn't expecting and honestly it feels too over the top. That's not the post.  Early cable had the idea of "What the heck are we really doing here?" I mean you had space for different ideas that really (back then) couldn't work as an over the air station and you also had less  restriction from the government over board than you did on OTA. 

        On Saturday, August 1, 1981, MTV: Music Television.  It's kind of weird that people out there wouldn't know that MTV ever meant  Music Television or why the heck MTV airs a yearly Video Music Award show. That's because MTV has long gone off their original focus.  Launched by Warner and American Express (Warner Amex) the idea was the concept of a radio station but you could also see it being done with your face and eyes. A total assault of the scenes.   

      Radio has (had before...that's a different story) Disc Jockeys, MTV has Video Jockeys.  They played music videos because this is television and watching music videos is probably the  only way listening to music on TV could at least be entertaining. They played them 24/7  like at 3:49AM on July 9th, 1992, you could turn on your TV and see them playing a music video.

            Single concept channels were made for cable. Back in 1979, someone somewhere said "I'm tired of not being able to watch sports on a Tuesday afternoon in November" and ESPN was launched. (Though most of ESPN is actually people balthering than live sports you get the idea)  Warner had made an all children's channel so now  local UHF channel 57 could be slowly killed off by cable TV in fun ways, and kids could watch programming on  a sick day at 11:35AM instead of watching "The Price is Right".  In 1980, Ted Turner decided that society needed a 24/7 news channel ( I wonder if he regrets this since the news channels seem to do less of that)   So a radio station but TV is also an idea. 

       MTV launched at Midnight Eastern Daylight Time (since it was August) on August 1, 1981 with the 1979 hit song by The Buggles , "Video Killed the Radio Star"  Ironically a song about the change,  between the idea of people listening around the radio for programming and now watching it on TV.  MTV didn't kill music radio because well TV wasn't portable, but that wasn't it's purpose, it still was a change to television in the era of change.   (Funfact: The song/video came out 2 years prior to MTV) 

The future you want ?  

        

         MTV was originally styled like a rock station but instead of radio it's on TV.   They had big ideas they knew they were a big new idea, they introduced their channel as a rocket launching into space, landing into space with astronauts planting the MTV flag in the moon.  MTV's design was put together by Alan Goodman and Fred Seibert and you should thanks these two legends for many things.  If you were a Nickelodeon kid, they are part of that so much that it wouldn't even really have made it without them (them and Geraldine Laybourne)  One of the big things about radio back then was the jingles and presentation they made cable presentation and television presentation different than it ever had been before. 

MTV was in someone's loft? 

 

        That's the idea, MTV was an innovator. I'm not doing a history of MTV post, I really would have to use tons of documents and really be repeating stuff found in other places. MTV is essentially part of television because of it's core, it's still on the air now. Maybe sadly. MTV now is mostly there just on the cable system, withering.  

  

           MTV was built to be the NOW channel, a channel that tapped into the current trends, it had some bumps but made it. I'm sure if the internet was there in 1994 the way it is now, you'd have people complaining about how MTV playing the current video is nothing like the MTV they were growing up with in 1984. That's how things are really, the ages of time. I know the complaint now is that MTV doesn't play music videos  and really if they did tomorrow, they wouldn't play ones you remember MTV Classic does though. The school of common thought now is that MTV playing  music videos would  be like well a radio station airing dramas in 1980. (Look at that) 

               Since the marketing genius who said "cable is dying"got their phrase into the common lexicon it seems that maybe it is, whatever that means.  People have been told that newspaper and radio have been dying for decades. (It changes and morphs might be more suitable) Music videos are probably not really a business to have on TV anymore in the current state. Music Videos were like marketing, MTV helped sales of records, like radio used to as well. 

           I remember a Disney Channel Original Movie starting where the main characters were running to the TV set to see a new music video premiere. A perfect snapshot of society at that moment of time for teens at the time, you didn't know when they were going to show it again. Now you can see it on Youtube. (Ironic you can find many of the old MTV music videos there too)  In a strange way, streaming killed music videos on TV before it was called streaming. 

          Now if you look deep in your cable line up, if you have that, you'll see channels that run music videos still, I'm not sure who's watching Nick Music or CMT Music but run on little channels, run on!   MTV later gave society some reality shows, I mean everyone was doing it, so why not? MTV has lessened up on that even because the target audience they've always wanted probably doesn't even know where they are on the line up if they have cable in the first. Now they've found other things to air multiple hours a day. 

More after the jump