That is one of the greatest lines in animation history!
I mean, who are all these people who give out rocks as Halloween treats, and why do they keep giving them to the kid with too many eye-holes cut out of his bedsheet? Even Pigpen, walking in a permanent cloud of dust and probably smelling like dirty laundry dipped in a sewer, gets actual candy, but poor old Charlie Brown just keeps getting rocks.
And the line is delivered brilliantly. Peter Robbins, with this low, almost flat monotone adds an air of "Well, I expected this," to those four words, but with more than a hint of disappointment. As if on some level, Charlie Brown really thinks that maybe this next house will finally be the one that gives him something good, but still not believeing that whole-heartedly.
It's like Lucy offering to hold the football: every time Charlie Brown falls for it because he wants to believe that this time will be different, but he knows deep inside that it won't end well for him.
And that's part of why we all love Charlie Brown: he assumes everything will end horribly, but he still has hope.
Another Halloween's come and gone, and all I got was a bag of rocks.
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You know you can write a decent version of the Twisted Sister classic "I Wanna Rock" using that line:
ReplyDelete"Trick or Treat, I say
but all you gotta give when I say that are rocks (ROCKS!)
Rocks, rocks, rocks.
So you don't like the costume I'm making,
When we stop and check the loot
there's only one thing I can say to you,
I got a rock! (ROCK!)
I got a rock! (ROCK!)
Jerry, you spent entirely too much time making up that song, and you actually have a life with kids and stuff, so it is not like you have a lot of free time. That said, that is a pretty good song, your verison and the original from one of the most underrated albums of all time "Stay Hungry". Rob-Man, first, very impressive either remebering the voice of Charlie Brown or looking it, because that is a good trivia question to stump a lot of people with. Second, that is a great line in animation, but what struck me about the Great Pumpkin this year (a show that I hadn't watched all the way through in a long time) was how much of the show they wasted on Snoppy's adventures as a WWI pilot. Could they really not fill that much of a 30 minute cartoon that they had to paid it with the (fake) adventures of a dog being "shot down" and escaping through enemy lines? Really, that is the best they could come up with? And I and every kid in America thinks that is cool? What is wrong with all of us? But that being said, the cartoon still rules for the simple reason that I still want to go wait out in the pumpkin patch with Linus for the Great Pumpkin, because either he would bring peace and happiness to our miserable lives or go on a killing spree to wipe the world of unbelievers. Either way, it would be totally awesome. Oh, and who says "trickS of treats"? I thought we always put it in the singular and to hear them all say it in the plural all night was a bit jarring...but as usual I am probably looking to far into a cartoon for deeper meaning, like I usually do
ReplyDeleteJerry- LOVE THE SONG!! It's nice to see that people with lives think about random stuff just like I do.
ReplyDeleteChris- Remember that all animation of the time was hand drawn, and they didn't have the luxury of borderline slave labor in South Korea to actually do all the work. Plus, shows had fewer commercials back then, so they had even more time to fill with fewer people to draw anything to fill it. And the Snoopy part is cool, if you just remember that no one could ever get away with that now. Plus, I like that it brings up fond memories of childhood. Oh, and I used imdb, why the hell else would I possibly know who voiced Charlie Brown?
The kids just got done watching the dvd, and I think the one thing that always bugged me was that Linus has to find a "sincere pumpkin patch." How in the world is he ever going to be able to pull that off? I've seen a lot of pumpkins in my day, and I don't think any of them look any more or less sincere than any other. I hope he finds it some day.
ReplyDeleteJerry- you've now expressed blind hope worthy of Charlie Brown himself.
ReplyDelete