It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown is the fifteenth animated TV special based on the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz. It first aired on CBS on March 16, 1976. It is the first animated cartoon in which Rerun van Pelt appears.
This special was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Special.
Plot
To celebrate Arbor Day, everybody works together to plant a garden, after Sally was humiliated in class by not understanding the purpose, her response being "Oh, that's simple. That's the day when all the ships come sailing into the arbor!". Unfortunately, the garden is located in Charlie Brown's baseball field, and he has a game with Peppermint Patty's team approaching. However, Charlie Brown works to make the best of the situation by attaching baseball gloves to the trees as well as caps (to make them look like scarecrows), which results in Peppermint Patty's team being unable to score due to the large number of fly outs from the balls being hit into the gloves. Schroeder says he will kiss Lucy if she hits a home run, which he figures she will not. However, Charlie Brown is happy to see that Lucy indeed hits a home run and scores the only run in the game. The game is cut short by rain, and although Charlie Brown expresses agony that "We were winning!", he accepts it as a de facto victory and one of the few times his baseball team has won a game.
Goodbye Guaraldi
Vince Guaraldi had composed the soundtrack to the TV special, which was his final opus. After work, he went to a Howard Johnson's where he had been staying in San Francisco, but was later found dead at the desk in his room. An autopsy revealed that Guaraldi had died of myocardial infarction. Although some critics gave It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown low marks due to celebrating an obscure holiday, many have regarded it as the swan song of Charlie Brown music, as later Peanuts specials often lacked the jazzy tones Guaraldi was known for.
Voice cast
- Dylan Beach - Charlie Brown
- Gail Davis - Sally Brown
- Liam Martin - Linus van Pelt
- Sarah Beach - Lucy van Pelt
- Vinny Dow - Rerun van Pelt (briefly)
- Greg Felton - Schroeder
- Stuart Brotman - Peppermint Patty
- Michelle Muller - Frieda
- Bill Melendez - Snoopy/Woodstock
Marcie, Franklin, 5, and Violet appear, but are silent.