BOOTLEG FILES 162: “A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa” (2002 short film that mixes “Peanuts” and “Dolemite”).
LAST SEEN: Playing online at numerous video sites.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR DISAPPEARANCE: If we have to explain why, then you are one sorry dumb-a*s cracker.
CHANCES OF SEEING A DVD RELEASE: Watch it, sucka!
Two weeks ago, we profiled “Santa Claus’ Punch and Judy,” in which jolly Kris Kringle exposed a bunch of kids to a puppet show full of violence against women and animals. Last week, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” brought an excess of 70s kitsch to the screen with gay icon Paul Lynde and his “special guest star” Anson Williams (a.k.a. Potsie on “Happy Days”). So how can we possible wrap up the holiday season while maintaining a status of equal opportunity offender? Well, there’s only one holiday movie that could possible ice that cake: “A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa.”
Say what? I ain’t shittin’ you, bro – there is such a film and it could be seen as either the funniest thing ever made or the most offensive endeavor this side of D.W. Griffith. The concept is very simple: “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” that ultimate vision of the holidays as seen through the world of suburban white kids, has its soundtrack replaced with an urban adult scatological riff that seems more aligned to Rudy Ray Moore’s Dolemite movies than the Charles M. Schulz cartoons. If you can get past the idea of the “Peanuts” characters speaking dirty in exaggerated “Amos ‘n’ Andy” voices, you’re in for a wild ride.
“A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa” telescopes “A Charlie Brown Christmas” into a neat seven-minute running time. All of the non-dialogue sight gags have been cut and the subplot with Snoopy entering the Christmas lights contest is also jettisoned. Otherwise, it stays faithful to the original source’s plotline.
After a quick title sequence featuring a retarded a-capella rendition of the theme to “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the show stars. It’s holiday time and Charlie Brown tries to hit up Linus for money. Linus berates Charlie Brown with no uncertain fury: “Charlie Brown, you nasty a*s n****r! You the only m**********r I know who could f**k up their own Kwanzaa by not collecting your chips. That crack ho Lucy was off the hook – of all the motherfuckers on Earth, you the motherfuckest!”
Okay, that’s actually among the mildest lines in the film. It gets worst (those with no tolerance for profanity are welcome to go across the Internet and read whatever James Berardinelli is reviewing today).
Charlie Brown then confronts Violet with this exchange:
CHARLIE BROWN: Bitch, where’s my money?
VIOLET: Business is slow, daddy!
CHARLIE BROWN: It won’t get any faster with my foot up your a*s!
A group of children are catching snowflakes with their tongues. Patty (not Peppermint Patty, but a blonde girl with a checkered dress and matching hair bow) sticks out her tongue and exclaims: “My guy gets all heady when I’m sucking his cockasaurus with a cold lickety-split!” Lucy responds with less enthusiasm, noting: “I pulled that s**t on my guy and, eww, he whupped my a*s till I walked like Jerry’s kids and s**t.”
Charlie Brown visits Lucy’s “psychiatric care” street booth for help. Lucy puts her coin can out and declares: “Nickel give you word on the street, quarter get your dick sucked and for a dollar you can stick furniture in my a*s.”
Charlie Brown deposits a coin in the can and Lucy mocks his offering. “M***********g nickel!” she laughs. “Someone didn’t get their welfare today.”
Lucy determines that Charlie Brown needs a job. He confides: “The real problem is my b*****s. They ain’t just producing enough flow for me to living large and s**t.” Lucy offers Charlie Brown the chance to direct the Kwanzaa play at her church, then she adds she had her own holiday hang-ups.
CHARLIE BROWN: What you want, bitch?
LUCY: Twelve inches.
The scene shifts to the church’s theater. Schroeder is his piano and he beings playing Lee Hazlewood’s “Some Velvet Morning” (complete with Hazelwood’s vocals). Lucy is appalled at this non-funky offering.
LUCY: You off the hook, Frankenstein! What kind of glass dick you smoking from?
SCHROEDER: The one from your a*s, bitch!
Lucy, however, recovers her advantage with a classic snap: “Yo mama’s such a ho, she got more clap than an auditorium!”
Lucy then introduces Charlie Brown as the new HNIC (Head N****r in Charge). Charlie Brown takes control of directing the play by declaring: “Hear me out or I’ll slap the black off y’all.” While Lucy hands out the costumes for the play, Charlie Brown’s sister Sally falls in love with Linus and says to him: “Let’s lock legs and swap gravy.”
Charlie Brown and Linus are sent out to get a Kwanzaa shrub for the play. They find a pathetic little tree and Linus declares it looks like an “Xmas tree.” When asked if he means “Christmas tree,” Linus says: “No, Xmas. As in Malcolm Xmas.” Charlie Brown wants the unlikely arboreal offering and states: “Let’s jack this f*****g twig and show Lucy my blacksnake.”
Returning with the sickly shrub, Charlie Brown is berated for employing “TCB – Typical Cracker Behavior.” Lucy tells him that he’s “well f****d and far from home.” Charlie Brown cries in anguish: “I done gobble-basted a ho! I thought Kwanzaa was about thumbs-to-a*s b*****s and smelly caverns.”
Charlie Brown cries out if anyone knows the true meaning of Kwanzaa. Linus steps forward and relates the story of the Three Kings: Martin Luther, Don and Rodney. Incredibly, Martin Luther King is spoken about with respect and sincerity – he is the “good king,” according to Linus. Don and Rodney, however, are spoken about as oversexed hustlers. Don is the “bad king” and Rodney is the “worst king of them all.”
Charlie Brown takes his shrub home, but he believes he killed it when it collapses under the weight of a Christmas ball. “Get this shrub some Viagra,” he wails. Linus wraps his blanket around it and the shrub comes back to life. All of the characters in the cartoon wish Charlie Brown a “Happy Kwanzaa” and everyone starts singing – as the voice of Lee Hazlewood crooning “Some Velvet Morning” comes back on the soundtrack!
I would like to give credit to the person responsible for this offering, but to date that person refuses to identify himself. An attempt to reach him via his MySpace page for an interview was rebuffed. I am assuming this is the work of a single person (the voices on the soundtrack appear to be from one person, and all of the female voices sound alike).
But whoever created “A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa” couldn’t get enough of this mad mix. He’s also done a few more Charlie Brown ghetto specials, focusing on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Ramadan, and he even rotoscoped “A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa” to make the characters black. He also has cartoons featuring “Rudolph the Five-Legged Reindeer” and “How the Grinch Stole Kwanzaa” (the latter substitutes an unreasonable facsimile of Bill Cosby in lieu of Boris Karloff’s narration).
“A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa” is only available for online viewing. I assume that the Schulz estate and United Features Syndicate is unaware of this film, otherwise an effort would be made to remove it from YouTube, Google Video and other sites. MySpace, apparently, was made aware of it and deleted a page devoted to it (that page was subsequently restored).
But is “A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa” racist? My answer: no, not at all. It is an outlandish production that obviously exaggerates urban underground comedy with its profanities and obsession with sexual commentary. But at the same time, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” exaggerates white suburban angst relating to Christmastime. With its whining against the commercializing of the holiday, coupled with the excessive selfishness and vanity of the “Peanuts” characters (especially the girls, who are completely horrid), the original source is hardly a mirror on the white world.
“A Chalie Brown Kwanzaa” may not win medals for political correctness. But f**k political correctness – it is a raw, funny parody of “Peanuts” and a wonderfully rude way to wrap a holiday season.
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