ThePeanuts Movie, due on Nov. 6, isn’t the first time Charles Schulz’s charactersmigrated from the comic section to the big screen. There was an animatedpicture released in the holiday season of 1969, A Boy Named Charlie Brown.Produced and directed by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson, the duo behind thePeanuts TV specials from earlier in the decade, the story concerns a moroseCharlie Brown convinced he will never win at anything—not baseball, a spellingbee or even tic-tac-toe. The soundtrack album, reissued on CD, featuresmiddle-of-the road pop performer Rod McKuen singing a batch of his own songs—thebest of them co-written with Henry Mancini. The arrangements are light, witheasy-listening strings, but with contributions from some acclaimed jazz players,including the cool-school trumpeter Chet Baker.
