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weirdkev27 · 2 days ago

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It's the Girl in the Red Truck Charlie Brown is exactly what I needed after my dog died

In Loving Memory of Maddie

This.. has not been an easy few days for me. I expected to have at least 5 or 6 more years with my Dog maddie, a schanuzer with a resting grumpy face that belied her enthuasim, kindness and eagerness to see me , my sister and my mom every day. She was a good dog and her sudden death at the vets due to Kidney failure was gutting. I spent a chunk of Sunday breaking down and the rest getting out in the world to get some air and not let my grief consume me, with the gracious help of my mom. I thought i'd have my dog daughter forever but instead.. it was only a short, beautiful two years.

So in these trying times.... I decided to endulge myself. I asked my friend Emma to switch what she'd planned to comission from me with something else. I've gotten enough energy back to do both, but I still wanted to do this. I wanted to do something that felt in the spirit of my dog: a bit scruffy, a bit weird but heartfelt. And thankfully I had just the idea in mind: A look at a special i'd long wanted to see and had no idea was easily avaliable on youtube, one that failed in what it's creator wanted to do but still starred a character I loved so dearly i'd watch him eat a cactus for 3 hours. Something so weird that film critic and my idol Nathan Rabin couldn't help but admire it's guts if still find it hilaroiusly weird. It was something I both HAD to see and cover when I saw it. It's The Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown

Girl in the Red Truck was intended to be Peanuts Creator Charles Schulz' Citzen Kane. His magnum opus. A big artsy expression of his talents. It's instead an awkward and ambitious b movie packed into a tv special where Schulz favorite character and mine Spike is sandwiched between his daughter Jill trying her best to act and the whitest man to ever white as her love intrest trying to drag her to the city against her will by wearing her down, all done with decent animation on live action that had the misfortune of coming out after Roger Rabbit ate it's whole seven course meal before this special got to the table. It's weird, it's hilarious, and it's deeply fascinating and i'ts just the kind of thing I needed after this loss. So let's dive in

Who's Spike?

So for casual peanuts fans, they probably won't recognize the star of this picture. But to me he's everything. Spike REALLY is my faviorite Peanuts character. He's got stiff competition from Peppermint Patty, Rerun and Snoopy's Awkward Teenage Nephew, but I genuinely love this guy and i'm delighted to go off about him for a bit.

Spike first appeared in August 1975, announcing he was coming to visit Snoopy. He was the first member of Snoopy's family we met, and he made quite an impressoin, two feet to be exact

As you can see like his brother Spike's a touch weird, taking it even father: instead of living in the suburbs spike lives a solitary existance in the desert just outside of the small town of Needles, California. He's often isolated with only letters to his brother and a cactus for company, with only occasional trips into town to play pinball and hangouts with the local coyotes to keep him company.

Spike is both tragic and joyful: he deals with loneliness and depression.. yet finds his own way around them, making friends with a cactus, making jokes, and trying to find love despite looking like a warn out pile of hair and sorrow all day everyday. Spike is a deeply relatable weirdo, someone outside society, but still a kind soul who just wants to be love and makes his own fun

He gets depressed, sure, but as someone who often feels isolated thanks to his autism and lack of ablility to drive himself anywhere and struggles with depression, Spike is asperational. he's comfortable in who he is and gets back up from his depressive episodes. He even met mickey mouse

He's a fun character, able to carry whole strips basically by himself and was a delightful addition to the peanuts universe, a break from the strip's usual universe to check in on Snoopy's brother what lives in the desert.

Despite joining the main cast eventually and being a favorite of Schulz, Spike hasn't fully caught on in animation. While I love the guy... I do understand WHY. Spike is hard to adapt: He's a talky character and part of his charm is him being wistful in his desert home.. something he can't do in animation as like his brother he can't speak, so he needs a narrator. That leads to the other issue that makes him prickly to adapt: he's isolated from most of the main cast. Snoopy visits him and writes letters to him, but he rarely if ever interacts with the kids. One of his few major interactions with them was in his intro where Lucy, in one of her genuinely sweet moments, saw how skinny and malnourished the guy is, swept him over to her house and made sure he got a decent meal or 5.

I mean she took Linus' bed to do it because it's still Lucy, but the fact that someone who usually cannot stand dogs and whose reaction to Snoopy's dog house burning down was

Lept to take this guy in for a while is so damn cute. I really wish Spike would've moved in with the Van Pelts. Rerun rejected him because.. plot. (The special does it better by having their parents say he can't stay). But I suppose his charm would've been lost.

Back to the point, this was one of the few times I can remember spike really showing up with the rest of the cast. The others were buying the baseball field back from some developers so the kids could still play on it and being snoopy's best man..

Not that he was exactly the BEST

It's probably the only terrible thing I can think of the guy ever did and understandably Snoopy's Getting Married choose to have it just be some random golden retriver the bride ran off with instead.

Spike is part of the main cast.. but he's APART from the main cast, in his own little sphere that's harder to thread into things. The specials loved threading in quick adaptations of daily strips, but it's easier to throw in a peppermint patty sleeping gag (always a classic), or snoopy asking for food. It's harder to just.. randomly jumpcut to a depressed man in a desert talking to a cactus. Even harder on the budget. And back then the specials didn't focus on characters who weren't' Charlie Brown or Snoopy as the main focus often. There's exceptions: She's a Good Skate focuses solely on Peppermint Patty, adapting the strip's longest and one of it's best storylines, Why Charlie Brown Why? focusing on Linus breakdown as he deals with his friend/crush's cancer diagnosis and the jackassery of those around him, and Play it Again Charlie Brown focusing on Lucy and Schroder but that's three specials out of dozens. Now granted they could've say had Snoopy take a road trip to see him, adapt a few of snoopy's weird road trips together, like that time he planned to go to wimbeldon, ended up in Kansas City and decided to see his sister

But they likely wanted to keep things cost effected and stick to the characters people were familiar with and buying merchandise of... like Snoopy's brother olaf

Emma, my friend who sponsored this, got an olaf out of a gashapon machine and it sent me down the rabbit hole. Olaf is apparently HUGE in japan. Also for those wondering he's snoopy's other brother.

There's also andy, marbles, Molly and Rover. The latter two are dubiously canon as Schulz did'nt consider the specails canon and unlike Andy they were never brought into the strip but since he created them i'm a counting them. Olaf later became a recurring character traveling the world with Andy and even planning to move in with Spike if they could ever find him. I like to think they did and to this day the three are just hanging out , hanging out with the family having themselves a party in the desert.

There was plenty of material to mine to loop Spike in.. but it was easier not to. Why go out of your way for Snoopy's weird brother when you have locally sourced weirdness from snoopy, sally as she grew and peppermint patty? Spike's a great character but I do understand why he only got one special. I do hope Apple does a Spike Special that isn't actively buried by it's creators and a pain in the ass to remaster, as he deserves his day in the sun, but I don't hold the grudge I used to for not using him. He's not unusable as this specail shows: His very unique look, daffy personality tha'ts just different enough from his brother and quiet sadness and solitude. He just needs a bit more attention like a lot of godo doggos

The Actual Special

It's the Girl in the Red Truck is a live action animated hybrid, part of Chuck's grand ambitions for this special. It was intended to be state of the art, impressive and cool. Building on what came before to create something unique.... that thanks to delays ended up coming out the same year as roger rabbit

And hurt it did as everyone assumed it was cashing in on Roger Rabbit but with less of a budget to the point, and this is a real thing I found on wikipedia, Charles had his daugher and the film's star Jill emphasise the date in interviews. It did not help.

Look comparing this to Roger Rabbit... it's far behind. Spike interacts with a few objects, but most of the things he holds are animated too. Roger Rabbit wasn't the first to do this, but they were a pioneer in how this was done. The way Roger seamlessly interacted with things with revolutionary. I mean the dueling piano scene with Daffy and Donald alone shows just how well synched everything was.

On their own though.. the effects are solid. For a big budget B movie, Spike blends in okay. Sometimes he's very jarring like a scene at the diner or some of the skating, other times.. he blends in perfectly. He's just a weird cartoon in our world, sitting in a chair having snacks or getting smacked in the head with a truck. It's not perfect, but for what had to be only a few million dollars , some of which HAD to be out of pocket, it's impressive. Peanuts is a bit franchise yes, but it's easy to forget the specails were usually made on a budget of a paperclip and a piece of string. The fact that even with an extra bump he could pull this off is remarkable.

Spike also works well as a lead. Having Snoopy interact with adults would've been more markatable.. but it just woul'dve felt.. off. Snoopy never spoke to adults in the strip why start now. Spike's detachment from the usual peanuts gang is a strength here: He has a setting you can easily slide other characters into, him interacting with adults is weird but not as weird as he hardly interacts with anyone, and like Snoopy he has great physicality: He has a lot of snoopy's effortless charm and belief.. but is a lot more human, a lot more self doubt in his tired bones. The animatoin on spike is fantastic and shows that even without his monologues, he works just as fine in pantomime as his brother, starting the specail cooking pancakes, being dismayed at the mountain of cans in Jenny, our lead's truck, and playing chess with salt and pepper bottles. His fun personality, love of life and fun expressions all come through. He gets into shenanigans like snoopy, probably another reason why they didn't use him as they had snoopy already for pantomime eat up specail time shenanigans, but you feel him. Snoopy would also relax into a chair, but he might not react the same to the cans, and would probably try to run rather than lift up a sign saying "I'm not a coyote" when being shot at.

What really hurts the special.. is the actual plot. The idea behind it isn't bad, in the strips there was a girl in a red truck, a woman who drove by where Spike lived every day he waved to

It wasn't the only strip adapted (big thanks to tarvinneeko mainitakaan on youtube who has videos pointing out what moments are pulled directly from the strip) , as Spike's french lessons, pancakes being taken by tumbleweeds and other early gags are pulled directly from it.

Frankly the special would've been better if it was just.. spike doing antics in the desert. It could still be a hybrid, still throw an actor or two in, but Spike works fine on his own and they had the means via the letter he sends to snoopy to get over the lack of dialouge. It's damming that the best part of the specail.. is the first 10 minutes that easily could've been done in animation only without loosing anything. In fact doing so could've allowed for more gags with Spikes cactus, which here is a real life prop. Hell even in live action you could still do a lot of the jokes I saw looking up this french strip

Instead... we meet the girl in the Red Truck herself, Jenny. Jenny is played by Jill Schulz and god bless her.. she tries. She has genuine energy in the part, wants this to work and is trying. Sadly the director did not help. The film was directed by Walter C Miller, who was a friend of Sparky's.. but also inexperinced, blaming his issues on his actors and making a miserable experince for Jill, forcing her to smile more than she would and likely explaning why the cast is so damn stilted. While inexperince didn't help, a good director could've worked with that. We did not have one of those.

I'm sympathetic to most involved here: Schulz is far from the first director to have more ambition than budget or knowhow, and unlike most he wasn't a dick about it. He was one of the kindest men who ever existed. Jill Schulz was just trying and was better at dancing and rollerskating than this. She was a good skate charlie brown but not meant for this. Miller was a director, had more knowhow and probably coudl've gotten someone in who knew what they were doing, but was too stubborn to admit his faults and work with what he had. You can be a low budget director and still do great shit but Miller just didn't know how.

That said, the script.. isn't good and the characters ar eflat. Jenny is an aerobics instructor who lives in Needles and gladly waves to spike. When her truck breaks down and Spike accidently fixes it with a head injury, she gladly offers to take him home and both having a mild crush on her and figuring why not, he goes with. Jenny is a kind soul who likes living by the river, something I can admire and enjoys her peaceful life. She even has a friend Molly who runs the local diner and I love how Molly.. already knows spike. He's one of her best customers. It just fits the character so well and makes sense. Spike usually only goes into town to eat or play pinball and him playing pool and as someone who can't drive myself I relate to going with whatever happens to be in walking distance.

Sadly there's a dark cloud on the horizon, an obstalce in the way of this happy new life for Spike: Jeff. Jeff is the whitest man to ever white. He looks like the bully from revenge of the nerds and uncle joey from full house got in an unfortunate teleporter accident.

Tenmu Shooter McGavin here is trying to take Jenny away from all of this, wanting her to take a film audition he got from her in LA. As he tells her "jen do you really want to spend the rest of your life out here in the desert teaching aerobics?" the kind of sentence that makes me happy this is my job. He does not get her at all: She directly tells him "I like the people here, I like it here i'm not moving to the city" as nicely as she can, and while it puts a strain on their relationship as he's got an unindentified music job in la. Probably trying to bulldoze an orphanage to put up a night club But he's determined to get her to move despite her clearly not wanting to. Jeff GETS why she dosen't want to move on some level but can't accept it and ends up moving out here anywhere. Jeff you can make music anywhere and musicains would come out to the middle of nowhere to smoke weed and record if you made the spot cool enough. Spike could probably get you the good stuff. He knows people.

That might not pan out though as Jeff.. is DEEPLY jealous of spike. He mopes that Spike is in his chair, asks "why you left the door open because a wild animals' here" and spends every moment he can trying to beat a dog in a metaphorical pissing contest. Which is never going to happen. Trying to compete with your partners pets makes you look like an asshole, makes them like you less and is pointlesss when the dog... is doing nothing wrong. And if you try to make it literal well.. your going to loose that match too.

Mary Worth is a hell of a drug and i'd like to thank The Comics Curmudgeon for getting me hooked on it.

Jeff is just.. deeply unlikeable. He makes spike ride in the back and Jenny is rightfully upset. It gets to the point when he hears GUNFIRE in the climax he claims he didn't hear anything. In the desert. Where there's no other sounds. I mean I can't blame him for not wanting to go towards gunfire but still jesus. You question WHY this guy gets the girl in the end when all he does is bitch and moan about a perfectly resonable dog who has no intentions to try and break up his relationship.

For now everyone roller discos. And you may laugh at a small desert town, one Schulz lived in as a boy that is very real, having a roller disco but my counter to that is it also has a cartoon dog. We get a really fun roller dance sequence and Jill shows off her moves. She's incredibly good and while spike lags at times and it's one of the most notable times. He can't help have fun.

Alas Spike realizes Jenny loves Jeff.. and his home is just not with her. His home is out there. It's a flaw in the script: the idea of Spike getting a genuinely loving owner but realizing he belongs out there is good but they spent so much time focusing on zack moris defective older clone that they neglected to give this the emotional weight it needed.

The scene after of Spike coming across some coyotes and jamming is delightful though.

I love finally getting to see some of these chaps as the Coyotes are an off screen force in the strip, their scraggly beards and hats and how they just.. vibe with spike. He whips out a jug and joins in and it's a wholesome moment. It's also more proof that had the special just focused on spike alone, this would've been a true classic instead of an awkward experiment. The long stretches we spend on a romance we don't possible care about drag down a special that easily coudl've been 20-30 minutes and all the better for it.

Instead the doofuses have to save spike from Gunfire. I do love him holding up a sign saying "I am not a coyote" but otherwise it just feels a bit much and they stop shooting when they realize their are humans out there, which feels unrelasitic. It's the desert. Ther'es plent of corpse burying space.

So Spike decides getting shot at occasionally is better than spending time with Jeff and walks off. The ending is effective depsite the lack of emotinal build up, jenny wistfully saying he's "out there" and Spike playing a jug... not sure if this was the right call.

This special could've been something fantastic. Spike is a great character and the best moments are him just getting to be himself, dealing with the highs of desert life from french lessons, jug music, a pretty girl driving by once a day, to the lows of getting shot at. The core idea is good but it's overstuffed, staffed by actors who never should've been actors and stiff. Schulz meant well with this one but whenever it breaks from Spike the special breaks down. Spike works because he's a well built multifacted character, triumph and tragedy all in one beagle. He has tons of range.. but he's strapped to two characters who were thiny written. While the direction dosen't help, i'ts clear Charles didn't put too much effort into the actual characters and he CAN do better. Even one off characters have more pop than these two. I'd watch Spike and his awkward teenage nephew on a road trip through the desert long before i'd watch the human only scnees in this again.

This project... just did not work. It's entertaning because spike is and parts of it are so bad it's good. "You wanna teach aerobics in the desert your whole life?" is pure cinema. It's fun to watch because like any b-movie it has a LOT more ambition than it can deliver on. As a specail, a film or Charles Schulz citzen kane it fales. As a weird experiment that's fun to look back on, hilarous to watch at time and has plenty of good antics from a throughly likeable dog in a hat, it succeeds. This is a so bad it's good b movie that happens to have a peanuts character in it and said peanuts character is the best part of it. It's enjoyable for being something so weirdly diffrent from the brand focusing on adults melodrama in the desert, for how spike sometimes dosen't fit, and for just.. spike. This special isn't for everyone and I understand that. 100%. But it's for me: a goofy little failed experiment starring my faviorite fictional dog that was just what I needed after loosing my dog. Thanks for reading. If you'd like to support this blog consider joining patreon

Or my substack to help keep the lights on and keep the root beer flowing. I currently have a substack exclusive retrospective of the critic up and will soon have subscriber exclusvie reviews of the oblongs and some other fun stuff. Thanks again for reading

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