Noooooooo! Can it really be true? Peter Robbins, the former child actor who provided the husky, world-weary voice of Charlie Brown in classic 1960's Peanuts TV specials such as "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", was arrested last Sunday on charges of....gasp!....
stalking and threatening! Yes, I
know. But pick your jaw up off the floor. You'll get carpet burn. And we're just getting started on this mind-boggling tale of yet another child star turned mid-life trainwreck.
PETER ROBBINS PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO CHARGES OF STALKING AND THREATENING IN SAN DIEGO SUPERIOR COURT EARLIER THIS WEEK
Okay, so, details. Well, it seems that the 56-year-old Robbins, who lives in Oceanside, California, became upset when his girlfriend, Shawna Kern refused to pay back money he had given her for breast augmentation surgery (guess "Charlie Brown" likes them peanut-sized) after the couple broke up in December. To show his displeasure, he allegedly left Kern a series of threatening phone messages, including one in which he said, "You better hide, Shawna, I'm coming for you...and I'm going to kill you." Robbins also allegedly threatened to kill Kern's son if she didn't return his car and dog. And it didn't stop there. Robbins was additonally charged with threatening the female surgeon who performed Kern's breast enhancement as well as a police sergeant who arrested him on Jan. 13 after he failed to pay a hotel bill. The erstwhile Peanuts star was arrested on stalking and threatening charges by U.S. Customs officials as he was returning to San Diego from Mexico last Sunday. He was released on $55,000 bail after pleading not guilty (big surprise) in San Diego Superior Court earlier this week. The bail was originally set at $550,000, but Robbins' lawyer, who described him as an "eccentric person" and "a distraught man", argued for the lesser amount, telling the judge that, prior to his arrest on the current charges, Robbins had never been in trouble with the law.
ROBBINS SMILING FOR "PEANUTS" FANS IN HAPPIER TIMES
Of course, Robbins is hardly the first former child star to land in jail after indulging in criminal behavior. The list of one-time Hollywood prodigies gone wrong is a long and tragic one (please join me in a moment of silence for Alfalfa, won't you?), and I could spend more time than I have to spare trying to analyze the reasons that so many of the kids we've watched grow up on TV and in the movies seem to come to a bad end once they exit puberty. But come on....the guy who did the voice of Charlie Brown? I mean, it's bad enough when someone like Todd Bridges (he played Willis in "Diff'rent Strokes", in case you've forgotten) is arrested for allegedly murdering his drug dealer (he was later acquitted) or the kid who wowed us in "The Sixth Sense" wrecks his car after a few too many cocktails, but when Charlie Brown gets hauled before a judge for threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend...well, for those of us who grew up watching the Peanuts TV specials, that's kind of like hearing that one of your old neighborhood pals (the nice, dependable kid who fed his pet dog every night and walked his little sister to school) has just shot up the local Dairy Freeze. It's not supposed to happen. Not to mention that it alters forever the entire Peanuts universe. How are we supposed to watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" next year knowing that the kid who supplied the sad sack voice of Charlie Brown grew up to be someone who threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend over a breast enhancement disagreement?
And who do we blame? The Little Red-Haired Girl for not returning his affections? Lucy for always yanking that football out from underneath him whenever he tried to kick it? Or maybe it was Snoopy's sense of entitlement that created the monster that Charlie Brown became. Or even Linus or Schroeder, both of whom were clearly much more interested in intellectualizing and philosophizing than in just being there for poor Charlie. There are even those who might argue that it was all those years of playing a cartoon character whose only adult role models were invisible people who sounded like trumpets when they talked that drove the kid over the edge and set him on the path to eventual ruination. I, personally, think that Sally might very well have been the "Yoko" in the mix, with her nasal-voiced neediness and complete disregard for her big brother's ongoing struggle with self-esteem issues. (Good grief! Did the little minx never notice how many times her overwrought sibling visited Lucy's neighborhood psychiatry booth?) Peppermint Patty and Violet may have something to answer for as well, although, off-hand, I'm not prepared to say just how they fit into the toxic equation. The only Peanuts character who seems not to have contributed to Charlie Brown's downfall is Pigpen, who was probably the only other member of the group less popular than the ironically nicknamed "Good Man" himself, even if he did seem blissfully unaware of that fact. I could go on and on positing the possibilities. But I won't. Some questions just don't come with ready made answers, Lucy's psuedo psychriatric pronouncements notwithstanding.
Bottom line, it's a sad day for Peanuts fans. And for those who never gave a damn about Peanuts or who perhaps even found Charlie Brown and his precociously pretentious little gang of over-achievers annoying, it's a sad day as well. Because, if nothing else, Peter Robbins' free-fall from grace is just one more reminder that, when it comes to childhood idols, nothing is sacred. To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling (as I'm sure Linus or Schroeder would do if they were writing this post), to give your heart to a round-headed kid in a yellow sweater with a zig-zaggedy brown stripe around the middle is to have it torn to pieces.
Thanks a lot, Charlie Brown. Looks like you deserved that scraggly little Christmas tree after all. And to the rest of you...skol!
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