T-Shirt Tales – Charlie Brown & The Peanuts Gang Go Riverdale

Coming next fall to the CW: Peanuts!

After the success of Riverdale, the network decided to create a new night time soap opera based on these beloved comic strip characters. They’ll be aged to teenagers and find themselves confronted with the problems of today.

Charlie Brown will be the lead character of course. Instead of the lovable loser, he’s at the end of his rope. Until he sees the Little Red-Haired Girl, who pops up to lift him up when he’s at his lowest. Is she real, or just a figment of his imagination? Keep watching to find out!

Linus is the Jughead of the show. A philosopher but with a bit of a rebellious side. He tries to hide his insecurities with knowledge, as well as his childhood blanket which he keeps hidden in his backpack at all times. The series will open with him having a tumultuous affair with Miss Othmar. But when his sister threatens to expose them, Othmar leaves town and Linus turns his attention to Sally. It looks like happily ever after for them, until Linus finds himself as part of The Cult of the Great Pumpkin.

His sister, Lucy, is the major manipulator of the show. Now the head of the cheerleading squad, she uses her knowledge of human psychology to toy with people. Her sidekicks Violet and Patty are always at her beck and call.

Lucy is personally responsible for most of the things that go wrong in Charlie Brown’s life. In all things, she’ll (metaphorically) pull the football away from him. But why? We’ll soon find out there is something in their family histories that generated this grudge (but probably not until season two).

The only person Lucy shows a warm side to is Schroder, still her unrequited love. Though she’ll attempt to manipulate him into being with her, those are the ploys that will always blow up in her face. While Schroder himself is a tortured artist. Ironically, like his idol, Beethoven, he is also going deaf. And it’s affecting his ability to play. Pretty scary with an audition to a big conservatory coming up.

I know it’s the usual joke that Peppermint Patty and Marcie are lesbians. But in the comics, they both have the hots for Charlie Brown, even though he’s oblivious. The show would begin with them each trying to outdo each other for Chuck’s affections. But eventually, they will realize they don’t need him, only each other.

The show would bring out some forgotten or little seen characters. Franklin would be the high school quarterback addicted to pain killers.

Frida will deal with struggle with body dysmorphic disorder, which will start as obsession over her hair and end with her getting multiple plastic surgeries. And poor Pig Pen has to deal with a neglectful, hoarding mother who doesn’t care about how messy he is when he goes to school.

Where is Snoopy in all this? He’s Charlie Brown’s real life Beagle, watching everything that happens around him. And on the very last episode, we will hear the sounds of a typewriter. A cartoon image of Snoopy sitting on top of his doghouse will fade in. And we will learn that all of this was written by Snoopy, the World’s Greatest Writer. While Woodstock proofreads it and give it a thumbs (or wings) up. It was a dark and stormy night, indeed!