The Peanuts can be goofy and funny at times, at other times it's sad, other times it's poignant , and at various points it can be serious.
I covered "What Have we Learned, Charlie Brown" on this blog before and that special was serious and solemn and was about war. The primary aspects in the special were Linus finding out the gang were spending the night on Omaha Beach and later they are in Belgium in locations where the fights of World War I happened, a look at the most major wars of the 20th century. The part where Linus looks out at the beach and the images of the D-Day invision pop up is dialogue free and antic free , it's Linus in cased in the events of that battle with just solemn music and the sounds of warfare. The viewer sees this for about 2 minutes before Linus explains to his friends where they were. It continues with the gang going to the American Cemetery while the words of Dwight Eisenhower play out talking about D-Day , while more images of the invasion. It finishes that over 2 minutes with Eisenhower's words hoping that the world will find peace. It knew where to to a little relief again where we have Snoopy driving a car again. It goes back to more about the Normandy invasion with Linus narrating over more war images. (Again you can read this more in our look back)
My point in explain that is the Peanuts are something that somehow has a dog that can drive a car , a tree that eats kites, and funny looking dances ,but also can do other things and not be out of place. To a more concise main topic , there are points where the Peanuts handed serious stuff to it's audience and didn't down explain it. People died in World War I and II it "What have we learned" outright said that. If you think animation is a thing just for children ,which I never think Peanuts was just for, then it handled a topic many other shows would handle so well. Now all this is not about that special , we are talking another serious topic: cancer.
"Why , Charlie Brown Why?" premiered on March 16th 1990 on the CBS television network, being one of the last few specials to premiere on the network. I'll get to more back story on the special a little later.
The special starts with a normal day , the Peanuts gang is going to school , Sally of course not over joyed about it. There's a new character Janice , she and Linus seem to be good friends. As Janice gets in the bus she hits her arm on the railing and mentions she has another bruise. When they make it to school Janice notes that's she's not feeling well and in the classroom she's not feeling well still and she goes to the nurse and her mom picks her up. Three days later the gang is at the bus stop and there's Janice noticeably missing. (Also weird that Lucy is not with Linus waiting for the bus stop.)
The class finds out that the reason why Janice hasn't been in class is because she's at the hospital sick. (Or thankfully Linus said it because I couldn't understand what the teacher said) Charlie Brown and Linus decide to visit the hospital. Meanwhile , Snoopy is being the World's Greatest Surgeon (I want to see his degrees). They go to Janice's room and they find out that she has more than a fever instead it's cancer, specifically leukemia. She explains that it can be treated and explains the process they went through for the tests. Also Linus and Charlie Brown pretty much ask questions that a person wanting to know I mean adult or child. She also explains chemotherapy and tells them that it will make her better.
More after the jump
