Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977)

I just watched this for the first time ever last night.  I'm glad I did not pay money to see it back in 1977.  I love the first two Peanuts movies, and many of the television specials, but this movie a mess.  There are many fun parts to it, but it lacks any kind of logic, even in world of Peanuts.  The animation is good, and the music, for the first time not done by Vince Gauraldi is adequate, though the songs are not memorable at all.  The voice cast is good, but that is generally a given for anything with the Peanuts name on it.

It's the story that makes one wonder about what world these kids live in that allows them to enter a river raft race without any kind of supervision.  The gang goes to camp, and mysteriously several of them, Violet, Patty, Pig-Pen, 5, Frieda, and Roy, don't go on the river race with the 8 main characters.  I kept thinking these were the smarter kids. 

To make matters worse, Peppermint Patty takes over and is terrible to Chuck,  Even worse than Lucy, and when I am wanting Lucy to assert her terrible self, you know Patty is being written very poorly.  I was hoping for a throw down between Patty, Lucy and Sally, as they are very strong personalities in the comics, but it never happened.

The race itself is fun, but why didn't the gang take on the bullies?  Patty and Lucy alone could kill those idiots, and the guys should have had enough of the jerks as well.  Who sponsored this camp and race?  Where did the bullies get their equipment?  They really didn't even get their proper comeuppance, though they did lose the race.  To Woodstock.  Oops, spoilers.

If you don't think of it from a grown up perspective, it's probably better.  I can watch the first two movies, A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Come Home and not critique them like this.  Better movies, better writing. I never need to see this one again.