Review/Television; Peanuts Become Pilgrims
By CARYN JAMES
Published: October 21, 1988
''This is America, Charlie Brown!'' plops down the Peanuts characters on the gangplank of the Mayflower. We never know how they came to be among the Pilgrims, but that storybook conceit is nothing next to the program's most unusual feature. ''The Voyage of the Mayflower,'' the first episode in this eight-part series, is an animated history lesson for very young children, but a lesson with a surprisingly somber and realistic layer beneath its candy coating. ''The Voyage of the Mayflower'' will be shown tonight at 8 on CBS.
The girls - Lucy, Sally, Peppermint Patty and Marcie - wear Pilgrim dresses and caps. Charlie Brown wears his comfortable old shirt; his concession to history is to go barefoot. Imposing familiar touches on the strangeness of the past seems to be the program's design for drawing children into the Pilgrims' story. We're told the Mayflower sails from England, but even Miles Standish has an easygoing American accent.
Yet the uneasy tale that Charlie Brown narrates in a voiceover is about the hardships of the Atlantic crossing and the brutal first winter in New England. Seasickness, storms, overcrowded cabins, even the smells on the ship are effectively visualized. When Lucy bossily yells, ''Come on, Charlie Brown, shape up!,'' it's one of the perfunctory scenes putting the characters through their paces.
After the Mayflower lands near what is now Provincetown, Mass., the story races through familiar steps in early American history. Snoopy puts on a Pilgrim hat and explores the new land. The ship moves to Plymouth, where nearly half the company dies of disease and the harsh winter. The Indian Squanto finally arrives to help, and teaches the Peanuts characters to plant the corn they will eat at the first Thanksgiving.
There is some especially odd and weak language in the show, written by Peanuts' creator, Charles M. Schulz, and Lee Mendelson and produced by Bill Melendez, who co-directed with Everett Brown and Sam Jaimes. Charlie Brown's speeches might have been lifted from old-fashioned history books, the kind that make children nod off at their desks. The Mayflower passengers were determined because of their ''belief in God, desire for freedom from religious persecution, and their dreams of creating a new world for future generations,'' says poor Charlie Brown, who sounds like he's memorizing answers for a test. Those abstractions work against the purpose of making history fresh and accessible.
Despite its unpretty look at the Pilgrims' suffering, ''The Voyage of the Mayflower'' is never too harsh for young children. The next three episodes, to be shown on subsequent Fridays at the same time, were not available for review, but definitely sound more upbeat. The Peanuts characters help frame the Constitution, jump ahead to join the Wright Brothers, and are launched by NASA into outer space. Four other episodes, whose subjects have not been announced, will be shown later in the season.
The seriousness of this episode may be a lucky aberration. It is not the most sophisticated children's program around, but it is a giant step away from the parentless fantasyland of Peanuts, where the shrewdest inhabitant is, after all, a beagle.