It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown

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It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown is a 1984 TV special, featuring Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts characters, parodying Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Flashdance (1983) as well as a number of popular top 40 hits of the early 1980s.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

It's the big football game where Snoopy wins a game from Peppermint Patty's team. That night when all of the lights go off, out comes the radio and Snoopy becomes Flashbeagle (with an ouftit inspired by Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" look: headband, sweats, and so on).

That next day, Peppermint Patty gets in a lot of mix-ups in class, including getting her hair caught in her binder (with her report trapped inside). Also, when Patty falls asleep, Marcie drags her up to the front of the room to serve as a visual aid in the class's study of the human head. Then it's time for gym class (Peppermint Patty's favorite class: "I'm so dumb I wish all classes were gym"), and Patty leads the other kids in a workout routine to her song "I'm In Shape." This song contained a bridge inspired by the cheerleader chants in the 1982 Toni Basil hit song "Mickey", in which Patty spontaneously breaks into a chant to inspire a visibly exhausted Charlie Brown to keep up the pace: "Hey Chuck, you know how, get in shape and do it now, hey Chuck!"

Charlie Brown and his sister Sally host a party for all the neighborhood kids at the Brown household that night. Sally is fixated on getting Linus, her "sweet babboo", to dance with her, but Linus resists. The kids play a game of Simon Says, which soon turns into "Lucy Says" ("Lucy's the Boss, so listen to Lucy, and here's what Lucy says"). Charlie Brown very nearly wins the game, but Lucy gets him out at the last second. Meanwhile, Snoopy is helping serve fruit punch to the guests, but Charlie Brown is horrified to discover that Snoopy was randomly sipping some of the punch glasses through a straw. To make matters worse, Lucy comes by for a drink and takes one of the cups that contain Snoopy's Dog Germs. Lucy, who is totally unsuspecting of what Snoopy did to her drink, reprimands a grossed-out Charlie Brown for making such strange faces, until finally Charlie Brown can't take it any more and walks away. Finally, Pig-Pen leads the kids in the square dance-like "Pig Pen Hoedown."

The next day, Charlie Brown reprimands Snoopy, calling him useless and lazy and informing him that there are other dogs who do a lot more than he does, like herd sheep. That evening, Snoopy dresses up for the big moment, the dance hall performance. After strutting around the neighborhood, he finds a group of kids and dances for them to wild applause, accompanied by the song Flashbeagle (which was seemingly inspired by Michael Sembello's Flashdance soundtrack hit "Maniac" and featured Joey Scarbury and Desirée Goyette). That morning (3 days later), Sally takes Snoopy to one of her "Show and Tell" sessions. Inside the classroom, things go as normal until someone turns on a boombox and Snoopy's song begins to play, and the classroom becomes an impromptu disco. Sally is mortified at first, but eventually joins in the fun. After school, Charlie Brown insists he should change Snoopy's behavior when Sally says, "You just leave him alone. That's the first time I've ever got an A in Show And Tell."

[edit] Trivia

The soundtrack to this special was released on a Charlie Brown Records LP in 1983.

Marine Jahan, the body double for actress Jennifer Beals in the movie Flashdance, was the model for Snoopy's breakdancing in the cartoon.

Stacy Ferguson, aka "Fergie" of The Black Eyed Peas, played the voice of "Sally". She also performed several songs on the It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984) (TV) soundtrack, including "The Pig-Pen Hoe-Down," "I'm In Shape" and "Lucy Says." Stacy received credit for the "Flashbeagle" TV special, but not for the album. [1]

One Kid showed his Pet Chameleon,George for Show and Tell.

Bill Melendez explains that the dancing Snoopy in the club scene was done by a process called rotoscoping where the drawn character over live action pictures. The dancing model Marine Jahan was chosen to do scenes were Snoopy was dancing in the special. The animators rotoscoped live action pictures of Jahan to Snoopy in order to make these scenes.