The AAUGH blog

Now shipping: It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

What, that’s not specific enough? You’re right. I should say that now shipping is the book adaptation of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

What, still not specific enough? Okay, it’s the Running Press book adaptation of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

And the odd thing is, that’s still not specific enough. This new book, their 24-page paperback adaptation of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, with a sheet of stickers bound in, is actually the third Running Press adaptation that they’ve done in just under 4 years. In 2004, they released a minibook adaptation. Last year, they released a kid’s board book adaptation. Now this, and no, it doesn’t just recycle the earlier content. Of course, it doesn’t really capture the effect of watching the special, which is mostly a bunch of funny set pieces that the book just has time to explain rather than recreating the effect. The art adaptation is pretty good (and they avoid the five o’clock shadow problem that has plagued some recent efforts), although there is still a problem with arranging layouts where the characters are at different distances.

A bit more fun is Running Press’s new adaptation of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. For one thing, the special is a bit more solid in the story department; while it has its set pieces, it also has a real, developing story. Plus, some key parts of the story are missing from the main text - some of the characters and props are on 6 pages of stickers, with the young reader instructed what pages to put them on. Of course, that’s something they can only do once; then the stickers are in. The book also has cardboard figures of Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Linus and Snoopy to cut out, and a dining table to cut out and fold. So this might actually making a nice little gift for the niece you’re visiting for Thanksgiving.

Coming in March: You Can Be Anything!, a new Peanuts kids hardcover.

And now shipping are various Peanuts calendars for 2009. This year, you can choose between:

• Peanuts Love Is wall calendar
• Mini day-to-day calendar (with magentic backing and easel)
• Engagement diary calendar
• Page per day calendar
• Peanuts Mom’s Organizer 2009 Magnetic Mount Wall Calendar (which makes sense, I suppose, if you have iron walls)

Bill Melendez, the animator who brought the Peanuts characters to screens big and small, turning out some of the most beloved cartoons, passed away yesterday, at 91.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Melendez on a couple occasions. He was happy, friendly, and even in his later years, an intense worker. He brought life and motion to Peanuts in a way that wasn’t just Schulz but wasn’t unSchulz either. I’m reminded of it every time my three year old daughter watches A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (which she does once or twice a week these days) and melts in uncontrollable laughter during Snoopy’s fight with the chair.

Bill also performed voices for both Snoopy and Woodstock, which (paired with the instrumental mute used to make the teachers’ voices) became part of a great unintelligible voice cast.

Bill’s work went far beyond Peanuts, of course. Early on, he worked for Disney and Warners, and would go on to work on a huge number of commercials, and worked on TV versions of Garfield, Cathy, and more.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that donations should go to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

A decade back, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek bio of Bill for a banquet honoring him. You can find that here.

For those of you who like throwing the big bucks at the fancy editions of Peanuts books, Easton Press now has turned their leather-binding, gold-stamping equipment on It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic. It’ll run you about $80. Like all Easton Press editions, it’s not available through AAUGH.com; you gotta order it from Easton themselves. See all their in-print Peanuts books here.

Word is getting out about an Amazon policy change that’s about to hit, and I wanted to be clear about what this change is… and more vitally, what it isn’t.

• Amazon is eliminating their 30-day price guarantee. Up until now, if you ordered something, Amazon shipped it, and a couple weeks later you discovered that Amazon had dropped the price by a couple bucks, you could get a refund of the difference. Not many folks were aware of this, and you actually had to apply for it. Anyway, this policy ends starting with items ordered tomorrow (so if you had some big purchase planned - say, an $850 42-inch Panasonic plasma screen TV - make it today and get your 30 days!)
• Amazon is not eliminating their pre-order price guarantee. Under this, if you preorder an item that hasn’t been released yet, and the price drops some time before it’s actually released, you get the lower price. This is vital to us here at AAUGH.com, because I encourage folks to preorder books, so that they order it while it’s still in mind and get it as soon as possible. Amazon doesn’t always include the discount when upcoming projects are first listed, but with this policy, that doesn’t mean you have to hold off ordering.

So you can continue preordering things (say, next month’s Complete Peanuts boxed set) with comfort!

If you’re looking forward to the new Peanuts DVDs, get the boxed set. Not only do you get three DVDs (A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown) for about $10 less than buying them separately, you also get them weeks before a couple weeks before the last two of the individual disks are scheduled to ship.

(And yes, despite the fact the box says it has three specials, it actually has all six, including the bonus special on each disk.)

Added later: Whoops, I somehow missed that in addition to all that, the boxed set also has an exclusive CD of six Peanuts songs. A bargain gets even bargainer!