Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown - References To Other Media

References To Other Media

Jim Reardon makes several references to Sam Peckinpah films throughout the short. For example, the title itself - as well as the basic plot - is a play on Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. The title is borrowed from National Lampoon's parody of TV Guide.

Charlie Brown shot by Lucy in the short, compared to William Holden being shot by the prostitute in the original film.

The Peanuts massacre is a major satire of the climax in Sam Peckinpah's classic film The Wild Bunch. There are slow-motion death scenes intercut with rapid shots, much like Peckinpah's editing style. Violet's death scene, in which she spins around with her revolver, is a copy of Herrera's death scene at the start of the gun battle. The sequence in which Lucy shoots at Charlie Brown from behind and he spins around screaming and kills her with a shotgun is word-for-word, shot-for-shot taken from the sequence where the prostitute shoots William Holden in the back. There is even a part where Charlie Brown waves his submachine around, screaming the famous Warren Oates scream, and the camera pan across several Mexican bandits being blown away. An interesting note is that Reardon actually uses sound bytes from the movie in these two previous scenes.

The references to Peckinpah are made even more clear at the end of the film when Reardon dedicates it to Sam "The Man" Peckinpah.

There are some non-Peckinpah references made in the short, such as Charlie Brown's mohawk, a reference to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and Lucy speaking in a John Wayne impression. Reardon also identifies Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz as "Charles M. 'Dutch' Schultz", as in mobster Dutch Schultz.

Godzilla squeezing the giant Dr. Pepper can is a reference to the then-recent Dr. Pepper ad campaign featuring the famed monster.

When Schroeder laughs, the sound effects are from Cheshire Cat from Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Charlie Brown, Linus van Pelt and Schroeder sings "The French Mistake" from Blazing Saddles.

When Charlie Brown's hand is bitten off by Snoopy, the screaming sound effects are from the cartoon Tom and Jerry.

When Charlie Brown is being gagged by Linus, the sound effects are from the Monty Python skit "Farewell to John Denver".

The brief image of a small fire-breathing dragon is from Snookles, an animated short by Juliet Stroud, which, like this film, was produced at the California Institute of the Arts in 1986.