"Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown"

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This Peanuts movie terrified the snot out of me but did make me learn French.  The cartoon itself didn't teach me much beyond "Bonjour" and "Oui," but I learned as much as I could on my own after watching it.

 Otherwise, you see, I might die in a horrible fire because I would not be able to ask for help in French.

In Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown and Linus go to stay at the Chateau du Mal Voisin at the invitation of Violette, the niece of the malevolent baron who owns the chateau.  Violette later admits she invited the boys without her uncle's knowledge and did so from a vaguely incestuous motive: her grandmother had a love affair with Charlie Brown's grandfather back in World War II.  Since the baron isn't supposed to know about the boys' presence, they have to sleep in the stable, taking turns keeping watch.  Meanwhile, Peppermint Patty and Marcy are used as manual labor, baling hay elsewhere in the French countryside.  (What were international child labor laws like in 1980?)

Eventually, the baron, who has known about the boys all along,  decides he has tolerated them long enough.  When he returns home, a candle is overturned and the chateau is immediately engulfed in flames.  Linus' solution is to yell Charlie Brown's name repeatedly from a window, and Charlie Brown's solution is to panic and run around yelling "fire" in English until he reaches Snoopy at the pub.  Ultimately, Violette jumps from a window and is saved by Linus' security blanket. 

Lesson learned:
There is no reason to ever give up a security blanket, because it could save your life.



Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown.  Dir. Bill Melendez, Phil Roman.  Perf. Arrin Skelley, Laura Planting, Scott Beach.  Paramount, 1980.
Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown, and don't come back! [VHS] 
(see the scene on YouTube here)