Who are you, Charlie Brown? is now streaming on Apple TV+.
First published in 1950, Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts became one of the most famous comic strips ever published. Peanuts started life in a small local newspaper under the title Li’l Folks, where Schulz, or Sparky to his family and friends, began to shape the characters, style, and vision we all came to love. At the heart of his comic strip was Charlie Brown, a boy built on his own childhood experiences. Michael Bonfiglio’s delightful and loving documentary of Schulz begins here, exploring Schulz’s creativity and talent through the Peanuts gang he loved and cherished, with Charlie Brown, his most famous character, asking, “Who am I?”
Over the twenty years since Charlie Brown and Peanuts retired from the press following Schulz’s death, they have continued to win new hearts and minds. Their enduring appeal is rooted in the intelligence, wit, and charm of their creator, who dedicated his life to a diversity of characters that changed the world.
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Who are you, Charlie Brown? also demonstrates that the lasting legacy of Schulz in pop culture, psychology, TV and film is rooted in intelligent writing and not just the hand-drawn characters. Schulz’s belief in diversity, unity and hope dovetailed with an honest, loving and thoughtful dissection of childhood experience. The result was a comic strip that every kid and adult could relate to, with every character speaking to an old or young person who saw themselves reflected in ink. Each Peanuts story is a loving tribute to the anxieties, magic, belief, and disappointment that surround childhood and adult experience.
Narrated by Lupita Nyong’o, we are taken from Schulz’s childhood, full of insecurities, to his service in World War II and his eventual work as an artist and storyteller. But it is within the discussions on Schulz’s commitment to the evolution, love, and protection of imaginary and real family that Bonfiglio’s documentary truly finds its voice. The privacy and security Schulz created are fascinating, not just for his own family but also for his treasured Charlie Brown and Peanuts characters. Bonfiglio weaves interviews with animation as he explores the private world of Schulz in a documentary that lovingly celebrates the man, his family, his creations and his place in animation history.
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