It's springtime, and love is in the air, as Charlie Brown tries to muster up the courage to talk to the Little Red-Haired Girl. This video is a laugh riot, due to physical humor and several good scenes. Lucy, told by Charlie Brown how the Little Red-Haired Girl's pretty face makes him nervous, goes on a tirade: "Why doesn't MY face make you nervous? I have a pretty face! Wasn't I the Christmas queen? You haven't answered me!" Also funny is an odd "tryst" between Lucy and Charlie Brown: Peppermint Patty, hearing Charlie Brown's frustrations over love, arranges a meeting between the two, mistakenly thinking she's Charlie Brown's object of affection. Upon seeing each other, the two, shocked, in unison, yell "YOU?! BLECCCH!!" (It actually seems as if this subplot was made just to write Peppermint Patty into the special, in her animated debut).
Though some (unintended) humor comes from odd animation: in one scene with children boarding a school bus, several characters can be seen boarding twice. More bizarre is a scene of Linus walking, as if he were a ghost, through 3 girls swinging in their schoolyard. I guess the animator though no one would notice.
At times the story takes strange turns, like with the previously mentioned Charlie Brown-Lucy tryst. Were it not for some sloppy animation, this would probably rank as a classic. Overall, though, this 1967 special, well scored by Vince Guaraldi, is cute, watchable, and often uproarious. I can't remember the last time a Peanuts cartoon made me laugh out loud!
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