Evil Charlie Brown

Erin and I were at Toys ‘R’ Us and went to a Star Wars display at the front of the store when something on a shelf of clearance items caught my eye. It was perhaps the most unintentionally eerie plush holiday decoration that we had ever seen.

Maybe he was supposed to look this way. Maybe Charlie Brown had finally snapped. Maybe this was some kind of cry for help.

We squeezed his foot and made the music begin and the result was just as spooky. True to Charlie Brown fashion, a jazzy piano version of “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” played. Sure, that’s appropriate for a holiday-themed decoration/toy. The clincher here was that the batteries were near death and the music sounded flat, slow, and downright bizarre.

It was clear that this toy was intentionally trying to scare everyone away from buying it. Maybe it liked sitting on the clearance rack next to some Rudolph action figures. We didn’t care that he wanted to never be purchased. Evil Charlie Brown was something so weird that we had to drop $8 and take him home with us.

The only way to make this guy not look like he’s planning to take over the world was to grab his face and give him a little face lift with my hand.

The effects were only temporary…