I know that this You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown DVD is a recording of the television special (1985) based on the stage musical (1967). I know that Peanuts was a long-lasting, nearly fifty-year, cartoon strip, and that Charles Schultz did his best to translate good morals and such to the adults and children who read his work. I know that my seminary president called Snoopy the "Hound of Heaven" and thought that Schultz was one of the great theologians of his time.

But I've never understood the fascination with this little, bald kid who was always getting piled on. Seriously, did he ever have a good day?

Well, the music-laden You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown was the best attempt ever made to show that Charlie Brown's bad days were really good, that he really was loved and respected by his friends, that he could fly a kite. In a series of scenes which trace their way back to the musical, the cartoon primetime special shows Charlie trying to figure out what it means to be a good man. And you might say that Charlie Brown is in fact good—having survived all of these years in spite of Lucy's best efforts to bring him down.

But I still don't find this enjoyable! I've too many memories of Charlie talking to uncaring and aloof adults, of Lucy pulling the football away from him just as he was about to kick it, of Lucy's psychiatric booth which makes him think he's crazy, of Lucy's pursuit of Schroeder and his complete frustration, of the way Lucy bullies Linus, and of the way that I never remember Charlie ever making it work with "the red-headed girl." So why watch a cartoon that makes you feel bad? Why watch a show for children that made me wonder what I'd be showing them? And that's not including Snoopy with a voice in this take.

But someone has told me this is generational, and if I was older I'd understand. Maybe that's true, but I can't get older than I am. And Charlie Brown can't wake up happy, either. It's just a fact.