This is the 4th of 4 Peanuts specials and is precisely the coolest and best of them. As a great Peanuts fan, I must say that this is Peanuts at their best! Together with "Snoopy Come Home" and "Race for your life, Charlie Brown", this is a true Peanuts classic. I cross my fingers so that this film's petition for a DVD release works out because this movie deserves! "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and don't come back!)" isn't just another Peanuts stuff. This one takes the Peanuts gang (Charlie Brown, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Snoopy and Woodstock) to the travel of their lives: they go to England and France as foreign exchange students. At the same time, they live the adventure of their lives in France.
The Peanuts gang first arrive to London and travel a bit in that city (including in a London bus with 2 floors and in a London Cab). After London, they go to France in a hovercraft and, before going to their student missions, they travel around France with the loyal company of their rental car, an old Citroen 2CV (the historical "deux chevaux", one of my all time favorite cars), leading to many hilarious moments and together they live many adventures, some of them extremely comical. By the way, it must be really cool to travel in a hovercraft. It's an interesting and different type of boat and I know that thanks to this movie.
This Peanuts classics has a dark atmosphere carried with suspense, which is quite notorious in many ways. The Château du Mal Voisin (which means "Château of the Bad Neighbor") gives the feeling of being a spooky and dangerous place, especially at night, combined with the rain, lightning, the mysterious feeling about it, the background music and the Baron himself. The Baron is only shown as a shadowy figure, which accents that creepy feeling, combined with his threats and the way he's described by Pierre (who is a cool chap). The kind Violette is so different from her uncle Baron.
Ah yes, the "Fire at the Château" sequence has strong suspense. Darkness and suspense are unusual on Peanuts shorts or movies, but that's one of the things that makes the difference in this one.
The dark atmosphere is brilliant and the artwork here is spectacular. Everything is so well designed, painted and perfect, which isn't very common on Peanuts. This movie has such a great combination of light humor, suspense and darkness which, together with the fact that it takes place in England and France, makes it a unique and distinguish Peanuts classic, as well as a favorite for many.
This great movie is also very humorous because comic gags are a strong point. Peanuts are usually funny, but this movie is funnier than usual on Peanuts. For example, the whole tennis sequence is simply hilarious. Other funny gags are, for example, the entire loaf of bread sequence; the car's wipers sequence; Snoopy saying "words" to a taxi-driver who speaks with a cockney British accent on his "typically Snoopy" language; both sequences of the cars's crash; Snoopy drinking root beer; whenever Woodstock gets grumpy; Linus getting furious when Charlie Brown falls asleep; Charlie Brown embarrassing Linus because of the passport; the noise of the car's dodgy transmission; and much, much more...
The entire soundtrack is amazing as well, including a slower version of James Bond's theme and the relaxing song "I want to remember this". The lines are all excellent too, as much as the actors's voice talents.
Adventure, comedy, darkness, suspense, classic humor, great characters, wonderful animation, amazing artwork, unforgettable moments, fabulous music... it has everything one can wish in an animated classic movie! This one has also the coolest ending credits ever. No other movie (before or after this) has such imaginative and creative ending credits like this.
It's a nostalgic movie that brings wonderful memories from childhood. The whole movie is awesome. I wouldn't change anything about it in any way. There's nothing wrong about it. I could even ask how can anyone not love this movie. I'm not afraid to say and I even dare to say that this and the early mentioned 3 Peanuts classics leave absolutely nothing to be desired comparing to the finest Disney classics. More than that, they are even superior to many Disney classics.
This should definitely be on Top 250.
