As mentioned, I had to miss the Peanuts 60th anniversary panel today at Comic-Con. I missed what I hear was a good Q&A session. However, the panel’s Andy Beall, a cool animation dude, took pity n your poor AAUGH Blogger and gave me a run through the parts of the panel looking at Happiness is a Blanket, Charlie Brown, the new Peanuts animation.

First off, this is going to be a long one, a 44 minute-er (i.e., the length of an hour long TV special, after you strip out the ads.) This is the first full-length Peanuts special to be done without the involvement of any of the original key 4 creative team. Mendelson is not involved,  and Melendez, Guaraldi, and Schulz himself are all dead. But they’re trying hard to draw inspiration from their work, specifically from the first 5 specials. It’s like they want to create a 1960s special, and from the conversation, it was clear they were looking at a lot of details of what made those things worked. And yet, the sample of animation I saw also took some angles that the old work wouldn’t have. They want to ground it in the past, but also grow it for today. Some of the new touches looked quite nice. There were some moments that didn’t look quite right… but then, that was true of the old material as well.

The grounding in the 1960s also shows in the choice of content. The special focuses on Linus and his blanket… particularly, Snoopy’s battle for the blankets. The material is taken in large part from strips from the first half of the 1960s. The B story is Lucy’s attempts to win Schroeder over.

One thing that I suspect will raise the eyebrows of the hardcore is the lack of Guaraldi music. The absence isn’t from any lack of love for the material, but due to a very practical manner: money. They’re trying to produce this special affordably, and licensing the Guaraldi rights costs a heck of a lot. So instead, they commissioned an all-new score from Mark Mothersbaugh. Now, those of you who just know Mothersbaugh from his band Devo may find that an unlikely choice, but he’s had quiet a career composing for films and TV; he’s one of those guys who really knows music in its wide variety. The sample I heard showed clear Guaraldi influence, but as with the animation, it also brought in some things that were clealry new.

Is the end result going to be good? I can’t tell. I only saw a clip. Bur I can say that a lot of earnest effort is going into this. Expect it in 2011.

Goodnight from Comic-Con!

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