The Clubhouse Podcast

iTunes Exclusive Episode The Peanuts Movie

March 18, 2018 Season 6, Episode 138

Rob, Chad, Andrew, and Don review director Steve Martino's Peanuts movie, a CGI animated film featuring the classic Charles Schulz characters. The hosts praise the film's nostalgic appeal, simple but effective plot, beautiful animation, voice acting performances including archival recordings of Bill Melendez as Snoopy, and its G rating. All four enthusiastically recommend seeing it in theaters, calling it a multi-generational film perfect for families.

About this episode

Key takeaways

  • The film functions as 'Peanuts' greatest hits in the modern era, touching on iconic moments from the comic strip and TV specials including Lucy's psychiatric booth, the baseball game, the kite-eating tree, and the red baron
  • Original 2D black-and-white flashbacks in the Schulz comic style are used when Charlie Brown reflects on his past, creating an emotional nostalgia experience
  • Voice acting from largely new performers successfully captures the tone of original characters, with archival recordings of Bill Melendez used for Snoopy
  • The film is rated G and appeals across multiple generations, with young children and adults both responding positively in the theater
  • While the plot is simple, this works in the film's favor for both children and adults reliving memories, with only minor pacing slowness at a couple points

Q&A

What is the animation style of the Peanuts movie?

The hosts describe it as almost a CGI claymation feel with Snoopy appearing made of felt, and at close-ups the characters start to look like real life. It's compared visually to Peabody and Sherman.

Was the 3D worth the extra cost?

The hosts recommend paying for the standard version rather than 3D, as the beautiful CGI animation stands on its own and the 3D doesn't significantly enhance the experience.

Is there anything after the credits?

Yes, there is a little thing at the end of the credits that viewers should stay through to see.

Who was involved in directing the original Peanuts TV specials?

Bill Melendez was the original producer/director of basically everything Peanuts did for TV and films up until 2006, and his archival voice work for Snoopy is used in this movie.

Read Transcript

The following is a sooner orgator production. The following is a sooner orgator production. The following is a sooner orgator production.

The following is a sooner orgator production. The following is a sooner orgator production. Greetings, Empire member and our members.

If you are hearing the sound of my voice, it means the following conditions have been met. It means at least once in your life you've listened to the clubhouse podcast, live every Sunday, 7 Eastern for Pacific in the evening, you are one stop shop for all things sports entertainment. But it also means you subscribe on iTunes, because it's time for another environment drone to float, if you can.

Welcome. The 150 first one of these. My name is Rob, I am the executive producer of the clubhouse podcast and unless you live in a cave, you know it's about to get reviewed.

We normally do these to review things, this is no exception, but I am not alone. Joining me across the desk is my co-host and a man who has about as much of a affinity for what we're about to review as I do. He is Chad.

Well, there's no lie, my friend. Also, joining me across the desk is the official fact checker of this show and a man that he he waited the great pumpkin the night before we recorded this and he's dog on proud of it. You may know this fun, don't go, but his mom and even don't forward on the calm, don't welcome.

Living in a cave, I actually spent three days in a cave in a pack trip and while me. Fair enough. Also joining us is the Jin Jin Ninja and a man who has danced like a dog at least once in his lifetime with his head in the air and thrown his arms around back and forth.

He is Andrew Beckham, but I'm sorry. Thank you, but I have not been in a cave. Okay, fair enough.

Although you do have the cave man beard. I do. It's a facade.

And now and really, officially as of the recording of this, we only have the room is facial haired at this point. Normally, 75% so like we said, whatever we do these, it is to review something. This is no exception.

Today, we are reviewing the latest film from director Steve Martino, who did Ice Age Continental Drift, Horton here's a who answer he did the King Brian sequence for the video game of Monty Python and the search for the Holy Grail. Oh, really? Yes, he did.

It is, of course, the Peanut's movie. Like, is there a setup that needs to happen here? It's peanuts, it's CGI, and it's a movie.

It's Charlie Brown, it's Lucy, it's Linus, it's Schroeder, it's Snoopy, Woodstock, the red Baron, peppermint patty, peppermint patty, the little red haired girl, everybody's in this pig pen, Franklin, the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on. Before we get, we have to think, ally, integrated marketing, Josh, and 23 Fox from Videness. Our best friends, our best friends, and they take such good care of us.

We got to see this in 3D too. Yes, we did. We got to, at that point, we got to screen this in 3D, so they treat us better than they have to.

Thanks again, Josh and everybody at ally. I mean, I guess if I had to give a synopsis here, it's pretty much 90 minutes of a mashup of every peanut special and reference you could ever have thought of with a couple of little new little things. I mean, really, I mean, that's about all you need to know.

I would say that there's a new girl at catches Charlie Brown's eye, but she's, but she's not new. I know, little red head girl's been around for me, but there's a new girl at him. It's quite, yeah.

Absolutely. In Treasure Impressor, and that's, you know, the basic, that's all I think we should give. Charlie Brown's proceeded the little red head girl and Snoopy's proceeded the red bear and that never says to end.

All right, now let's go to the actual storyline itself of the film, which thing. I, I put my written review at the clubhouseplacas.com. That's our website.

I put in there that the ponds vary, I think, kind of simple, but that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. Because one, it's good for the kids.

Yeah, absolutely. Yes, sir. But, which is perfect.

And I think this film is going to be a great introduction to the new little kids of the world for peanuts. But for the adults, is it a simple, it's a plot, yes, but it's going to take you down memory lane, because they go through everything. You get the psychiatric, psychiatric, kiosk by Lucy.

You know, I mean, the red bear and the typing, the baseball, the, you name it, the kite. The thing that you thought of in peanuts is addressed in this movie, and it makes up for it. Because it's a memory lane thing.

I was watching this film thinking back of the days, I go to the, you know, to the little, you know, bakery and stuff, the, the thrift store and get all that dolly Madison stuff. I remember, it took me in Madison fruit days. The days it took me back to, you know, reading the comics every day, and, uh, the peanut comics, and then also watching the, it's a great punk, the, the great punk and Charlie Brown.

Yeah, it's a great pot, perfect for kids, but you'll make up for memory lane to the adults. Andrew. I didn't really read a whole lot of these growing up, kind of hit or miss, fair enough.

My dad really enjoyed these, it, it was great, like, like, I'll agree with the one, the plot was simple, but it didn't have to be anything more than that. Indeed, the characters, the, for a mollum, what I've read, they were in there and more. But you have to go and take stock of how long these characters have been around.

Indeed. Like, if, if memory serves me correctly, when I watched the great punk in last week, yes, I watched this, the great punk and Charlie, I was doing that last week. There's nothing wrong with that, and, and, and if anyone's got a problem with it, I'll meet you outside.

And I'll, I'll join you. Okay, good. Me, me outside.

But the copyright date on that special was 1966. Yes, sir. So I'm not really sure when Charles Schulte started drawing the peanut strips that had to have been late 50s on assuming.

Just keep talking about figure it out. But you think about that, we are talking what for generations now, our parents, us, our kids, and our kids are old enough to have kids to enjoy this stuff. Indeed.

So, that's a huge, October 2nd, 1950, that's February 13th, 2000. That's incredible to me. The fact that, that we can deliver a story that is so familiar, because like you said, this is basically Charlie Brown's greatest hits in a nutshell.

I mean, and like Don pointed out, every major iconic moment throughout the series of television specials was touched on, if, if not featured prominently, but at least touched on. And you're amazed by the simplicity of it all, but you still, it brings back those feelings of every Christmas and everything's giving and every Halloween, watching these holiday specials, and it makes you feel like that all over again. There's a reason that I have great pumpkin, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all on blue right.

There's a reason for that. I literally grew up on this. I remember when I was a kid in summer camp, not summer camp, but like summer program at the city ran, I remember going to see the Charlie Brown summer camp movie where they're in the raft race.

We saw it in a movie theater, race for your life, Charlie Brown. I think that's what I'm like, this, I don't care who you are, I don't care where you come from, I don't care who you mama is, peanuts has impacted all of us in one way or another. To call this, Charles Schultz's greatest hits in the modern era is dead on.

In fact, a great, a reason for your life, Charlie Brown. Okay, there you go, you're right. And for me, there's the one moment that everybody waits for, comes very, very close toward the end, so be aware of that.

It is there, kid is, don't get up, don't get up, there's just something about peanuts that turns the hardest of hearts into a seven year old, no matter how well circulated your inner child is and the inner child will drawn out and kudos to the filmmakers here because the Schultz family was involved. Oh gosh, when you see the encredits, you see Schultz Schultz's screenwriter, it's a story that I'll put somewhere in heaven right now, Charles Schultz is looking down and he is smiling because this is dead on. There were moments in this film that I got a little misty eye.

I'm not going to lie to you. I got incredibly misty in it. I mean, we touched on, the red barren, we touch on fee fee, I mean, there's just nothing that doesn't get touched on from the major and even some of the minor peanuts moments that maybe not everybody knows about.

And that was the brilliance of this film to me from the first frame to when the light came up. And all I'm saying, and when I say the first frame, I mean the first frame of the film. And I want to add the speaking of Andy and this is spoiler free.

They ended it right. Absolutely. I thought in right before they end, I got to say I too, but very good way.

They did this whole thing start to finish incredibly. I want to get into the CGI. That looked beautiful.

Well, animation. No, I agree with you completely and for those of you that don't know, this is almost a CGI claymation feel. I can't describe the, really truly, I don't know that I can nail the actual animation style here because when you have the close-ups on Snoopy, he looks kind of like he's made out of felt.

I mean, it's all the hair was hair. Yes, but at one point, these people started to look like real life to me. That's how good it was.

Now, we got to see this in 3D, I don't think the 3D enhanced it too much. It was fun to have. You didn't make it or break it, no, not at all in, in the end, what I recommend paying extra for the 3D probably not, but still we're not going to complain and we enjoyed the chance to see it in 3D, but I don't think enhanced it too much because the CGI was just beautiful throughout, throughout, throughout.

I started feeling like this is like not a cartoon anymore. This is real life. About the closest thing, I could think to compare it to visually in recent memory.

The only thing that really came to mind was Peabody and Sherman. And that's as close as I can get to that film. And this is every bit is charming, if not more so, just because of the emotional connection that most people have with the Peanuts franchise.

And what was cool to me, and I keep going back to this, because I just thought of a way to really describe the story and how it's told, it's Peanuts SNL. Because it's a series of scenes or a series of sketches that are all linked together to form a bigger story that, it's almost me, it's just like the major storylines almost convenient to what's going on. Yeah, it's the common thread that puts everything together.

And it just, it got a little slow for me at a couple of points. I did notice that it did kind of, I did just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit. Not just slightly.

Not enough to annoy me, but there was a couple of points, I was like, I looked down and was like, we're not as far along as I thought we would be. I mean, if that's how far I have to go to find you on a system of this film, we're really thinking. Yeah, I mean, I'm splitting hairs at this point.

There were a lot of kids in the theater with us that were enjoying it as well. I never got that sense at any of the young kids in the theater. We're getting squirmy.

Oh, no, they weren't. They were not taught. They were completely all in.

And a lot of the adults, people that we know in the press, that, all in all the laughing. So hard. And of course, you know me, I like to look for little things in film.

There's a couple of little, 80, bitty things that you'll have that you'll have to notice. You have to look real close to notice, but those were cool for me. The song that just started in the background is even referenced in this film.

The great pumpkin is referenced in this film. And something Chad pointed out, and I'm going to let you elaborate a little bit of this on, was we were driving home. The flashbacks.

You talking about the moving van specifically? No, no, how they did the flashbacks. Yeah, yeah.

How any time Charlie Brown is reflecting on his past when his little thought bubble pops up, it's always done in 2D. And it's the original black and white. It's the original sketches.

Like when he thinks about, you know, how cutesy is, and the first thing you see is him with the little one ornament or tree that falls over. And you know, everybody's went, oh, you just sat there. And you're just like, I'm reliving my entire childhood in an hour and a half.

I want to get ahold of the film, because I think you guys, they didn't run it all in one thing I want to get into is that you said about the drag. It didn't drag for me, because it's a simplistic plot, and I gave it all the leeway in the world. But I can give it up to a lot of these characters' voices, because a lot of these they are either, this is their first film that they ever done, where they voiced in, the reliability.

Yeah, or this, they're second, but it's a great attribute to how well they did being a lot of these are really, really new people. And when I put my, again, my written via the clubhouse, podcast.com, it's our website. When you heard these characters, it sounded just like the originals from the 90s.

I said that getting on the elevator. Great job, Matt. He's coming in.

The first time. It's the tone, everything. You thought it was the original Lucy talking from 1950.

Yeah, he thought it was, he thought they're from in Patty with Edmund Patty from it's the Great Pumpkin. Yeah. Christian Chenoweth checking in as we see.

You also had a person on a huge fan of, if you're a fan of Jazz and New Orleans Jazz, Trombone Shorty, plays all the adults, the more, more, more, more, more, more, more. And that made me happy fighting that out. But the voiceover for Snoopy, that was, that was Melendez himself, it was from Archival recording.

That's the way about 10 years ago. That's why I thought that. They were able to bring his stuff back and put it in, or I think that's a great attribute to him, because he knows that don't know who Bill Melendez is.

He produced all, basically, everything that they did on video for TV and for films. For peanuts up until 2006. Yeah.

I mean, this guy was heavily, heavily involved in this. That's one of the names that was on the movie. It was Snoopy and Woodstock.

Mm-hmm. That's what I was wondering about the moving band. Yeah, it's the Lendez and Mendelsohn, where the original directors of the holiday special.

But I got to give it to Kudo, it's for these people, for putting those original voices back in. And I thought that was really cool, that they did that, the great attribute. But these kids, they did incredible, you know, I mean, there's nothing about this film I didn't like.

Yeah. That's all I could say. I can't, I just can't, like, if you have a gun in my head and say, say something bad about this film, I'm like, you're just going to have to kill me because it's that good.

The only thing bad, I can say about the film is that it ended. Yeah. It's all I could say.

And you know, we were so worried, are they going to ruin this thing like to have some other franchises? Because you have to have that concern, no matter how good a trailer is like, they crushed it. At a question, you had as we were driving home chat, it is rated G.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely rated. Yeah.

Perfect for the entire family. When I saw that when I saw the last trailer, and I had a G rating, when was the last time? You can recall seeing a G rated film, even the Pixar films aren't G rated film.

The only thing that could come closer a couple of the documentaries I've seen. So some of the Disney nature stuff, maybe, but that's so rare in the DNA that a G rated film can be, General Cross General, I don't know what, even if this is even a word, appealing across so many generation gaps. It's multi-generational, multi-generational, desirable.

Yeah, I can, I feel, feel, or, that's your $5 dollar dollar tour, there's my Greek friend, Andrew, I mean, you've been kind of quiet over there, what other opinions do you have on this? Oh, I really didn't know what to expect going into it, but I was entertained all, I was laughing through it, I was laughing a whole lot more than I thought I was. Absolutely.

I mean, did your nostalgia gene kick into overdrive while you were watching this, or did you remember, he wasn't as, as deeply entrenched in this as we were coming in, he said that you were getting it. I mean, but they've been on TV for, it's, they showed it last week. I always had the paper, and I would read it occasionally, whenever he was done, but, let's see, I didn't read a lot of them.

I had some of the books I read them all the time, but I didn't, I wasn't as into reading it as I was watching the TV stuff, and it just felt so, so perfectly encapsulated by this film, all of our childhood experiences with this group, and the fact that I had my daughter sitting next to me, and she's rolling, absolutely rolling, and then you see a couple of people that were in a few rows in front of us that probably had us by at least 15, 20 years easily. Laughing so hard, it would shake the theater, and I'm like, that is the amazing appeal of the peanuts. One thing I want to reiterate, because this is big to me, is there was a lot of little kids in there, and this is probably the first thing when it really comes to peanuts.

And they're transmitting. Yeah, and this is, this was a good way to introduce a new generation to peanuts. It's a good jumping off point.

Yeah, because it gives you everything, you know, when you think about it, gives you everything about peanuts in this film, and some of these little kids are going to see the psychiatric kiosk, you're going to see the, the pickles, pickles, pickles, pickles. Yeah, you get the whole thing, and we got to want it, there is a little thing at the end of the credits. So, stay all the way through to the end credits, because that thing was worked with they showed at the end of the credits.

So, Kudos to 20 Century Fox, and everybody on this kind of thing. Who goes to everybody is everybody involved in this thing, you, we can't thank you enough for making this happen. Any other opinions for because of the final analysis?

For again, again, we got to thank Josh, Allied, Integrated Marketing, 20 Century Fox, everybody for inviting us. And let us see this thing. It was well worth the time.

I was, yeah, absolutely. We love it so much. In a fun fact, 10% of the peanuts coming strips were about baseball, or Mitch and baseball on some way.

Yeah, that is true. That was a big player. Or football.

See what you did there. The way we do the final analysis on this show, we don't give you thumbs up, thumbs down, we don't give you stars, we don't give you letter grades, we don't rank them one to 10. Our audience whom we affectionately refer to as the Empire is better than that.

We're going to ask two questions. Question number one, would you see this film again? The answer's no, then we're done here.

The answer's yes, then it becomes how far are you willing to go to see it, would you pay full price in the evening? Why light, Matt and A, early morning on a Saturday, second run in the dollar theater? Would you venture out of your house to get it from red box?

Would you stream it on Netflix? Would you wait for it on cable? Don, let's start with you.

Would you see this film again? Definite. How far are you willing to go?

I would, I'd say, in my review, that this would be a perfect family night film, whether you do twilight and go to dinner after what the family or you go to dinner before and see with the family after dinner. Either one, I'd say, yeah, see it, regardless, take the whole family to this for family nights or in the holidays. After a day of shopping, go to dinner, then see the film or do this shopping, see the film and go to dinner after whatever you name it.

Andrew. I think it's the perfect way to start a day. Okay, so you would see it again?

Oh, yeah, definitely. I'd say, are you saying early morning Saturday? It's viewing, like we did today on the day we recorded this, we saw it at 10 o'clock in the morning.

Yeah. That's what I would do. All right, Chad.

I would crawl over broken glass while I was on fire to see this movie again. I loved it so much. I would definitely see it again, but I'm going to go a step further.

Yes, you can do this as family night, but you don't have to. Like you can go on a date and see this movie and enjoy it just as much as you will if you take the whole family. Oh, yeah, great.

Totally. Yeah. Cool points with your date.

I think. Everything else. Yeah.

But I don't think the 3D is needed. No, I don't think, I mean, if you want to see it in the 3D, I'm not going to stop you. Yeah.

I would be willing to pay for 3D because I think the films, I think it deserves it. It's that good. It's fun.

And I like to say, I'm not going to stop you if you want to see it in 3D, but I don't know that it's why I would feel bad for you if you didn't. Yeah. You know what I mean?

But I'm just saying, it you it earns this money, whatever you're paying for. Oh, absolutely. It's worth whatever money you're paying.

The peanut movie directed by Steve Martino. Do the plugs, gentlemen. Visit our website, www.theclubhousepodcast.com.

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So until next time, for Andrew, for Don, for Chad, for the Empire, I'm Rob, clubhouse's close new month on the Brittany Palmer calendar. The preceding was a sooner or later production. Why?

Why? Because I have to.

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