Underplayed Gems

This Is America, Charlie Brown (1988)

This Is America, Charlie Brown poster
Genre
educational television, documentary television program
Country
United States
Length
1 season, 8 episodes
Rated
U
Rating
7.1 of 10 from 20 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

The Peanuts characters learn about key moments in American history. Each episode covers a different event like the first flight or the Pilgrims' voyage.

educationalgentlenostalgiclightheartedwholesomeslow-pacedinformativefamiliar

What happens

This Is America, Charlie Brown is an eight-part animated television miniseries that depicts a series of events in American history featuring characters from the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts. It aired from 1988 to 1989 on CBS. The first four episodes aired as a weekly series in October and November 1988; the final four episodes aired monthly from February to May 1989. Due to the nature of the events portrayed and the historical figures included — such as the Wright Brothers and George Washington — many adults were shown in full view along with the Peanuts gang, something that happened rarely in the animated films and specials and in only one early sequence in the comic strip. These adults were drawn in a style similar to It's Only a Game, another comic strip by Schulz that featured adults, as well other productions that were overseen by Peanuts regular Bill Melendez. All eight episodes were subsequently rerun by CBS in the summer of 1990. The series as a whole subsequently aired in the U.S. on Disney Channel between 1993 and 1997, then included in the Nickelodeon series You're on Nickelodeon, Charlie Brown between 1998 and 2003. A slightly abridged version of "The Mayflower Voyagers" returned to television in 2008 as companion material to pad the 1973 special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to a full one-hour time slot, airing in that arrangement until 2019, after which Apple TV+ withdrew the entire Peanuts filmography from traditional television (the airings of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving sublicensed to PBS in 2020 and 2021 did not feature "The Mayflower Voyagers," since the excision of commercials allowed the older special to fit in a half-hour slot). It is available for streaming on Apple TV on July 3, 2026. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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