User Reviews

I'm probably one of the few who's actually seen this, here goes.

As mentioned before, this is not the 1969 movie, but a 1963 (not 1965 as commonly believed) TV special on Schulz and his characters. It was unable to find a sponsor and shelved. It's not hard to see why. It's actually quite dull except for what I'm about to describe.

Most of the documentary follows a day in the life of Charles M. Schulz. We see his estate, we see him taking his kids to school and drawing his strip, with some commentary on all of the above.

The meat of this documentary is the 3 minutes of animated skits by the Peanuts gang. Done after the early 1960's Ford Commercials and before "A Charlie Brown Christmas, these are amusing vignettes on Charlie Brown's perennial failure, Linus' powers with his blanket, and other strip standbys. Other than that, not much to write home about except for hardcore Schulzologists.

As has been debated, IMDb lists this film as being from 1963 however it is suggested that there is 1965 footage in it. Something a bit more concrete though is at about 2 min 30 sec into it there is a shot of a cartoon paper dated May 10, 1964. Another way to date this is in the family footage where the ages of his children are given, one of which is Meredith at 14. Her birthday is 02/05/1950, so the time of the shooting of this film would have to be somewhere between February 5th 1964 to February 4th 1965. I can't say if the film was produced in 1965, but it simply couldn't be 1963. It's a fun documentary though! Worth seeking out. It is wonderful to see Mr. Schulz himself drawing and discussing his ideas, seeing views of his regular day, hearing the introduction and description of the characters and gathering a feel for life as it was in the days just prior to the first Charlie Brown feature films.

There are two films called A Boy Named Charlie Brown. First there was a TV documentary about Charles Schulz and Charlie Brown, that failed and never made it onto TV. Then, later, they used the same title for a longer, animated Peanuts special.

This entry is for the TV documentary special, I believe. It is not easy to find this documentary. It is said to have footage of Charles Schulz in 1965 going through his life in Sepastapol, California, driving his kids to school, getting honored at a SF Giants game at Candlestick Park, etc.

Anyone that can succeed in filling out this entry with graphics or information about the never-aired TV documentary, it would be appreciated.

When I was a young child, I was taken to see the full-length Peanuts film "A Boy Named Charlie Brown". I was very surprised when searching on YouTube that a different film existed with the same name...a half hour documentary from 1963.

The narration to the documentary seems as if it was written for folks who had never read the strip...which was VERY unlikely at the time, as it was the most popular comic strip in the world. This makes the first portion of the film a bit difficult to love. Later, they get to more interesting faire...interviews with Charles Schulz himself. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time for this and much seemed unanswered. Overall, I think the film should have been longer and more in depth...but it is mildly interesting if you find it and have nothing else to watch.