The parents of the popular Peanuts character Charlie Brown were arrested last night for child endangerment, neglect and other charges related to the effective abandonment of their children.

The Brown child also has many bruises, some considered severe. The child claimed he received the abrasions from attempting to kick a football but authorities are skeptical. Police said there are just too many bruises to be explained by that.

Oddly, the Brown’s dog seems exceptionally well fed and content.

The child being bald, some fear, is indicative of malnourishment. This is ironic because Brown’s father (pictured below) is alleged to be a barber.

Some township officials are wondering why it took so long for authorities to move on the Brown household when abuse of Charlie Brown dates back to the 1950’s. But most recently, some neighbors reported that Brown was seen eating rocks the day after Halloween. But authorities did nothing.

More recently, Charlie Brown seemingly was forced to cook the family turkey for Thanksgiving. Charlie was heard to complain that he’d need help cooking the turkey because he only knew how to cook cold cereal. And despite several calls from parents of the child’s acquaintances, authorities still failed to act.

Charlie Brown would often pay neighborhood children for psychiatric advice. And despite this, authorities insisted they still didn’t have enough to move. One child psychologist said his paying for psychiatric advice from other children was a “cry for help.”

But this Christmas, when neighborhood children were forced to help the Brown child fashion a Christmas tree out of the saddest stack of sticks you ever saw authorities finally felt they had enough to act.

After taking the parents into custody, police are reporting that most strangely of all is that the parents seem to only communicate through a series of honks and whooping sounds sounding like “wah-wah.” Local linguists have been notified to discover if this is indeed a language or simply a form of mental derangement.

The child psychologist in charge of Charlie Brown and his sister Sally said that Charlie Brown clearly suffers from abysmally low self esteem brought on by neglect. “Charlie Brown’s parents are completely uninvolved with his life. Nobody can recall seeing them outside or interacting with their children in any way,” she said. “The sooner Charlie Brown is removed from this situation the better it will be for that poor boy.”