Charlie Brown's Career Education Program was a series of educational filmstrips created by a company known as "The Charlie Brown's Career Education Venture" in 1979, under contract by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. These filmstrips were created in cooperation with Random House and the Peanuts animation team (including Lee Mendelson), using Vince Guaraldi's jazz music and featuring many of the same voice actors as the TV specials and films―namely, the cast of actors who worked on Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!!).[1] Besides depicting unique, original adventures of the Peanuts gang, the filmstrips also feature the first (and for four decades, only) appearance of the character Dolores.
Background[]
A filmstrip is a kind of multimedia. It is made up of a series of roughly thirty to fifty still images on 35mm (1.4in) film. While the images are projected onto a screen, an accompanying soundtrack, which may be on a vinyl record or a cassette tape, is played. Filmstrips typically have a running time of ten to twenty minutes. Filmstrips were introduced in the 1940s and remained in common use in schools until the 1980s, when increasingly cheap videotapes made them obsolete.
Due to only being distributed to schools and the format being largely phased out, the Peanuts filmstrips have become rather obscure. Popular knowledge of them has persisted in large part due to the efforts of comic historian and Peanuts expert Nat Gertler, who over the years has collected nearly all of the filmstrips. Gertler is under copyright obligation to not upload entire filmstrips online, but has presented them in public on occasion at conventions with the cooperation of curator Benjamin L. Clark from the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center.
Cast[]
The filmstrips and their guides did not have any credits, however Leticia Ortiz's casting as Dolores was revealed in the 1980 book Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown!, where she appears as part of a photo with the then-current voice cast for Peanuts. Her presence in the photograph suggests it was this cast that provided voices for the filmstrips:
- Arrin Skelley – Charlie Brown
- Bill Melendez – Snoopy
- Daniel Anderson – Linus van Pelt
- Michelle Muller – Lucy van Pelt
- Annalisa Bortolin – Sally Brown
- Laura Planting – Peppermint Patty
- Casey Carlson – Marcie
- Leticia Ortiz – Dolores
- Ronald Hendrix – Franklin
List of filmstrips[]
Note: Copies of nearly all of the filmstrips, along with the accompanying guides, are in the possession of comic historian Nat Gertler. The only strip missing from Gertler's collection is "You're Worth a Lot, Charlie Brown".
Primary Series for Grades K-3[]
- You May Like Many Jobs, Charlie Brown
- Where Do You Want To Live, Charlie Brown
- You May Live Underwater, Charlie Brown
- We Must Be Fair, Charlie Brown
- We All Have Special Skills, Charlie Brown
- Schoolwork is Important, Charlie Brown
- It’s Your Hobby, Charlie Brown
- Work Means Different Things, Charlie Brown
- People Do Different Kinds of Work, Charlie Brown
- Work Is Important, Charlie Brown
- You’re Worth a Lot, Charlie Brown
- You’ll Work a Lot, Charlie Brown
Intermediate Series for Grades 4-8[]
Series A[]
- You Have Many Choices, Charlie Brown
- You May Be Moving, Charlie Brown
- Think of the Future, Charlie Brown
- You’ll Have Barriers, Charlie Brown
- You’re Something Special, Charlie Brown
- Education Is Important, Charlie Brown
- Go Fly a Kite, Charlie Brown
- What’s You’re Favorite Work, Charlie Brown
- There’s a Lot You Can Do, Charlie Brown
- You Need to Work, Charlie Brown
- We All Have Dignity, Charlie Brown
- We Have to Prepare, Charlie Brown
Series B[]
- How Do You Want to Live, Charlie Brown
- Leisure Time is Important, Charlie Brown
- You Should Plan Your Career, Charlie Brown
- Be Aware of Yourself, Charlie Brown
- You Have to Adapt, Charlie Brown
- We Need Teamwork, Charlie Brown
- It’s Fun Working With You, Charlie Brown
- We All Need the Right Attitude, Charlie Brown
- We All Need Self-Fulfillment, Charlie Brown
- Work Experience Helps, Charlie Brown
- Many Jobs Are Alike, Charlie Brown