User Reviews

Sometimes famous artists enter a weird experimental phase where they bite off more than they can chew for the sake of doing something different. One notable example is Peanuts creator Charles Schulz telling a story in the famous universe through hybrid live-action-animation form. Entitled It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown, the special focuses on a lesser known Peanuts character, Snoopy's country brother Spike as opposed to the core gang. As of today, the special has only been shown on television and home video, not helped by it often being labeled as an odd vanity project from Schulz's resume.

Set primarily in the real desert of Needles, California, the special focuses on Spike's unrequited love for a young woman, almost like Beauty & the Beast but with a cartoon dog and a real person. With that premise intact, while it does sound really bizarre on paper, the execution is where the film really falls flat. As this special is double the length of most Peanuts cartoons, a lot of screen time between Spike and the girl, aerobics instructor Jenny, feels padded out to the point where the length never feels justified. Outside of Jenny's boyfriend Jeff coming into play and the trio attending a roller rink, little substance happens in this special and many scenes could have been eliminated altogether. On top of that, the attempts at drama and suspense feel like a completely different subtext, as if we're watching a mediocre coming of age flick rather than anything resembling the world of Peanuts. Considering how much familial pride was in the making of this special, down to Jenny being played by Charles Schulz's daughter Jill, one can see the good intentions a little too much in this half baked dull fest.

As for the film being a live-action animation hybrid, when watching the special itself, at no point does it make any sense for it to be set in reality. The whole story could have been fully animated and nothing would have been amiss, outside of the drawn out drama scenes of course. Not much criticism can be given to the compositing of Spike in live-action environments based on the context of this film being made for television, but when watching him interact in the real world, it feels like we're watching retro PSA commercials instead of a fully realized special. That being said, the real highlight comes during the roller rink sequence, as one can see how much attention to detail was put into this well choreographed and beautifully lit scene. There are certainly moments of clever visual accompaniment, and composer Paul Rodriguez does the most with his laid back and upbeat tempos. Unfortunately, without much of an explanation behind this special being hybrid other than diluted experimentation, what we're left with is a Peanuts film that only resembles itself by title alone.

Good intentions and effort to make a truly unique film in your catalog do not always lead to satisfactory results. For all its ambition, The Girl in the Red Truck fails as both an experimental Peanuts venture and a well thought out dramatic piece on its own. It's hard to say who this film will please outside of curious Peanuts enthusiasts, as it's too different to be appealing to general audiences and too simplistic to be admired by the prime time crowd. That being said, I highly recommend checking this film out based on its mere existence alone. Of all the cooky vanity projects in the world, this one can't be beat.

I wanted to like this, I really did. I like the Peanuts specials, as a rule, and I didn't think that any of them was truly bad (but then that may be because I haven't yet seen all of them). But sitting down and watching this made me question my life choices.

To start with, it's mostly live action, with only a handful of fully animated segments linking the beginning to the rest of the feature. This is the only point in which Charlie Brown and Snoopy appear. That's fine, but for the rest, the live action cast interact with an animated character (Spike), which raises questions as to how their worlds connect. Where does the animated world stop and the real world begin? Is there some kind of portal between them? It's really an unusual way to make something like this, but it may have something to do with Roger Rabbit being in theatres around the time this special aired.

The general premise is that Spike gets himself picked up by the titlular Girl in the Red Truck, Jenny (played by Charles Schulz's daughter, Jill). They hang out, her boyfriend Jeff comes along... unfortunately, little of value happens until the last 15 minutes or so, where Spike is involved in a gunfight and is saved by the couple. They offer him a nice home with them, but he trades it all for his old, quiet, isolated life in the desert, leaving us with really a sad ending.

The problem is, it's all loosely tied together with things that just sort of happen. We have only a vague idea of what goes on in the live characters' world. We know Jenny aspires to be a jazz dancer, and Jeff tries to arrange an audition over her aerobics class, but we get little beyond that. For all we know, they were both just ill-informed of each other's plans. Maybe that's what it's meant to be, but you're never sure.

I did have hopes for this special, as previously stated, so it really struck me how plodding and miserable the whole thing is. Of course, the next special, "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" gets the Peanuts Animated Canon back on track with its handling of its hard-hitting subject matter, and is not saddening for puerile reasons. This one, however, remains a strange anomaly.