'Peanuts' Voice Peter Robbins Pleads Guilty to Stalking
Plus, we take a look at other out-of-cartoon-character incidents.
Charlie Brown was too timid to talk to the little red-haired girl. Peter Robbins is guilty by his own admission of stalking and threatening an ex-girlfriend and her plastic surgeon.
If it's any consolation to Robbins, who was the original voice of Charles M. Schulz's sad sack in the classic animated TV specials "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," he's not the first actor to go (way) out of cartoon character.
A quick look at some others:
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The actor: Pamelyn Ferdin
The character: Charlie Brown antagonist Lucy Van Pelt. (Ferdin was the voice of Lucy in "Peanuts" specials of the late 1960s and early 1970s; she and Robbins worked together on "It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown.")
The out-of-character incident(s): While Lucy was an outspoken crab who lived to torment Charlie Brown, she had a strong authoritarian streak that presumably would've ruled out risking repeated arrests for animal-rights causes. Ferdin's first bust came at a circus protest in 1999.
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The actor: Kevin Clash
The character: Elmo
The out-of-character incident(s): "Sesame Street" denizen Elmo loves children. It's all innocent and sweet and wonderful. In other words, it's nothing like the sex scandal that erupted in 2012 when multiple people accused Clash, the character's creative force and puppeteer, of engaging in inappropriate behavior with them when they were teenagers. Clash has denied any wrongdoing, but he stepped away from Elmo and "Sesame Street."
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The actor: Paul Reubens
The character: Pee-Wee Herman
The out-of-character incident(s): His 1991 arrest in a porn theater, which launched a million Pee-Wee jokes.
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The actors: Not a boldfaced name among them
The characters: Take your pick. Spider-Man, Cookie Monster, Super Mario, Elmo, and so on and so forth.
The out-of-character incident(s): To be brief about it, you know those folks who parade around in well-worn character costumes in tourist meccas such as Hollywood Blvd. and Times Square? Well, sometimes they work a bit too hard. And instead of fighting evildoers and delighting children, they get hauled off for allegedly slugging a guy (a Spider-Man in Los Angeles in 2009) and/or generally making nuisances of themselves (a Cookie Monster, a Super Mario, and an Elmo in New York this year).
