The voice of Charlie Brown

I watched a promo for the fall line up for CBS TV, 1968. One of the shows was Blondie, based on the comic strip. We saw the kid, Peter Robbins, who played Alexander which was interesting. He had been the voice of Charlie Brown on the Peanuts Christmas special, and, yep, he sounded like Charlie Brown.

I knew this because the poor kid is now in his 50s, is seriously ill, and was arrested for making threats. He reportedly threatened people by saying he had nothing to lose because of his medical condition.

According to imdb.com, he was paid $125 to do the voice of Charlie Brown.

"It is my natural voice," he said, "but it has a special kind of inflection, a mixture of anxiety and reflection as only a 9-year-old can display."

It's pretty bad, paid a lousy $125 (about $800 today) for something that follows you the rest of your life and gets you into the national news when you get arrested forty years later.