Peanuts Rock: Watch the Peanuts Gang Play Classic Rock Songs by Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Journey & More

In a very crowd­ed field, Gar­ren Lazar’s com­i­cal take on Queen’s “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” is a stand-out.

Com­i­cal in the lit­er­al sense. Lazar, aka Super G, struck a rich vein when he thought to mash the Rolling Stones’ “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il” with footage culled from Charles Schulz’s ani­mat­ed Peanuts spe­cials.

And over the last six years, he’s mined a lot of gold, using Final Cut Pro to pair famil­iar clips of a drum­ming Pig­pen, Snoopy slap­ping a dou­ble bass, and the icon­ic “Linus And Lucy” scene from A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas with rock and pop clas­sics.

Schulz, an ardent music lover, fre­quent­ly pic­tured his char­ac­ters singing, danc­ing, and play­ing instru­ments, so Lazar, who has an uncan­ny knack for match­ing ani­mat­ed mouths to record­ed lyrics, has plen­ty to choose from.

Char­lie Brown’s anx­i­eties fuel the intro­duc­tion to a 15 minute remix of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” until he gets hold of the Christ­mas special’s mega­phone…

The mega­phone serves Char­lie equal­ly well on “Stayin’ Alive,” the Bee Gees’ dis­co chart top­per, though depend­ing on your vin­tage, the vision of Snoopy in leg warm­ers and sweat­band may come as a shock. Those clips come cour­tesy of It’s Flash­bea­gle, Char­lie Brown, Schulz’s 1984 goofy spin on Flash­dance, Foot­loose, Sat­ur­day Night Fever and oth­er dance-based pop cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­nons of the era. Although that special—Schulz’s 27th—features a roto­scoped Snoopy bust­ing moves orig­i­nat­ed by Flash­dance’s stunt dancer Marine Jahan, that old hol­i­day chest­nut still man­ages to steal the show.

And when­ev­er you need a lift, you can’t do bet­ter than to spend a few min­utes with Lazar’s heady reboot of Chicago’s quin­tes­sen­tial 1970s sin­gle, “Sat­ur­day In the Park,” where­in the nor­mal­ly reserved Schroed­er reveals a more exu­ber­ant side.

Begin your explo­rations of Gar­ren Lazar’s musi­cal Peanuts remix­es on his YouTube chan­nel, warm in the knowl­edge that he enter­tains requests in the com­ments.

via Ulti­mate Clas­sic Rock

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Vel­vet Under­ground as Peanuts Char­ac­ters: Snoopy Morphs Into Lou Reed, Char­lie Brown Into Andy Warhol

Umber­to Eco Explains the Poet­ic Pow­er of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts

The Joy of Expe­ri­enc­ing Queen’s Bohemi­an Rhap­sody for the Very First Time: Watch Three Reac­tion Videos

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join Ayun’s com­pa­ny The­ater of the Apes in New York City this March for her book-based vari­ety series, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, and the world pre­miere of Greg Kotis’ new musi­cal, I AM NOBODY. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.