Peanuts gang as animated cartoons
The Peanuts gang never really got their due as animated characters. The humor falls flat in my opinion because the characters are voiced by children who lack comedic timing and don't fully understand all the lines they're saying. In fact, in some cases you can actually hear that the children providing the voices are speaking their lines phonetically. It would have been better to get an all-female voice cast to have consistent voices for the Peanuts gang's TV and film exploits.
The measure of an animated cartoon character's recognizability is not only its physical appearance, but its voice. I can list a few cartoon characters here and I'm sure everyone would recognize their voices without seeing the character.
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and all the WB characters.
Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa and the cast of The Simpsons.
Betty Boop, Popeye, Donald Duck, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, the list goes on and on.
Can any of the Peanuts gang be recognized by voice alone? Absolutely not. I think that by not making them distinctive animated characters, they endured as a comic strip for 50 years. Had they taken on a life of their own in animation, the strip might not have stayed on top. The extremely verbose and imaginative Snoopy of the comic strip is silent in the animated adventures, and this is to the detriment of the character. Snoopy's intelligence and humor is a glaring omission from the animated Peanuts stories. Why his thoughts were not given a voice is something of a mystery. Snoopy's silly animated pantomimes are no substitute for his comic strip wisecracks. This made his comic strip persona outshine anything done in animation.
A good example of a comic strip character taking on a life of his own in animation is Popeye.
Popeye's strip went out of print years ago, but everyone knows his voice, his song, and his spinach gimmick (which was not part of the comic strip) because he became a famous animated character. In many cases, comic strip characters gain distinctive voices, theme songs, and catchphrases from their animated exploits. Superman got his "faster than a speeding bullet" catchphrase from the Max Fleischer animated cartoons of the 30s and 40s. The only sounds that are associated with the Peanuts gang are the offscreen "teacher voice" made with a trombone, and the familiar piano tune "Linus and Lucy."
Now that Charles Schulz is no longer with us, I'd like to see the Peanuts gang take a new direction in their animated exploits, since this is where they will continue.
First, I'd like to see Schulz's original artwork animated by computer instead of poorly drawn animation cells. I'd also like to see Snoopy finally have a voice, much like Lorenzo Music did for Garfield. No lip movement, just thoughts. I wonder who would make a good voice for Snoopy? I'd hope for someone who would add a dimension and recognizability to the character not yet seen in animation.
I want the Peanuts gang to finally have distinctive voices that will remain constant for years to come. Since the animated specials are going to continue, it's only right that the Peanuts animated cartoons take the necessary steps to ensure the characters endure in their new medium, since no one will be drawing new exploits in the strips. Which brings up another point: how about new stories that don't mine the comic strips for material? You can't tell me that a writer can't come up with funny situations and lines consistent with the Peanuts gang.
That said, I'd also like to see a new Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc. special made every year. If they can churn out 22 episodes of The Simpsons every year, they can turn out 5 or 6 new, genuinely funny Peanuts cartoons every year.
What do you think?