Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown (1981)

Yeah, talk about a generic cover.

As I mentioned back in my review of What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?, while I was on vacation in Orange Beach, Alabama in 2017, I was shopping at an FYE at the Cordova Mall in Pensacola, when I came upon a DVD titled the Peanuts Emmy Honored Collection, a set of eleven Peanuts specials that were either nominated for or won an Emmy. It was an unexpected but welcome find for me, as I'd thought I'd collected all of the Peanuts cartoons I was going to, since the chronological series of box-sets that were being put out stopped after volume two of the 70's (I also found a set of the two Peanuts movies I didn't already have there, but that's a story for another day). I recognized some of the titles, either because I'd already seen them on those past sets or someone had told me of them, but for the most part, I went into them completely blind, as was the case with the one we're talking about today. From the title, I figured it was going to be one of the many stories concerning unrequited love on Charlie Brown's part, and I was pretty much right, as the plot is nothing but him trying to track down one specific girl, only to lose her to Linus when he does find her (I can recall feeling pretty bad for Charlie Brown when I first watched it but, upon rewatching it, I found myself more conflicted, as I'll get into.) That and my surprise that a character from Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown more or less reappears here were my major takeaways from that initial viewing, and when I watched it again, I felt it was just okay, for the most part. It does have some funny moments and is certainly designed and animated well, but the conflict I feel about Charlie Brown's predicament at the end kind of rubs me the wrong way.

While watching a football game on TV, Charlie Brown catches a glimpse of a girl in the stands who he describes as the most beautiful girl he's ever seen and is instantly smitten. But, he's bummed out when the game then ends, believing he'll never see her again, and is unable to get her out of his mind. He becomes determined to find and meet her, and gets Linus, who was sitting there reading while he was watching the game, to help him. This leads them on a long and frustrating journey where they go to the stadium so Charlie Brown can determine where the girl was sitting, check with those at the ticket booth to learn the name of the people who were in those seats, then check the season ticket records downtown, which leads them to the address of the family who had those seats and a couple of girls, though neither of them turn out to be the right one. They're eventually led to the Happy Valley Farm, far out in the country, and when they try to make their way up to the house, they run into a bobcat who doesn't like visitors. Regardless, after telephoning, they learn they're able to get up to the house without running afoul of the bobcat by taking the path that leads to the front door. Throughout this whole ordeal, Charlie Brown has had Linus find all the information and talk to every girl, as he's too nervous to do it himself, but when they finally do find the right girl, this wishy-washy attitude may prove to bite him.

This is one of the many Peanuts specials directed by Phil Roman; specifically, it was his thirteenth special (fitting, since the number thirteen plays a part in the story) and the sixteenth Peanuts project he'd had a part in directing overall, as in 1979, he directed a six minute short called It's Dental Flossophy, Charlie Brown, and had also co-directed the feature films, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!), with Bill Melendez. Following Someday You'll Find Her, he and Melendez co-directed a little known animated TV special called No Man's Valley, about a California condor trying save a number of endangered animals from extinction. After that, Roman would direct Here Comes Garfield, Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?, act as a sequence director on It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown, and direct a couple of episodes of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, before branching out on his own with Film Roman and doing the rest of the Garfield specials.

From the moment he glimpses a really cute girl in the stands while watching the football game, Charlie Brown (voiced by Grant Wehr) becomes positively obsessed with finding out who she is, feeling he's truly in love. So obsessed is he, that he drags Linus around with him to help find the girl. They go to the football stadium, where he pinpoints the section of seats where the girl was sitting, has Linus sit there in order to make sure, and then has him go ask the people in the ticket booth who she was. This starts an annoying trend, as Charlie Brown forces Linus to do everything: at the Stadium Ticket Office in town, he makes him ask who had the season tickets for those seats, and he also has him call up the potential leads, talk to the girls who may or may not be the one he's looking for, and watch for his signals from nearby. Eventually, the girl in question turns out to be someone who lives at the Happy Valley Farm in the country, and Charlie Brown, again, has Linus talk to her for him. But, much to his shock, Linus immediately falls for the girl, Mary Jo, and goes inside, forgetting completely about him. Charlie Brown waits outside the rest of the afternoon and into early evening, thinking Linus is telling Mary Jo all about him and is expecting her to invite him in. But, in the end,when he comes, Linus is to taken with Mary Jo that he didn't say a single thing about him. Heartbroken and frustrated to no end, Charlie Brown goes home, and this is where I have my conflict of emotions. 

Normally, I feel for Charlie Brown whenever he gets badly screwed over, as you're supposed to, but here, as cruel as this is going to sound, I can't help but think he got what he deserved. Bashfulness and insecurity have always been defining aspects of his character, yes, but after he made Linus do all the legwork that he himself should have been doing, I don't feel that bad when Linus is the one who falls for and ends up with Mary Jo. Instead, I feel like saying, "Sorry, kid, but this is what happens when you don't have a backbone." Plus, as Linus himself mentions, he got such a fleeting glimpse of her on the TV and tends to "fall in love" so often that it's hard to see it as nothing more than a childish crush. But, all that said,

I will admit the sequence of him walking home, completely dejected, accompanied by a royally depressing song, does make me start to come over to his side, as it's obvious he's really hurt by what's happened. And then, he goes to bed, wakes up to the sound of someone knocking on the front door, and excitedly heads down there, thinking it may be Mary Jo, only to open it and find it's Snoopy wanting to be fed. Plus, all throughout this last section of the story, Linus' sheer obliviousness to Charlie Brown's pain can get really grating. So, yeah, this one left me feeling more conflicted than most Peanuts specials do.

Although he's dubious about Charlie Brown's infatuation with the girl he saw, given how brief it was and that he "falls in love" practically every week, Linus (voiced by Earl Reilly) does what he can to help him find her purely out of friendship. As noted, he does all of the hard work that Charlie Brown is too bashful and nervous to do himself, like finding out who sat in the seats he saw the girl in, calling up the family who had those exact tickets, and speaking with the girls who may or may not be her. Linus ends up unintentionally causing Charlie Brown some embarrassment regardless, like when he tells the person at the Stadium Ticket Office the precise reason why he wants to know who sat in those seats, and when he doesn't see Charlie Brown's signals about neither of the first two girls he talks to being the right one (or rather, he's as thick as a brick about them, despite having been told what they mean and clearly seeing them), telling each of them that he's in love with her. Through all this trouble, he eventually finds the address of the right girl, Mary Jo, at the Happy Valley Farm, and actually encourages Charlie Brown to check it out, despite having told him earlier he was getting sick of running around and following false leads. After they try to approach the house from the main highway, only to be chased off by Mary Jo's bobcat, Linus calls the house and is told they should approach from the front. When they do, Charlie Brown, again, has him go talk with the girl, a decision he comes to regret as Linus is immediately taken with Mary Jo, both because she is quite cute and also because she has a security blanket like him. Completely forgetting about Charlie Brown, Linus goes inside, spends the evening with her, and comes out completely ga-ga, as well as oblivious to how angry and hurt Charlie Brown is. For that matter, he's even forgotten Charlie Brown was the one who wanted to meet her in the first place, as he tells him he would like Mary Jo when he gets to know her. Despite trying to be a good friend when he sees him dejected at the end, Linus still makes him feel bad when he mentions he has to get going to meet up with Mary Jo.

Snoopy and Woodstock (voiced by Bill Melendez) are also along for the ride, mainly just to get into mischief. They start by hitching a ride on Linus' blanket when he drags it behind him while walking and, at the football stadium, while Charlie Brown and Linus are trying to figure out where the girl was sitting, they attempt to play a little football themselves. However, Woodstock proves to be too small to either kick or receive the ball, so they go to find something else to do and wander into the training room. There, Snoopy sits in an automatic exercise machine that Woodstock turns on when he's not ready, nearly beating him senseless in the process. Later, at the Stadium Ticket Office,

Woodstock attempts to get a drink from a water fountain, but when Snoopy turns the lever, the force of the water that goes up and comes down on Woodstock knocks him right into the bowl. And after that, while trying to cross the street, they push a button on a crosswalk, forcing all of the cars to stop suddenly, leading to them getting yelled and jeered at as they walk between them. The two of them happen to make it to the Happy Valley Farm before Charlie Brown and Linus and, after having some trouble getting past the cattle guard at the head of the path leading to the house, they run into Mary Jo's bobcat and get chased back out. But later on, after Linus has gone inside the house, Snoopy and Woodstock head up the path to the front door, and when the bobcat confronts them this time, Snoopy manages to stand up to him and scare him up a tree. With that done, the two of them go inside as well and when they come out after dark, they have full bellies from having been fed, adding to Charlie Brown's exasperation.

Those four are the only main members of the Peanuts gang to appear in this cartoon, but there are several other characters. After getting the address of the family who had the tickets to the seats Charlie Brown is sure she saw the girl sitting in, Linus goes to their home and meets a girl (voiced by Nicole Eggert) who, when she comes out, is obviously not the one they're looking for. Far from pretty, she has scraggly hair, a big, pointy nose, buck teeth, and talks in a lisp, and yet, despite Charlie Brown's signal, Linus tells her he's madly in love with her, getting the girl all excited and eager to meet him. However, when Linus loudly asks Charlie Brown if she's the right

one, he yells, "No!", clearly devastating her. Learning the girl didn't even go to the game but her cousin did, the two of them decide to go see her but call her on the phone first. Despite talking with her and hearing a rather unpleasant voice from the other end, they go to see her regardless. She turns out to be a teenager (voiced by Melissa Strawmeyer) who, for whatever reason, has a horribly hoarse, squeaky voice (I don't know if she has laryngitis or if she's on the cusp of puberty or what). Initially excited when Linus tells her he has a friend who's fallen in love with her, when she sees Charlie Brown, she becomes aggravated, as she's hardly interested in a kid as young as him. According to Linus, she told them to get lost

offscreen, but she also gives them the address of another girl who was in the same seating section. This girl turns out to be Mary Jo (voiced by Jennifer Gaffin), who is the right one and is, indeed, just as pretty as Charlie Brown said she was. She also turns out to be very sweet and, like Linus, has a security blanket, which only solidifies his infatuation with her and makes him forget about Charlie Brown completely.

Mary Jo's bobcat is actually Brutus, the mean cat owned by the gang of bullies in Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, recast as a completely different character. Like in that movie, he terrorizes the main characters, especially Snoopy and Woodstock, guarding the Happy Valley Farm like a vicious dog. Mary Jo later says he's actually not that mean, but just doesn't like strangers. In any case, as in Race for Your Life, Snoopy eventually stands up to the bobcat and is able to send him running, making him completely terrified of him. And while he chases Charlie Brown off the property after Linus goes inside with Mary Jo, when Linus comes back out after having spent the evening there, the bobcat runs up to him and rubs up against his legs and mews in a friendly manner.

The small cast of characters is something about this special I do kind of like, as it gives it a more intimate feeling than most. While it's always nice to see the majority of the Peanuts gang and the misadventures they get into, there's something appealing about it just being about Charlie Brown and Linus going around the town, searching for the girl the former has become hopelessly infatuated with. Plus, while there are some digressions in the main plot in order to get into Snoopy and Woodstock's antics, the story remains pretty focused as a result and doesn't get bogged down by the other usual characters like Peppermint Patty, Marcie, or Lucy getting caught up in things and making it more complicated than

it needs to be. I also like seeing the characters somewhat outside of their comfort zones here. While it's not to the extremes of any of the Peanuts feature films, particularly the last two before this special, here you get to see more than just the interior of the characters' houses, their backyards, or the school; rather, you see them in an empty football stadium, which allows Snoopy and Woodstock to get up to mischief in the training room, wandering around a much more urban area than usual, dealing with the offscreen adults in offices, meeting neighborhood kids outside of their inner circle, and making their way to a lovely farm in the country. I'm probably doing a crappy job of explaining it but this one comes off as something of a breath of fresh air.

The animation itself is quite good, up to the usual standards that had been set for the Peanuts cartoons at this point (especially when the characters become very excited), and the environments and backgrounds, such as the football field and stadium, the interiors of the Stadium Ticket Office, and the homes of the first two girls Charlie Brown and Linus meet, are all well-designed. However, the special's loveliest visuals coming during its third act, when they make it to the Happy Valley Farm in the countryside, which has quite a rustic charm to it. The first try to reach the house via a path right off from the main road with a cattle guard at the entrance and with gardens on either side, but when Mary Jo's bobcat chases them off, they, instead, approach from the front, where

you get an even lovelier, picturesque shot of the house. When Linus leaves the house after having spent much of the afternoon and evening with Mary Jo, the scene has a nice-looking, low lighting aesthetic and pinkish-colored sky meant to represent dusk, and then, when Charlie Brown walks home depressed, we get a sequence where everything around him becomes more stylized and expressionistic, as it looks like he's walking in a void, with watercolors and paints all around, birds fluttering about, and butterflies turning into hearts. You see a similarly designed shot of him walking across a field with a full moon on the horizon behind him, a shot of him walking towards the

screen that you can tell has him composited into the image, a similar side-view when he goes into his house, and this overall watercolor look extends to the interiors of his house. When he goes to bed, the texture of his bedspread moves in an interesting manner when he tosses and turns underneath it, and everything only turns back to normal when, hearing a knock on the front door, he opens it hoping to find Mary Jo but simply finds Snoopy standing there with his food dish.

The cartoon starts with Charlie Brown sitting in front of his TV set, watching the football game, while Linus sits behind him in a chair, reading. Suddenly, Charlie Brown gulps, blushes violently, and yells for Linus to look at the TV, saying he just saw, "The most beautiful girl in the world." Linus, who wasn't looking, asks him what he's talking about, when he exclaims he just saw the girl again. But, his excitement turns to distress when the game ends and he moans he'll never see the girl ever again. Linus, incredulous when Charlie Brown describes her as the love of his life, has him explain how the camera went in on a honey shot of the crowd and zoomed in on the girl's face. He

grabs Linus' shirt and shakes him, exclaiming, "I've fallen in love!" Linus, however, tells him, "The trouble with you, Charlie Brown, is that you fall in love all the time. Every week, you fall in love!" He, in turn, tells him it's the real thing this time, insisting he can't go through life knowing there's a girl out there who's meant for him. After the credits, Linus is seen walking through a field when, unbeknownst to him, first Woodstock and then Snoopy, who's holding a football, hitch a ride on his blanket as he drags it along the ground behind him. When he walks up to Charlie Brown, he tells him how he suddenly got so weak that he could barely drag his blanket. Charlie Brown isn't interested in that, saying

they have more important things to do, such as finding where exactly the girl he saw at the game was sitting. Linus is still skeptical about how hung he is up on this girl, reminding him that he only saw her for two seconds. Charlie Brown tells him, "Two seconds is all you need to fall in love!", to which Linus, rolling his eyes, retorts, "Especially when it happens every week."

At the now empty football stadium, Charlie Brown scans the seats, determined to find where the girl was sitting, though Linus can hardly believe he's going to find a girl he saw for two seconds among a crowd of thousands of people. Despite these odds, Charlie Brown figures she was standing by Tunnel No. 13 up in the stands, saying he remembers because thirteen is his lucky number (explains a lot, doesn't it?). The two of them go up into the seats and Charlie Brown, believing he's pinpointed the exact seat, tells Linus to sit there so he can recreate the shot for himself. Linus does as he's told and Charlie Brown walks back a little bit and creates a camera angle with his hands. This

confirms for him that it is where she was sitting, and he even has Linus smile and wave to make sure. He exclaims, "That's it! That's the way she was! It was a honey shot. The camera was on her for just two seconds, but I saw her, and I fell in love." Meanwhile, Snoopy and Woodstock are on the field, trying to have their own little football game. Snoopy motions for Woodstock to run at and kick the ball while he's holding it up, but when he does, he slams right into the side of it and gets knocked to the ground, his tiny body unable to do anything to make it budge. Seeing that's not going to work, Snoopy then motions for Woodstock to run so he can kick the ball to him. That doesn't work out any better, as when the ball heads towards

Woodstock, it hits the ground in front of him, bounces over him, hits the spot behind him and bounces back up, and then falls right on top of him (I always remember that shot from the opening sequence of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show). Giving up on this, Snoopy walks over and motions for Woodstock to follow him, as they go to find something else to do.

They find their way to the training room and walk inside. Looking around at all of the equipment, they walk over to one machine in particular. Snoopy climbs up into the seat and slips his arms up into the straps on some arm pads, when Woodstock walks to the back and pushes a button that starts up the machine. Before Snoopy knows what hit him, he's harshly whacked back and forth with the arm pads and flung up and down on the seat, while Woodstock giggles. After a few seconds, Woodstock switches the machine off, as Snoopy pants heavily. Back with Charlie Brown and Linus, the two of them walk up to the ticket-booth, Charlie Brown pressing Linus to go

inside and find out who the girl was. He waits outside nervously, blushing and twiddling his fingers, while Linus walks in. After a few seconds, he walks back out and tells Charlie Brown they don't know who sat in those seats but, if it was someone with season tickets, the records should be at the office downtown. Although initially despondent, Charlie Brown peps up upon hearing this and the two of them head to the Stadium Ticket Office downtown. Standing outside the door, Charlie Brown tells Linus, "This is our only chance. Under Tunnel No.13, seats G-12 to G-22. They have to tell us who was seated there." They walk inside and, like before, Charlie Brown is

too nervous to go find the information himself, so he presses Linus into doing it. While waiting, he gets a drink at the water fountain (don't you miss water fountains nowadays?), and when Snoopy and Woodstock enter the place behind them, Woodstock decides to follow suit. He flies up onto the edge of the fountain's bowl and motions for Snoopy to turn the nozzle so he can take a drink. Snoopy does so, but when the water comes out, the stream proves to be much harsher than he expected, knocking him into the bowl. Snoopy stands on his tiptoes and looks into the bowl as Woodstock yells and chitters.

As Charlie Brown watches from outside, shaking horribly and with sweat pouring off his head, Linus goes into the office. To his horror, Linus tells the man at the desk exactly why he wants the information, saying, "He's fallen madly in love with a girl who sits in a particular seat at the stadium." Charlie Brown moans, "Good grief," and runs back down the hall, while Linus tells the man where he thinks the girl was sitting. After getting some information, he joins Charlie Brown in the hallway and tells him the man said it would be very difficult to pinpoint exactly who was sitting in those seats, given how big the game was. However, he did get the address of the family who had the tickets for some of the

seats and they head outside to call them. Linus talks with the family in question via a payphone and tells Charlie Brown that they did, indeed, use their tickets the day of the game. The two of them decide to go see them at their home and take the bus. Snoopy and Woodstock, meanwhile, push the button on a crosswalk and the cars zooming down the street suddenly hit the brakes. As the drivers angrily yell at each other, Snoopy and Woodstock make their way across the street (not only is this one of the rare instances of adult characters actually appearing onscreen but the fact that you see them after having heard the typical "wa-wa" sound when Linus was talking with the

man at the Stadium Ticket Office makes it all the more unexpected). When Charlie Brown and Linus reach the apartment where the family lives, the former, again, pushes Linus to talk with the girl, give her his phone number if she wants it, and let her now how he feels. He adds, "But be very sly. Perhaps suggest inviting me in for cookies. You might mention my interest in sports to her. You know, how I'm a manager and pitcher." Linus, rolling his eyes at that last part, tries to get him to do it himself but Charlie Brown is too nervous, saying he's afraid he might faint or start stuttering. He tells him he's going to hide behind the wall that lines the stairs and he'll appear when he gives him the signal. Linus walks up the stairs and rings the

doorbell to the apartment, while Charlie Brown nervously waits behind the wall. The door opens and a girl comes out, though she's hardly the beauty Charlie Brown described having seen at the game. Linus, put off by the sight of her, and despite Charlie Brown signaling that she's not the one, tells her how he's fallen in love with her when he saw her at the game. The girl is quite excited by this and asks, "Where is this Lothario?" But, when Linus loudly asks Charlie Brown if she's the girl and he promptly responds with, "No!", she's immediately crushed, while Charlie Brown is relieved (I'll admit, this is a bit mean-spirited, but I still find it kind of funny).

Rejoining Charlie Brown at the bottom of the stairs, Linus tells him the girl said she didn't even go to the game but that her cousin from out of town went instead (when did she say that, and why didn't she say anything about it when Linus mentioned the game?). Linus has the cousin's address and, while he's not too keen on continuing the search, Charlie Brown insists they must. Linus then decides to call her to see if she's the right one, but warns him that if she isn't, he's giving up and going home. They walk down the sidewalk to the nearest payphone, with Charlie Brown telling Linus he doesn't understand just how important this whole thing is to him. Linus

calls the number and asks to speak to the girl who went to the game, telling Charlie Brown this might be her. But, when he speaks to the girl, the voice that comes through the receiver is horrendous and causes him to recoil. He warns Charlie Brown how awful this girl sounds but he insists he go through with talking to her. Linus tells her, "I have a friend here who's madly in with love you. He'd like to make a date to meet you," and, again, grimaces at the sound of the voice coming through the phone. Letting Charlie Brown listen to how bad it sounds, Linus tells her, "Excuse me, little girl. I think you have the wrong number. Please stop bothering us," and when he gets more squeaking over the phone

as a result, he hangs up. Despite this, Charlie Brown wants to go to the girl's house and see her, and so, they take the bus to her home in the suburbs. Again, he has Linus go to the door and talk with her, asking him to glance at him so he can give him the signal. Linus walks to the door, rings the bell, and the person who answers is a fairly lovely teenage girl, but she speaks in a badly hoarse voice. Linus is taken with her, saying, "He's right! You are beautiful!", to which she responds, "So I'm beautiful. What do you want?" He tells her about having a friend who's in love with her and, like the girl before her, the teenager is interested, but when she sees Charlie Brown standing on the sidewalk, shaking his head and motioning with his

arms, she angrily says, "That kid choking out there?!" She makes it clear she has no interest in little kids and Linus, in turn, asks her to confirm if she was at the football game. He then rejoins Charlie Brown, who admonishes him for not seeing his signal, and he says the girl said for them to get lost. But, she also gave the address of another girl who was in those seats. By this point, Charlie Brown is the one who's about ready to give up, and this time, Linus insists they go check out the address at the Happy Valley Farm.

Somehow, Snoopy and Woodstock end up at the Happy Valley Farm before them. They attempt to approach the path that leads straight from the main road, but Snoopy finds walking across the cattle guard on the ground to be quite difficult, as he ends up rolling across it and down and through the individual bars, before flopping onto the ground on the other side. Woodstock, however, does nothing but laugh at Snoopy's misfortune and merely flutters across it. Regardless, the two of them start down the path, with Snoopy whistling casually, when they're confronted by the bobcat who lives on the property. Terrified, Snoopy tries to make peace (he literally holds up two fingers on both hands) but the bobcat chases both him and

Woodstock back across the cattle guard. Like before, Snoopy rolls crazily across and through it, before making it to the other side. Charlie Brown and Linus then show up, the former asking them what they're doing there. They try to warn him of how ferocious the bobcat is, but he says, "You're afraid of that nice pussycat? You oughta be ashamed of yourselves." He then turns to Linus and says, "Let's go in and talk to my beloved." They walk across the cattle guard and Charlie Brown pats the bobcat on his head when he walks past him. However, the bobcat isn't having it, and he chases them up the path and then back down it, driving them out past the cattle guard. Seeing

they can't get in that way, they, again, resort to calling the house. Linus speaks with the little girl who lives there, telling her how Charlie Brown saw her at the game and that he would like to meet her. He hangs up and tells Charlie Brown they have to approach from the house, as the girl's pet bobcat, although actually quite friendly, doesn't like strangers.

When they head to the path leading to the house's front door, Charlie Brown gives Linus the same spiel as before, telling him not to forget to look for his sign. Linus heads up the path, while Charlie Brown watches from behind a tree in the yard, and rings the doorbell. A lovely little blond girl in a yellow dress and carrying a pink security blanket answers the door. When he sees her, Linus is totally dumbstruck, unable to say anything, and he doesn't see Charlie Brown frantically nodding from behind the tree. Linus does manage to ask her if she went to the football game, but then, he notices she's holding a blanket as well. Having completely forgotten about Charlie Brown, who's desperately trying to get his attention, Linus learns

that, like him, the girl loves her blanket and doesn't like to be separated from it. She invites him in and he accepts, leaving Charlie Brown to yell in frustration, "Linus, she's the one!" Even worse, the bobcat shows up and chases him to the edge of the path, past the picket fence. The cat snarls at him and then heads back into the yard. Despite this setback, Charlie Brown hopes that Linus is telling the girl all about him and that, any moment now, she'll come out and call him in. As he waits, Snoopy and Woodstock show up and he admonishes the former for having not been there to protect him from the bobcat. Undaunted by his warnings, the two of them walk up the path

towards the house, when the cat jumps out at them from behind a tree. This time, though, Snoopy isn't afraid, and he and the cat face off and snarl at each other, before he goes into a fighting stance, swiping at the cat and almost looking as if he's going to do karate on him. This sends the cat running up the tree, allowing Snoopy and Woodstock to head on up to the house, knock on the door, and be allowed inside. Seeing that, Charlie Brown goes from dejected to telling himself his turn can't be long now and decides, "I'll just play it cool. Patience. Patience. That's the ticket. Patience." He looks at his nails and whistles casually, wondering what everyone could be doing in there.

He waits out there until dusk, thinking the girl will come out and get him soon, as it must be getting close to dinnertime. He thinks, "What more could Linus tell her about me that would take so much time?", when he sees Snoopy and Woodstock come out the door. The two of them wave inside the house and head down the path, not seeing the bobcat, who's now hiding behind the tree, not wanting anything to do with Snoopy. They walk up to Charlie Brown, patting their obviously full stomachs, with Snoopy licking his chops. Noting how satisfied they both seem, he asks, "Did you meet my girl? Does she know you're my dog? Are they talking about me? Is Linus having a good time?" Snoopy does nothing but pick his teeth

before he and Woodstock walk away, but when Charlie Brown looks at the house, he gets an answer to his last question, as Linus walks out the door, waves goodbye to the girl, and heads down the path with a dreamy expression on his face. The bobcat runs after him, seemingly about to attack him, but instead, he rubs against his legs and lets out some friendly mews. Linus then joins Charlie Brown at the head of the path and fawns about having met the most beautiful girl in the world, that she invited him in for cookies and milk, and they have a lot in common. He's so caught up in his infatuation that he completely misses Charlie Brown's asking if he told the girl about him, and

when they start home, he still doesn't get it, going on about how the girl wants to know everything about him and even says that Charlie Brown would have liked her. He also says they're going to try to write to each other, spend the holidays together, and, again, says that Charlie Brown will like her when he meets her. Charlie Brown, meanwhile, has been growing more and more frustrated, and he finally explodes, yelling at Linus, "You were supposed to tell the little girl about me! Instead, all you did was...", but he gets cut off, as Linus declares he's in love with "Mary Jo." This doubly irks Charlie Brown, and when Linus absentmindedly considers taking her to a movie, he runs off, yelling in frustration, leaving Linus to wonder, "I wonder what's the matter with him?"

Now, we get into the sequence that does start to ease my initial frustration with Charlie Brown here. As he walks home, a song called Alone by Becky Reardon plays, while he sees visions of pairs of birds flying in the sky above him and two butterflies flying past him, only for them to turn into hearts. The song is all about seeing everyone having a special someone, except you, and how depressing such an existence could be, with the punctuating lyric, "And that's when I feel most alone." It gets even sadder when the song goes into the idea of longing for a significant other, as you see Charlie Brown thinking about the same thing and becoming momentarily happy, to the point where he skips a little bit, only to become sad again when

he walks into his house. He goes up to bed, as the song continues with lyrics like, "I dream of how it would feel to be needed. I dream of someone that I could call my own. I dream of all that we'd share when love is in the air." Come morning, he wakes up to the sound of someone knocking on the front door and thinks it might be Mary Jo, but when he opens the door, he finds it's just Snoopy, wanting to be fed. With that, the song ends with, "And that's when I feel most alone," as Charlie Brown sadly slumps past Snoopy and heads over to the brick wall, where Linus is waiting for him. He tells him, "You know what? Yesterday, I was almost happy. For one brief moment, I thought I was winning in

the game of life. But there was a flag on the play. I wonder why it happens? Just when you think everything is perfect, life deals you a blow." Linus, surprisingly, says, "I know what you mean. Maybe, we should all wear batting helmets," seeming to suggest that something's happened to dampen his happiness as well. And then, he pulls out a watch and says, "Well, I guess I'll just make it to Mary Jo's if I leave now. I've been invited to a picnic and barbecue at the farm." Again, not seeing how much this irks and angers Charlie Brown, he heads off for his date. Alone, Charlie Brown pulls out a small book, flips through it, and reads, "Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Not caring for that quote, he flips through the book again and reads, "Does the imagination dwell the most upon a woman won, or a woman lost?" Now feeling worse, he groans, "I can't stand it," closes the book, and sighs.

As was the norm for the Peanuts cartoons produced in the late 70's and on into the early 90's, the music here was done by Ed Bogas and Judy Munsen. Also, as they tended to do, they didn't use any of Vince Guaraldi's familiar themes, not even Linus and Lucy, instead putting in their own style. They come up with a pretty memorable main theme here that you hear many times, like when Linus unknowingly drags Snoopy and Woodstock on his blanket, when the latter two get into mischief, and when the boys are wandering the town while following leads, and it's a memorably silly, yet appropriately mellow-sounding theme, not unlike the main motif the two of them came up with for Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown. They also came up with some other funny-sounding music that plays when Linus meets the first girl, when his ears get blasted by the awful voice he hears over the telephone, and when he talks with the teenage girl in person, the latter of which sounds melodramatic but still has a funny ring to it. However, the instrumental versions of the Alone song, which you first hear at the beginning of the special and throughout whenever Charlie Brown pines for the girl he's looking for, is far more poignant and, in some cases, downright sad-sounding, especially when you hear the song itself (during that very last scene, you hear a soft piano variation on it while Charlie Brown is flipping through the little book he has). And yet, during the credits, you hear an almost fanfare-like version of it, probably to go along with the football theme, while the ending credits has a very lovely, orchestral version.

Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown is an example of a Peanuts cartoon that is mostly just average but has noteworthy aspects like the small cast of main characters, the intimate story, a handful of genuinely funny moments, the good animation and production design of the backgrounds and environments, and a pretty good music score. However, if you're anything like me, you'll likely feel very conflicted about what becomes of Charlie Brown by the end of it, swinging from feeling like it's his own fault to being genuinely sorry for him, as per usual. Whatever the case, it is an okay one to pop in for Valentine's Day, much more so than the far more enraging It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, which I'll probably talk about some other year.