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'Stranger Things' meets Peanuts in animated mashup

Good grief! Fans of both series will appreciate the new video, in which Eleven takes a shift in Lucy's psychiatric stand and Winona Ryder gets the Miss Othmar wah-wah voice.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read

The kids from "Peanuts" thought they had troubles -- Linus and his security-blanket anxiety, Lucy and her unrequited crush on Beethoven-playing Schroeder, Charlie Brown always getting the football pulled away and ending up flat on his back.

But the kids in the hit Netflix series "Stranger Things" had real, life-threatening problems -- getting trapped in the Upside Down, losing buddy Barb with almost no one noticing or caring, being held captive in a strange government laboratory. They only wish their biggest issue was a dog that thinks it's a WWI fighter pilot.

So when the "Stranger Things" kids find themselves in the oh-so-recognizable "Peanuts" universe, things really get weird. Comedy writer Oren Mendez and animator and comedian Leigh Lahav put together a "Stranger Things Christmas" mashup video that only fans of both series could've devised.

Will Byers of "Stranger Things" easily slips into the Charlie Brown role, with everyone dutifully calling him by his first and last names, just like with ol' Chuck. Eleven and her Eggos put in a stint at Lucy's psychiatric stand, Winona Ryder's character gets Miss Othmared with that infamous trombone-mute "wah-wah-wah" sound.

Even the famous "Peanuts" kids dancing scene, so brilliantly featured years ago in the Outkast "Hey Ya" parody video, makes a "Stranger Things"-themed appearance.

The video's a treat for "Stranger Things" and "Peanuts" groupies alike, but one warning: Stick with it till the end and you'll see a most un-Peanuts like version of the late, great Barb, and it's even more unnerving than the kite-eating tree. We might need some of that 5-cent psychiatric help after all.