Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown (1986)

A CAL-ARTS student film by Jim Reardon (who worked on numerous episodes of "The Simpsons"), "Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown" does what it says on the tin: numerous beloved fluffy characters go after Charlie Brown by order of the Pumpkin King. It's all done in B+W and resembles pencil tests, much like most films made by animation students. Yet I can imagine that it would have stood out a lot from its contemporary CAL-ARTS productions in terms of tone, as it really does feel like not a sort of Disney/WB homage or an art-house film but rather the kind of spoof that one would find on YouTube or MySpace. Thus, this can be viewed today as a good piece of immature fluff that was perhaps ahead of its time in terms of style and tone. If you can track it down somewhere, it's worth taking a peak.

This is a great student film, with bonus points for making fun of such a cherished cartoon icon.Lots of garish humor, over-the-top violence, and blatantly sadistic comedy. The things that make student films great.Audio and voice-overs are rather sub-par...but I think it might have been intentional to just lampoon the voices rather than trying to copy them.Model wise, they're pretty dead-on to the Charlie Brown art form.Interestingly, most of the people who worked on it have had some impressive careers and worked for major studios.If you want to see it, check the message boards for a couple of links to it (or just google search it).

This short created by Jim Reardon (who wrote episodes for TINY TOON ADVETURES), pokes fun out of the Peanuts cartoons. As one person who commented on it at Internet Movie Database saying it was "The Ultimate Peanuts Parody". the voices don't sound like the ones in the cartoons we usually watch, they sound like adults. Charlie Brown's voice sounds foreign, and Lucy sounds like John Wayne! When Charlie Brown screams, you don't hear "AAAUUUGGGHH!!!" you hear a man screaming in extreme pain! This short references another student film called Snookles (made around at the same year of this short). The King of the Monsters appears cameo in this short (referencing the Coca Cola commercial around the time of GODZILLA 1985 and BAMBI VS GODZILLA see the tail). There are a lot of other cameos including Rocky, Richard Simmons, Popeye and Micky Mouse. This film should be shown on the Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted Film Festival or should be released on DVD by Fred Olen Ray's Retromedia or Something Weird. This is a great film for aspiring film-makers and for anyone to get into the animation business. Rated PG-13 for violence and gore.

Bring me the Head of Charlie Brown was a CalArts student film and thus was not usually known, though it's a hilarious riff and parody, even if it's a bunch of guys doing the voices.The Great Pumpkin places a bounty on Charlie Brown, and the entire Peannuts gang sets out to collect the reward. Charlie is then set upon by exploding footballs, falling pianos, and whatnot.By the end, Charlie's had enough, and lays down a suppressive fire, taking out the PEanuts gang, before stating "Happiness is a warm Uzi."Kind of morbid at times, but it has some great funny moments, and given the humorous way that the student film is to make this like another Charlie Brown holiday special, all the more funny.Jim Reardon would go onto write for Tiny Toons and direct episodes of The Simpsons, and here, you can see that he was surely fitted for the job.