You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown

You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown is a 1972 animated television special and the eighth one in the Peanuts series. It is a flawed, but frequently funny special.

Linus is up for Student Body President Election, but eventually learns that he has no power at all after his win. I really liked that realization at the end as it is smart and the whole special is like that. Also, I really liked the speeches as they lead to a lot of the humorous moments. However, I still found this episode to be very flawed as it is never hilarious and never particularly engaging. It is also very uneven and too slow at first with the first five minutes or so being forgettable.

But Sally gets better later on with some fun lines and Lucy is of course excellent along with Snoopy. But it is Linus who is the most likable of the bunch here and this is one of his better episodes. And I really loved a nod to ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown‘. The whole presidential campaign premise could have been better explored, but it still provided us with some funny lines and many good character interactions.