It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown (1969)

This is the bottom half of a double-feature DVD.

This is going to be a short introduction, as there's not much to say about when and where I first saw this special: as part of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show on Disney Channel when I was over at my grandmother's house one day after school. I've probably mentioned this before but, regardless, Disney Channel used to show some of the actual specials as part of that show, which was where I first saw stuff like He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown, It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown, and the first episode of the mini-series, This Is America, Charlie Brown. Actually, it wouldn't be until many years later, when I started collecting Peanuts stuff, that I realized they were their own individual things rather than produced as episodes of that show. In any case, this one is somewhat middle-of-the-road, as the story is little more than a series of humiliating failures Charlie Brown and the boys suffer at the hands of the girls after they get signed up for summer camp against their will. Also, because it's an early special (the sixth one, to be precise), it was made before the character designs and personalities had really been refined. That said, though, it sports some very good animation, including a section which Charles Schulz himself considered to be the best of all in that regard, as well as very lovely art direction and color palettes, and while Charlie Brown does get pretty badly embarrassed and beaten down, it's not as mean-spirited as some of the other specials get.

After having to force Sally to go back to kindergarten when she thinks she doesn't have to since she went the day before, Charlie Brown, along with Linus, get in trouble when they're caught playing hangman in class rather than studying. In his nervousness, Linus blurts out that the teacher hasn't given them any assignments yet and so, she does: a 500-word theme on what they did the past summer. Charlie Brown, needless to say, is not happy about this, especially since it just so happens that Lucy had signed him and the rest of the kids up for summer camp without their knowledge. While the girls were very excited, the boys weren't, as they'd hoped to spend the summer doing anything else; Linus was especially horrified at the prospect, as he didn't want to be near any woods where he could get attacked by "queen snakes." As a result, there was a major difference between the girls and boys in how they conducted themselves: the girls were a very well organized and disciplined group, while the boys were a complete mess and would crowd each other horribly whenever they tried to get on the bus or walk into the camp's dining hall. It also didn't help that Charlie Brown was appointed the leader of his tent, which went about as well as one might expect. But, worst of all, every time the boys competed with the girls in any way, they were thoroughly trounced, and it only got worse every single time they made the mistake of challenging them, until they hit upon the one event they thought they could beat them at.

Like I said, while Bill Melendez (who, between this and He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown, had taken a rare furlough from the Peanuts in order to direct the special, The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant) didn't have much of a story to work with here, he did manage to pull some very good work out of his animators and art directors to make up for it. This was also during a period where Melendez did some experimentation with the specials, such as in You're in Love, Charlie Brown a couple of years earlier, which featured some unusual bits of animation and sound design, and he would do the same here in terms of some interesting instances of editing and montage. But, all positives aide, I personally think he, and the franchise as a whole, would get a lot more out of the summer camp setting with the 1977 feature, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown.

As usual, Charlie Brown (voiced by Peter Robbins) is nothing less than a massive butt-monkey and punching bag for everybody and everything. Following a morning where he has to virtually drag Sally to school, only for her to run off as soon as they get there, he gets roped into writing a 500-word theme on what he did over summer vacation, thanks to Linus' big mouth. Supremely irked at this (on the way home, he rants, "Do you know why English teachers go to college for four years?... So they can learn how to make stupid little kids write stupid essays about what they did all stupid summer!"), he has a hard time writing the paper, finding it next to impossible to come up with 500 words. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard, though, as it's revealed he had quite the summer: after he and the boys found out Lucy signed them up for summer camp, and despite hating the idea as much as the other boys, he thought he could make up for it by being a good leader for his tent. But, he began failing right from the beginning, unable to demonstrate how to properly make a bed, and thinking they had it in the bag when they entered a swim meet with the girls, only to get destroyed. It just got worse from there: he had a kid put him on the spot in the dining hall, saying he had a funny name, he and the boys had to endure nasty food, the girls beat them in a softball game (43-1, no less), he got a bug in his hair that then went down his shirt, and when he and Snoopy tried to enter a canoe race, they quickly wore themselves out and managed to get only a few feet from the dock. Needless to say, he was feeling pretty low after all that, lamenting how good the girls must have been feeling about winning, and even thinking the stars in the sky were having more fun than them. He thought had a shot when he saw how good Snoopy was at arm-wrestling and decided to have him face off against the girls' champion, Lucy, in a match, but she declared Snoop's kissing her near the end of the match a foul and was declared the winner. And, on top of everything else, he only manages to write a 13-word paper, getting a C- in the process (I'm surprised he even got that).

This was the last time Charlie Brown would be voiced by Peter Robbins, who'd done him in every special made since A Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as the movie, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, released the same year as this. Robbins was around the ages of twelve and thirteen at this point and, like the majority of the other voice actors who first played their respective characters in A Charlie Brown Christmas (save for Bill Melendez), was fast approaching the time where he could no longer do it. In fact, of those original voice actors, only Ann Altieri and Sally Dryer returned along with him, and both of them played very minor characters.

Linus (voiced by Glenn Gilger) is the one responsible for causing Charlie Brown the agony of having to write the essay, as when the two of them are caught playing hangman in class rather than studying, he stupidly mentions to the teacher that she hasn't given them an assignment yet. In the flashback to the past summer, while none of the boys were thrilled about basically being drafted into summer camp, Linus, who'd planned to spend the summer doing nothing but reading comics and watching TV, was especially upset, fretting about getting bitten by "queen snakes" he believed lived in the woods. He fretted about it on the way to camp and also when the boys roasted marshmallows outside and Charlie Brown sent him to go get some more firewood. While he didn't have to worry about any queen snakes, Shermy, twice, caused him to drop the firewood he'd collected in a panic when he said there was a spider on the logs, only to be wrong both times. Like the other boys, he was thoroughly despondent about how badly the girls beat them at everything (he did, however, have one moment of pride when he saved Violet from a bee that was chasing her), and in his writing about the summer in his essay, the tone is nothing short of doom and gloom. Regardless, he manages to get an A, in stark contrast to Charlie Brown's C-. He ends the special by telling Charlie Brown that it was, indeed, a short summer, to which Charlie Brown responds, "And it looks like it's going to be a long winter."

Shermy (voiced by David Carey), a minor Peanuts character whose name I can never remember, has a few notable moments, like the aforementioned one where he, twice, about gives Linus a heart attack over a false alarm, as well as when he tells Charlie Brown about the canoe race he ultimately fails to even enter, despite his efforts (Shermy tells him he did manage to get four feet from the dock), and when the two of them both realize that Snoopy may be their best bet to win against the girls when they see how good he is at arm-wrestling. The rest of the boys, which includes Schroeder (voiced by John Daschback), who wanted to spend the summer practicing on his piano and initially refuses to go if he can't take his piano, and Pig-Pen (voiced by Gabrielle DeFaria Ritter), who planned to have "clean thoughts" all summer, do little more than act as sad sacks of crap over how badly things go for them. In fact, Pig-Pen has only two lines and Schroeder doesn't have many more than that, though I think the latter was a good call, as John Daschback doesn't have the sophistication and poise you would expect from Schroeder.

Lucy (voiced by Pamelyn Ferdin) is, surprisingly, not grouchy like she usually is, mainly because just about everything goes her way in this story. She's the one who signed everyone up for summer camp without their knowledge and she's either totally oblivious to or doesn't care about how badly the boys take it, telling them, "There's to be no discussion and no need to thank me," and after Linus freaks about being in the woods near "queen snakes," she says, "I'll tell the parents you'll all be happy to go." Not surprisingly, she's the leader of the girls at the camp and manages to run a very tight and well-coordinated ship, as opposed to the complete mess the boys are. As such, when she's writing her essay, she remembers camp much more fondly than Charlie Brown and Linus, especially since she and the other girls completely destroyed the boys in every competition, like swimming and softball, and it got to the point where they loved mocking them for it (though she still proved herself to be rather dumb, thinking a potato chip lying on the ground was a large butterfly). Being the toughest of the girls, she was the one who decided to take up the challenge to arm-wrestle the "Masked Marvel" (Snoopy), being totally confident of her abilities and saying she required no training at all. The actual match, however, proved to be more challenging that she expected, with Snoopy giving her a run for her money and the two of them nearly wearing each other out. Ultimately, she was named the winner by default when Snoopy freaked her out by kissing her, which she declared to be a foul.

Peppermint Patty (voiced by Christopher DeFaria) is sort of the second-in-command to Lucy, as she's the one who's always getting the girls to march to wherever they need to go (she even mentions, "Boy, I like summer camp. It's the next best thing to being in the infantry,"), and when the girls play softball with the boys, she acts as the team captain, giving the girls instructions that gets them an easy victory, as well as manages to get them to bat first. After thoroughly trouncing the boys in both the softball game and an earlier swim meet, Patty leads the other girls into "cheering" the boys up by joining them by their campfire and singing songs with them like Pack Up Your Troubles (obviously, it only makes them more miserable). There's also a moment between her and Charlie Brown where they're talking about the softball game and she tells him, "For a while there, I considered letting you strike me out and be a hero... But I knew you wouldn't want me to do that?" Then comes this exchange: "Hey, there's a bug in your hair, Charlie Brown!" (A very rare instance of her saying his actual name, rather than "Chuck.") "Where?! Where?! Brush it off!" "That's alright. It's gone now." "That's the one thing I hate about all this outdoor living!" "Well, don't worry. It's not in your hair anymore. It fell down your neck." And when the boys challenge the girls in an arm-wrestling competition, Patty tries to discourage them, saying they'll kill them, but that doesn't stop her and the other girls from mocking them for it. Though, when she recognizes Snoopy as the Masked Marvel, she realizes they chose the most capable among them to compete against Lucy, given how he was the only one who scored a run during the softball game (not that it mattered).

Other female Peanuts characters, like Frieda, Violet (both voiced by Ann Altieri), and Patty (voiced by Lisa DeFaria), are present but they're little more than spectators and mainly just confirm their presence during roll calls at camp. Violet has a couple of memorable moments, though, such as how, after the class assignment has been put forth, she irks Charlie Brown when she mentions she already wrote hers during study period, and when Linus saves her from a bee that's chasing her. And while she wasn't at camp, Sally (voiced by Hilary Momberger) also has some memorable moments during the special's beginning, as she initially refuses to go to school, saying she went the day before, but acquiesces when Charlie Brown notes that their mother already made her lunch and placed it in a new lunchbox. That doesn't mean she's happy about it, though, as she grumbles when she and Charlie Brown are walking to school, saying, "I'll just have to make the best of it. So, I'll go to kindergarten, and I'll study, and I'll try to get along with everybody... but I won't learn Latin!" She then starts wondering if there are ways she can get out of it, asking Charlie Brown, "Do you think, maybe, I could get a deferment?", and while they're standing on the corner with Linus and Lucy, Lucy, after hearing from Charlie Brown that she might jump thirty feet into the air if someone mentions kindergarten, does just that... and Sally only jumps ten feet. When they do get to school, Sally's nerve gives out and she runs off yelling.

For whatever reason, Snoopy (voiced by Bill Melendez) goes along with the boys to summer camp, apparently taking along a lot of stuff, given the pile that was in front of his doghouse when they were leaving. There's a moment where the boys are waiting to get on the bus and Snoopy, wearing a coonskin hat, walks onboard, puts on the driver's hat, and sits down in the seat, pretending to be the driver. As usual with him, his fantasy proves to be quite vivid and it ends with him sheepishly crawling away from the seat, as if he's actually being reprimanded for his crazy driving and attitude. While at camp, Snoopy decides early on that he's not eating the nasty food served there, instead opting to pig out on nice, plentiful lunches and pancake breakfasts, and also proves to be the only member of the boy's team who got a hit during the softball game, where he was the shortstop. When Charlie Brown decides to enter the canoe race in order to beat the girls, he has Snoopy join him, only for Snoopy to force him to do all the rowing and wear himself out. Upon realizing how good Snoopy is at arm-wrestling, Charlie Brown decides to have him arm-wrestle Lucy as the "Masked Marvel" in a last-ditch effort to win back their dignity. They put him through a rigorous training regime, which includes exercise, eating the actual food at the camp, and drinking a balanced, and disgusting electrolyte solution Linus concocts, and while it does work him over, it seems to make him fit enough to take on Lucy. Indeed, the two of them really struggle to overpower each other during their match, prompting Snoopy to employ dirty tactics and kiss her, which freaks her out, but she wins by default, as it's considered a foul.

In terms of technical proficiency, It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown is something of a marvel. Granted, this was still when the animators hadn't yet refined the character designs in terms of their faces and the shape of Snoopy's head, but they make up for that with the actual animation. At first, it doesn't seem like it'd be anything special, as it's still pretty simple and stiff for the most part (albeit more advanced than what was seen in A Charlie Brown Christmas and a couple of the specials that immediately followed), but when the story really gets going and we get into the flashback of what happened at summer camp, it's often very fluid in terms of the characters' gesturing, facial expressions, and movements, a great example being the boys protesting when they first learn they're going to summer camp. No kidding, it's almost to the point of being theater quality in such instances, and that's especially true when it comes to the arm-wrestling match Snoopy and Lucy have near the end, which is what Charles Schulz considered to be the greatest instance of animation ever created for one of these cartoons. It's not hard to see why he felt that way: the expressions on their face, the detail of the sweat pouring off of them, and the way it looks like they're really straining and wearing each other out, to the point where they almost don't look like themselves by the end of it, is unlike anything else you'll ever see in these cartoons and, in fact, it's quite surreal to watch. The same also goes for the visuals, as this is an especially appealing-looking special, with very bright and rich colors, and with a simplistic beauty to the backgrounds and environments, with the shots of the woods and the camp by the lake looking like stuff you'd see on a postcard. Two of my very favorite visuals in the special are of the camp at night, with a big moon in the background (for that matter, the entire scene of the boys gathered around the campfire at night looks really good, with the dark blue sky behind them), and a shot the next morning of the rising sun beyond the treetops, with twittering birds sitting on the limbs, which is especially gorgeous and looks like a nice, simple painting.

As noted, Bill Melendez was in something of an experimental phase during this period and he does some interesting editing and montage work in certain scenes, such as when Snoopy pretends to drive the bus. When he first starts, the background behind his seat turns into a purple-colored road, and it switches to a side-view of him with a collage behind him of various images, such as a small, rural town, a map (if you pause the film during that point, you can see various Easter, such as Schulz City and Cuidad de Melendez [that should be "ciudad" but, whatever]), dogs driving various vehicles and passing by signs, and snow-capped mountains and forests. He then pretends to slam on the brakes and his chair takes off and flies through the air with him, before coming back down to land. He looks behind him and acts like he's shaking his fist at another vehicle, only to then react as if he's being reprimanded by a superior and sheepishly crawl away, with the background around him now totally purple. Also, later on, the cartoon does a split-screen showing the roll call for the boys and the girls, showing the stark contrasts between their individual morale at this point.

While the story isn't much, and, again, I think the summer camp setting would be used better later on, this is a special I don't mind watching at all and a big reason for that is because, unlike some of the others made around this time, Charlie Brown's bad luck and humiliation don't feel as mean-spirited. For one, it's not just him but, rather, all of the boys who get thoroughly trounced and mocked by the girls, and I'm also glad it didn't get to the point where the boys all turn on and blame him for their hardships, as he really does try his best. For another, it's not like this is about Charlie Brown getting cruelly mocked for having a crush on the Little Red-Haired Girl (You're in Love, Charlie Brown), not getting any valentines at all and then being so desperate that he takes a used valentine given to him purely so the sender wouldn't feel guilty (Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown), getting blamed for losing an important football game, even though it was clear to anyone who could see that it wasn't his fault (It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown), or even getting rocks in his trick-or-treat bag (okay, that one doesn't get to me as much, but that's still dickish). It's just about him and the boys having a crappy time at summer camp and getting beaten by the girls at every possible competition, even arm-wrestling. Granted, they're forced to go to camp against their will, and they do get teased and mocked for how badly they lose, but the special doesn't completely wallow in their misery, so it's ultimately an enjoyable watch.

The special begins with Charlie Brown trying to get Sally, who's sitting in front of the TV, to get up and go to school. Sally, however, says she went the day before, but when Charlie Brown shows her that their mother made her lunch and put it in a new lunchbox, she decides, "Well, if Mom went to all that trouble and expense of getting me a new lunchbox, I'd better go to school." But then, she emphatically adds, "But that's the only reason I'm going!", yelling right in Charlie Brown's face and sending him tumbling backwards. The two of them head out, Sally complaining the whole way, while at the same time, Lucy and Linus are heading out as well. There's a brief moment where Lucy, after asking Linus if he washed his hands, checks one of them and is shocked at how clean his fingernails are. She asks him how he did it and he matter-of-factly responds, "Toothpaste," befuddling her. They then meet up with Charlie Brown and Sally at the street corner, when Lucy notices how tense Sally is. Charlie Brown tells her, "Poor Sally is so nervous, that if someone mentioned kindergarten, I'd bet she'd jump thirty feet in the air," and Lucy, of course, can't resist the opportunity. She murmurs, "Kindergarten," and Sally does, indeed, rocket up offscreen, but Lucy remarks, "Hmm. Only ten feet. I knew you were exaggerating." After that, they head for school, and when the building is in sight, Charlie Brown says, "See? Nothing to be frightened about," but Sally loses it and takes off running.

Later, while in class, Charlie Brown and Linus are playing hangman, whispering letters to each other, but they're not discreet enough, as their teacher catches them. They're forced to walk up to her desk and admit that they weren't studying, when Linus blurts out that she hasn't given out any assignments yet. Charlie Brown winces and growls at him, "Now you've done it! Here comes a stupid assignment!" Later, Linus asks the teacher to repeat their assignment: a 500-word theme on what they did over the past summer. Following that, as well as the title and the brief credit to Charles Schulz for his writing, the kids head home, with Charlie Brown talking about how such an assignment is impossible. However, Violet absolutely irks him when she mentions that she already wrote hers in study hall and he then rants about how such assignments are the only reasons why teachers go to college for four years. Later, at home, Charlie Brown starts writing his essay, jotting down, "I played ball, and went to camp." Counting the words, he realizes he has a whole lot more writing to do (he says he's written eight but it was actually seven). Meanwhile, at the Van Pelt household, Linus asks Lucy to remind him of what he did the past summer and she, in turn, reminds him that she signed him up for camp, rather than allowing him to do what he wanted. With that, he starts writing, and the look on his face reveals it didn't go so well for him, as he says it all started on the last day of school.

This is where the flashback begins, showing Charlie Brown, Linus, and Schroeder walking excitedly out of school and talking about what they plan on doing during the summer: Linus plans to read comic books and watch TV, Charlie Brown plans on practicing his pitching, and Schroeder says he's going to practice his piano technique and may write a concerto while he's at it. Pig-Pen joins them, adding he's going to have clean thoughts all summer (while kicking up a cloud of dust and causing them to choke), when Lucy suddenly appears and tells them she's signed them up for summer camp, much to their horror. Charlie Brown comments that he feels as if he's been drafted, Schroeder declares he won't go if he can't bring his piano along, and Linus starts utterly freaking out at the prospect of being in the woods, where he could be chomped on by "queen snakes." Apparently oblivious to their unhappy reactions, Lucy says she'll tell the parents that they're up for it, while the four of them start whining and crying about it. The scene then cuts to when they're departing, with Schroeder and Linus meeting up at Charlie Brown's house, where they see that Snoopy is all packed up for camp as well. Next, they're gathered at the bus stop, where the girls prove to be very enthusiastic and happily call out their names during the roll call, while the boys sit around like a bunch of sad sacks among their luggage. That's when Snoopy walks onto the one bus and has his little fantasy about driving it, after which the kids board. While the girls walk inside in a neat single-file, the boys scramble to get inside at once, crowding the doorway until the collapse on the floor. Charlie Brown half-heartedly tells them, "Alright, everybody. Move it along. Hup, hup, hup." The buses take off and Linus, who's sitting with Charlie Brown, worries silently about getting bitten by a queen snake, before asking Charlie Brown what he'll do if his parents move away while he's gone. He then gloomily laments, "I'm doomed," while Charlie Brown grumbles, "We've been shanghaied."

They arrive at camp and, as Linus narrates while writing his essay, "The first thing that happened did not auger well. Somebody picked the leader for our tent." That leader turns out to be Charlie Brown, who makes a speech to the other boys, saying he thinks his "valuable experience in baseball managing" will do them well, but the others aren't so confident. He starts out by trying to show them the proper way to make their beds, tucking the bedspread underneath the mattress and then taking out a quarter and bouncing it on the cover to show them what should happen... only for the cover to become totally ruffled and the quarter to disappear within the folds. Snoopy, on the other hand, manages to get it right, his quarter bouncing on the mattress, much to Charlie Brown's embarrassment. He then walks over to a map of the campground and tells them of a schedule of competitive sports, including a competition with the girls, who are staying on the other side of the campground: a swim meet in the lake. He tells the boys not to show them up too badly, noting, "After all, boys are stronger." It then switches to Lucy as she's writing her essay and mentioning the swim meet as well. Going back to the flashback, it shows the actual swim meet, which immediately goes south for the boys, as they all flail around in place after jumping in the water, while the girls easily swim up to the floating dock, touch it, and swim back. They all jump up and down excitedly at their victory, while Charlie Brown can only stand there, completely crushed at their humiliating defeat. Once they're back at their tent, he tries to cheer the boys up, telling them it's not like they lost a ballgame, and suggest they challenge the girls to one after lunch, an idea they're up for, as they're sure to win. In heading over to and entering the dining hall, the girls prove to be just as coordinated and disciplined as they were in getting on the bus, while the boys are still a total disaster in that regard. (There's a weird blooper when the camera pans across the lake to the boys' side, as you see Charlie Brown and Snoopy standing by the lakeside, even though the former is then shown to be standing outside the dining hall as the other boys try to crowd in, while Snoopy is nowhere to be seen. It goes by very quickly, though, and the only reason why I even noticed it is because my main source of screen-captures froze at that very moment.) Once they collapse inside the hall after crowding the doorway, and Charlie Brown, again, flatly tells them to move along, we then see him in line to get his food. He thinks it's going to be good, but that enthusiasm dies when the kid behind him asks him his name and, when he tells him, the kid yells, "Hey, get a load of the kid with the funny name!" As it turns out, the food is lousy, with even Snoopy gagging on it and walking away from the table. Linus wonders how he's going to eat, but he's then shown to be eating a much better and bountiful meal elsewhere.

Next comes the softball game, wherein the girls choose Peppermint Patty as their captain. Like the swim meet, it goes downhill for the boys right from the get-go, as Charlie Brown lost their right to bat first when Patty uses "eagle claws" to grab the top of the bat (by his expression, that apparently wasn't normally allowed). The girls are then in a huddle, Patty telling them the strategy she's come up with and advising them to keep the ball away from Snoopy at shortstop above everything else. There's a quick cut back to Linus as he writes his essay, noting, "The worst was yet to come. It was bad enough to have been so thoroughly thrashed in softball, but there were plans for a nature hike the next day. The campfire activity... was a dismal failure." The boys are then shown roasting marshmallows over a fire at night (Linus has an entire branch as his stick), lamenting how badly they were beaten at the softball game, with Snoopy (who's roasting seven marshmallows at once on a stick with many twigs) having been the only one of them who managed to get a run. Charlie Brown is especially down about having been beaten at what he considered to be his strongest point, groaning, "I bet they feel great. I wish I felt great." He then sees that he's burnt his marshmallow and grumbles, "I feel terrible." He asks Linus to go get some more firewood and, despite his fear of queen snakes, he does so. He brings back a handful of small logs, only for Shermy to tell him there's a spider on one of them, causing him to freak out and fall on the ground, dropping the logs. But then, Shermy tells him it was just a piece of bark. As Linus picks the logs back up, Charlie Brown looks up and points out the stars, saying they're probably having a good time, as, "They've got all the lights on." Shermy looks back at Linus and tells him there is, in fact, a spider on one log, again causing him to jump and drop them all... and, again, Shermy tells him he was mistaken. Peppermint Patty then shows up, followed by the other girls, saying they figured they'd come over and cheer them up by singing campfire songs, suggesting Pack Up Your Troubles, There's a Long, Long Trail, or Take Me Out to the Ballgame (that's a campfire song?) Charlie Brown isn't too thrilled at this prospect and he, again, burns a marshmallow as a result. Patty, however, starts leading them in singing Pack Up Your Troubles but, while the girls are enthusiastic, the boys look like they're about ready to hang themselves (and Linus and Schroeder inexplicably trade shirts in-between shots at one point). Elsewhere, Snoopy has retired to bed, sleeping atop his tent like he does his doghouse.

The next day, the individual groups do the roll call, but while the girls each shout some version of, "Here!", when Charlie Brown calls the boys' names, he gets these varied reactions: Linus, "Ugh,"; Snoopy, "Bark,"; Schroeder, "Here,"; Shermy, "Who?". Lucy then has Peppermint Patty lead the girls to the dining hall, as the boys, once again, crowd through the entrance at once. This time, Snoopy doesn't even bother walking in, and it's a good call, as they're forced to eat a very disgusting, thick, and sticky excuse for porridge; he, meanwhile, fixes him up some pancakes nearby. As Charlie Brown writes in his essay, the boys were then scheduled for a nature hunt with the girls, and they're then shown walking into the woods, which is when you get the moment where Patty tells Charlie Brown there's a bug in his hair that went down his neck. While he flails around from it, Violet runs wildly through the clearing in the woods, yelling about a bee that's chasing her. Fortunately for her, she stops near Linus, who uses his blanket as a whip and swats the bee out of the air. He then comments, "Not unlike Robin Hood," and walks over to Lucy, who's looking down at what she thinks is a large, yellow butterfly on the ground. She notes that it probably flew up from Brazil, but when Linus looks at it closer, he tells her it's actually just a potato chip lying on the ground. Looking at it closer herself, she responds, "Well, I'll be. So it is. I wonder how a potato chip got all the way up here from Brazil?" It then cuts to Charlie Brown walking with Snoopy, telling him they need to do something to win back their dignity, when Shermy runs up and tells him they're having a canoe race. Excited, as he thinks this may be just such an opportunity, Charlie Brown runs with Snoopy over to some canoes beached at the lakeside and they hop in. He paddles as hard as he can, while Snoopy stands on the canoe's front, not offering to help him row in any way, as he'd planned. He keeps on paddling like a madman, saying they'll win the race or die trying, but immediately ends up collapsing in the canoe, saying he feels like he paddled a hundred miles. He then wonders if they won, and that's when he sees they only got four feet from the dock.

Back in their tent, Charlie Brown and Shermy are trying to come up with an event they can win, when they see Snoopy easily beat Linus and another kid at arm-wrestling. That night, Charlie Brown tells them his plan to challenge the girls in arm-wrestling, and while they're initially skeptical of their chances, given how tough Lucy is, he introduces Snoopy as the "Masked Marvel," who will be their representative. The kids are ecstatic at this, and Charlie Brown tells Snoopy they're going to put him through training, which will include exercises and no more gourmet meals, meaning he'll have to eat with them, although they both look disgusted when thinking about the awful food at the dining hall. Nevertheless, Snoopy goes through with his training. He does well at running in place, but is absolutely nauseated when Linus presents him with his balanced electrolyte solution. Despite the benefits that Linus lists off, when Snoopy downs it, he instantly gags, holding his throat. Meanwhile, the girls are carrying on like normal, enjoying various activities like nature hunts, hiking, swimming, and canoeing. After enduring some jump-rope and more of the electrolyte solution, Snoopy becomes strong enough to take down anybody who practices arm-wrestling with him (there's one point where he does so with a little yellow bird who I instantly thought was Woodstock, but this was before Woodstock had appeared in the cartoons). They decide it's time to issue the challenge and Snoopy rows Charlie Brown, Linus, and Schroeder across the lake to the girls' side. They're immediately mocked when they're in sight, the girls asking if they want another ballgame, and their tripping over each other when they climb up onto the dock doesn't make them look any better. Nevertheless, Charlie Brown issues the challenge and sets it for the next morning, so they can pick out and train a challenger, but Lucy confidently tells them there's no need and they, instead, set the challenge for that very day, after lunch. The girls then go back to mocking the boys as they paddle back across, telling them they'd best be better at arm-wrestling than just about anything else. At the mess hall, Charlie Brown tells Snoopy he probably shouldn't eat until after the arm-wrestling, saying that he can have as much of the electrolyte solution as he wants. Snoopy then downs another glass and, like before, gags on it.

The time comes and Lucy and Snoopy meet up on a large outside stage. They sit down at a small table in the center and start the arm-wrestling (there's a loud "fwap" sound when their hands grasp each other). It quickly becomes clear that they're both tough and unwilling to yield an inch, as Lucy initially seems like she's going to pin Snoopy within seconds, but he manages to overpower and force her arm back. They go back and forth with this, straining and with sweat literally shooting out of them, as they quickly become tired. Seeing no other way to win, Snoopy employs some dirty tactics and kisses Lucy on the nose, causing her to yell in disgust. She immediately starts crying, "Foul! Foul! This stupid Masked Marvel fouled! And I'm the rightful winner! I won!", while Snoopy just sits there and crosses his arms in satisfaction. The special then goes back to the present, where Charlie Brown has to turn in his essay, but while everyone else managed to meet the 500-word requirement, he could only come up with 13. The teacher says something and he says, "Detail? Yes, I supposed I could've gone into more detail. But with the kind of summers I have, it's best to try to forget the details." The special ends with him and Linus walking home after school, with Linus saying he got an "A," while Charlie Brown concedes that he got a "C-." Linus feels bad for him, saying it was a short summer, while Charlie Brown says it looks like it's going to be a long winter.

Vince Guaraldi employs the familiar "Linus and Lucy" theme a few times here, such as when the kids are walking to school at the beginning and, most memorably, in a big and somewhat epic-sounding manner during Lucy and Snoopy's arm-wrestling match; oddly, you also hear the instrumental version of Poor Little Charlie Brown from You're in Love, Charlie Brown during the transition to the bus stop when the kids are waiting to depart for camp. As for original music, Guaraldi comes up with a piano theme that sounds somewhat downbeat and melancholic, alluding to the crappy summer Charlie Brown had, but doesn't come off as too dreary. However, my personal favorite part of the music is this nice trumpet piece that plays when Snoopy pretends to drive the bus, as well as during the drive to camp. There's no major reason why I like it; it just sounds pleasant to the ear. And there's plenty of the smooth, mellow jazz you'd expect, such as these calm piano pieces during the opening scene and when the boys are sitting around the campfire, a variation of the Poor Little Charlie Brown theme when he and Snoopy are in the canoe, and a soothing, relaxing bit when the girls are having fun while the boys are training Snoopy for the arm-wrestling match.

It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown is, ultimately, an average Peanuts special that's still enjoyable to watch and has some truly remarkable technical aspects, such as some really good animation, lovely backgrounds and environments, a rich and bright color palette, some noteworthy instances of editing and montage, and a good music score. While the character designs and portrayals may still be somewhat prototypical, and the summer camp setting would be utilized better in future Peanuts projects, it proves to be quite an entertaining distraction for 25 minutes, one that's not as mean-spirited or frustrating as some of the other specials. In short, it is most definitely worth checking out for fans.