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This Is America, Charlie Brown
Genre	Documentary Animated television special Adventure Comedy Drama Historical Family
Created by	Charles M. Schulz
Written by	Charles M. Schulz Lee Mendelson Bill Melendez
Directed by	Bill Melendez Sam Jaimes Evert Brown Sam Nicholson
Starring	Erin Chase Jason Riffle Erica Gayle Ami Foster Brittany M. Thornton Christina Lange Brandon Stewart Jeremy Miller Jason Muller Marie Cole Tani Taylor Powers Keri Houlihan Curtis Andersen Hakeem Abdul-Samad Grant Gelt Bill Melendez
Theme music composer	Ed Bogas Dave Brubeck David Benoit George Winston Wynton Marsalis Dave Grusin Vince Guaraldi
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of episodes	8
Production
Producers	Lee Mendelson Bill Melendez
Cinematography	Nick Vasu
Editors	Gordon D. Brenner Chuck McCann Warren Taylor
Running time	25 minutes
Production companies	Lee Mendelson–Bill Melendez Productions Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates United Media Productions
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	October 21, 1988 (1988-10-21) – May 23, 1989 (1989-05-23)
Related
It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown (1988) You Don't Look 40, Charlie Brown (1990)

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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 — the opposite of most Charlie Brown cartoons, 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.

While 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, which gave way to Nickelodeon between 1998 and 2003. However, "The Mayflower Voyagers" episode returned to television in 2008 (and aired each year through 2019, after which the Peanuts television specials migrated over to the Apple TV+ streaming platform) as companion material to pad the 1973 special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to a full one-hour time slot. To accommodate the slot, portions of the episode were abridged.

Music

The series included music by many composers and performers including Peanuts regular Ed Bogas, Dave Brubeck, David Benoit (who would later take over scoring the specials starting with It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown), George Winston, Wynton Marsalis and Dave Grusin. This continued a tradition of using jazz musicians for the musical score; original composer Vince Guaraldi had died in 1976, though several of his music scores were reused, notably his signature tune, "Linus and Lucy". This miniseries featured The Winans, Desirée Goyette, and Lou Rawls as the singing vocals (Goyette and Rawls had previously worked with Melendez on the Garfield TV specials).

Cast

Regular voice actors

• Erin Chase: Charlie Brown
• Erica Gayle: Lucy van Pelt
• Brittany M. Thornton: Sally Brown
• Brandon Stewart: Linus van Pelt
• Jason Mendelson: Peppermint Patty
• Marie Cole: Marcie (in The Great Inventors, The Smithsonian and the Presidency and The Music and Heroes of America)
• Curtis Andersen: Schroeder
• Hakeem Abdul-Samad: Franklin
• Tani Taylor Powers: Marcie (in The Mayflower Voyagers and The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk)
• Bill Melendez: Snoopy and Woodstock
• Jason Riffle: Charlie Brown (in The Birth of The Constitution)
• Jeremy Miller: Linus van Pelt (in The Birth of The Constitution)
• Ami Foster: Lucy van Pelt (in The Birth of The Constitution)
• Christina Lange: Sally Brown (in The Birth of The Constitution)
• Keri Houlihan: Marcie (in The Birth of The Constitution)
• Cameron Clarke: Snoopy (singing voice in The Music and Heroes of America)
• Sean Mendelson: Pilgrim Boy (in The Mayflower Voyagers)
• Grant Gelt: Franklin (in The NASA Space Station)

Pig-Pen, Violet, and other characters appear a few times but are silent.

Additional voice actors

• Frank Welker - Captain Smith (in The Mayflower Voyagers), Pilgrim Explorer 2 (in The Mayflower Voyagers), Squanto (in The Mayflower Voyagers), George Mason (in The Birth of The Constitution), Gouverneur Morris (in The Birth of The Constitution), Wilbur Wright (in The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk), Jason Welker (in The NASA Space Station), Alexander Graham Bell (in The Great Inventors), Thomas Edison (in The Great Inventors), Abraham Lincoln (in The Smithsonian and the Presidency), Theodore Roosevelt (in The Smithsonian and the Presidency)
• Gregg Berger - Pilgrim Leader (in The Mayflower Voyagers), Myles Standish (in The Mayflower Voyagers), Pilgrim Explorers (in The Mayflower Voyagers), Orville Wright (in The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk), NASA Mission Control (in The NASA Space Station), Thomas Watson (in The Great Inventors), Samuel (in The Smithsonian and the Presidency)
• Chris Collins as Mayflower Watchman (in The Mayflower Voyagers), Samoset (in The Mayflower Voyagers)
• Hal Smith as George Washington (in The Birth of the Constitution), James Wilson (in The Birth of The Constitution), Benjamin Franklin (in The Birth of the Constitution), John Muir (in The Smithsonian and the Presidency)
• Julie Payne - Mrs. Holiday (in The Great Inventors)
• Bud Davis
• Chuck Olson
• Shep Menken
• Brandon Horne
• Marie Wise
• Alissa King

Episodes

Home media

The 8 episodes, originally released individually on videocassette, were released in a two-DVD collector's set on March 28, 2006, by Paramount Home Entertainment. However, the DVD set went out of print once Warner Bros. purchased the rights to all Peanuts television specials. Warner Home Video has since reissued the miniseries on DVD as of June 17, 2014, with all the episodes presented in remastered form. It was also released on the digital format.

References

1. Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 638. ISBN 978-1538103739.
2. Terrace, Vincent (2013). Television Specials: 5,336 Entertainment Programs, 1936-2012 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. p. 92. ISBN 9780786474448.
3. Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 843–844. ISBN 978-1476665993.
4. David Lambert (February 19, 2014). "This Is America, Charlie Brown - The 8-Episode Show is Getting a DVD Re-Release from Warner Soon!". tvshowsondvd.com. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 28, 2017.

External links

• This Is America, Charlie Brown at IMDb
• This is America, Charlie Brown from Kim Cartoon

• 1988 American television series debuts
• 1989 American television series endings
• 1980s American animated television series
• 1980s American children's comedy television series
• 1980s American television miniseries
• American animated television spin-offs
• American children's animated comedy television series
• American children's animated education television series
• Animated television series about children
• Animation based on real people
• Peanuts television series
• CBS original programming
• American English-language television shows
• American historical television series
• Television series about the history of the United States
• Television series by WildBrain
• Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios
• Fiction set in 1620
• Fiction set in 1787
• Fiction set in 1869
• Fiction set in 1903
• Television series set in the 17th century
• Television series set in the 1780s
• Television series set in the 1860s
• Television series set in the 1900s
• Cultural depictions of the Wright brothers
• Cultural depictions of George Washington
• Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln
• Cultural depictions of Theodore Roosevelt
• Animated television series set in the United States
• CBS animated television series