She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown

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She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown is one of many prime-time animated TV specials based upon the popular comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It was originally aired on the CBS network in 1980.

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[edit] Synopsis

Peppermint Patty is practicing figure skating with her coach Snoopy (in a role modelled on real-life skating coach Carlo Fassi) for a major competition coming up, but the many days of getting up at 4:30 A.M. are starting to take their toll, and she falls asleep constantly in class. One of her practices was halted briefly when a group of ten hockey players threatened her if she did not leave so they could play. Patty and Snoopy took care of the whole situation with two simple pushes to the first guy and they all fell on top of each other unconscious.

One day after school, Patty and Marcie go to Marcie's house, and Patty notices that Marcie has a sewing machine. Despite Marcie explaining that it is her mother's machine, and that she does not know how to sew, Patty commissions her to make a dress for the competition. With that settled, they head to a fabric store and buy the supplies (Peppermint Patty decides on denim, thus a "jean dress"). As expected, it does not come out good on Marcie's part, looking more like a sleeveless poncho. She almost tearfully shows the dress to Snoopy, blaming Marcie in the process. Snoopy comes back in and does it right (naturally).

The day of the competition has arrived. All the contestants are first practicing altogether, then they clear while the Zamboni (driven by Snoopy) clears the ice. The first two contestants end up falling and get rather low scores. The third contestant does a rather bang-up job and is whom Patty needs to beat for first place. Unfortunately, disaster strikes as her music tape goes haywire in the cassette deck. While Snoopy (who is also running the music for each contestant) frantically tries to fix it and ends up in a fight with the machine and Patty is sweating trying to hold her pose, and all the rest of the Peanuts characters worry that she will be disqualified, Woodstock steps up to the microphone and whistles her music, and all is saved.

Peppermint Patty receives the highest score, and has won the competition. She is shown on the stand with her trophy, while her runners-up stand below her with silver and bronze medals. On the way out, she is talking with Snoopy about her performance, and Snoopy is back as his grumbling, coaching self. She finally asks if he has anything nice to say, and she gets kissed on the cheek by him.

[edit] Original Strip

This program was written from a relatively long series of Peanuts comic strips originally published in 1974. The strip had other subplots that were left out of the special, and changes that were made to the storyline by the time it went to the small screen. For instance:

  • In the strip, after the disaster with Patty's skating dress, Marcie's mother stepped in to make the alterations. It was Snoopy who altered the dress in the TV special.
  • After Patty gets her dress she wants to do something with her "mousy-blah" hair, so she ultimately decides to go to Charlie Brown's dad's barber shop, but Charlie Brown forgot to tell his dad she was a girl (and Peppermint Patty told Charlie Brown's dad that she could strike him out in three pitches), so he gives her a boy's haircut, much to her despair. To cover up the cut, Patty wears an afro wig several sizes too big. This scene is altered in the special, with the wig a gift from Snoopy and promptly refused.
  • Patty arrives at the competition and only at that point finds out that it is for roller skating, not figure skating. Patty returns from the competition realizing she still owes Snoopy for the lessons. Having no money, she gives him her wig as payment.

[edit] Voice Cast

[edit] Notes

  • This program is also one of the few specials (if not the only one) in which the adults were voiced by actual adults instead of the muted trombone sounds that were normally used in prior specials.
  • The song on the tape that Peppermint Patty plays for her warm-ups on skating, and used for Woodstock's whistling, is the notable aria O mio babbino caro from the one-act opera Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini.
  • Woodstock's whistling in this special was done by Jason Victor Serinus, a professional whistler. See http://www.jasonserinus.com.
  • Although the plot line itself is implausible (as are many children's cartoons), the actual skating portrayed in the film is quite accurate for the time. For example, Peppermint Patty is seen practicing compulsory figures and her free skating routine uses realistic figure skating jumps, spins, and choreography. The skating scenes were animated using the rotoscoping technique, using Schulz's own daughter as the model and a tape of "Woodstock's aria" recorded by Jason Victor Serinus.
  • The other three songs, one on each tape (before Peppermint Patty's tape), are: Dance of the Mirlitons from The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; First Movement of Symphony No. 5 (Allegro con brio) by Ludwig van Beethoven; and the first part of the Bridal Chorus from the opera Lohengrin by Richard Wagner.

[edit] External links


Preceded by
“You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown”		 Peanuts television specials Followed by
“Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown”
v • d • e
Peanuts television specials
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s