Recently, I was asked a relatively straightforward question: “Why do you love Snoopy?” Thing is, my affection for Snoopy and the entire PEANUTS gang is a multi-layered affair that dates back to the late 1970s, thus placing me in 2015 as a sort of “keeper of the torch” – tasked with helping new generations know and appreciate the creations of Charles M. Schulz. That all starts here at home with The Rock Daughters™, and that’s why I took a gig as a PEANUTS Brand Ambassador this year. With the November release of THE PEANUTS MOVIE fast-approaching (get tix via Fandango), we may be about to turn the corner, but Snoopy and his friends don’t seem as prominent as they were for me growing up – and I’d like to change that. I’m old-school, and that means that I get goosebumps when I hear the five-second bumper that indicated “A CBS SPECIAL PRESENTATION,” which was usually code for “Charlie Brown’s (insert holiday here) is coming on!” Like many, it was the holiday specials that really hooked me, but it was something else that really made an impact on my impressionable young mind… possibly 1977’s most important film that wasn’t called STAR WARS.
RACE FOR YOUR LIFE, CHARLIE BROWN was a feature-length film that my sister and I watched countless times on television as children in the 1980s, and it was absolutely mesmerizing. The weird thing is, it never received a DVD release until this past Spring, and I was all sorts of excited for it…
What’s not to love about Snoopy and Woodstock roaring into a film like Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in EASY RIDER? And Charlie Brown hops on the bike like a young Jack Nicholson as the whole crew heads out to “Camp Remote” for some over-the-top adventures and white water rafting fun! Toss in a groovy soundtrack, and there was a lot to dig in the movie – plenty more than my very young mind could probably even comprehend.
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Fast forward a few decades, and to my wife and I becoming parents for the first time. At some point prior to having our second daughter, Little Addie and I had been watching a lot of PEANUTS specials on DVD during a time before this site really started to take off. She really wanted a Snoopy so badly, and I remembered seeing a single plush Snoopy at a local Hallmark store at some point in the not-so-distant past. I’ll never forget making a special trip over there one night, walking in and eventually locating the lonely pup – he was still there. The next day, Addie had her Snoopy, and now two kids into all of this, he’s still a regular fixture of play – but now he’s got companions like Belle.
So why do I love Snoopy? Because PEANUTS are forever, and it’s something wholesome that our entire family can enjoy. When November 6 rolls around, you can find us at the local theater.
It is sorta interesting that THE PEANUTS MOVIE is coming out just a month before a new STAR WARS movie, isn’t it?
