Obscure Holiday Specials #4: It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown.

 

As you are all well aware of, I am a fan of Peanuts despite never actually calling it Peanuts. No one ever called it that because Charles Shulz hated the name. It was forced on him by the newspapers. That's why just about every Charlie Brown comic strip collection book was like "Holy Hot Fuck, Charlie Brown" or "Stop shitting on the Carpet, Snoopy!" I don't know why I always have to use curse words to try to get comedy out of something but I do. Anyway, It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown and it was the 36th animated special and the last one to air on CBS which it did on November 27th, 1992. The next one would air on NBC, and several others would go direct to video. I didn't even know about them until today, so expect reviews of them.

Anyway, I liked this special a lot more as a child, even going so far as to say that I liked it more than the 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas which goes to prove how rock stupid I was as a kid. Anyway, this does not hold up to adult scrutiny mostly because I've now read most of the Peanuts backlog of comic strips and plan to talk about them when I read the rest. The problem with that is that well all of the material in this story was taken pretty much verbatim from the comic strips. Plus going back to the well of Christmas when the first special was so well known. Not exactly the greatest idea. Plus I was curious about the Harold Angel character and wanted to see if he had appeared before and he had appeared on The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, in a segment called The Play. I know some of the material I'm sure popped in from the comic strip to the animated specials but Charles Shulz tried to make them mostly new material. I don't know if he was busy in 1992 or what but the majority of this special is from the strips and that just feels lazy.

Another really big problem is that the special doesn't feel like it gets to the ACTUAL plot until the last 10 or so minutes, the actual plot being a play that several of the characters have to perform in (Peppermint Patty is a sheep, Marcie is Mary, Franklin is the Angel Gabriel which I'm sure bothered some racists so I'm glad it was done and that sorta thing). Not to say that some of the vignettes weren't cute or funny, just that I think they needed to spread the full plot out ya know. It's not terrible but it certainly isn't better than A Charlie Brown Christmas like I thought at eleven.

FINAL VERDICT: Admittedly this is still a fun special and I wasn't bored during the 23 minute run time but man, they could have done better. Maybe spread out the jokes about the play through the entire run time or something. The whole vignettes thing just doesn't seem to work for the specials, and I don't know if it works for The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show because it's been decades since I've seen that show. I'm just amazed that a guy who was a stickler for quality didn't want something better. Anyway, It's Christmastime Charlie Brown is a C+ special.

Obscure Holiday Specials #2: Happy New Year, Charlie Brown

 

I know you're all like OBSCURE, CHARLIE BROWN! Charlie Browns not obscure! Yeah you're right but when is the last time you've heard anyone ever mention this holiday special? That's right, probably the day after it aired on January 1st, 1986. Happy New Year, Charlie Brown is pretty obscure for the whole Peanuts thing ya know. At least I think so and it's my blog so you can kindly eat my sweaty asshole. Anyway the first time I saw this was probably sometime in the 1990s on YTV. YTV would show all of the specials (which had to be at least 30 at that point) along with the tv series that was made in the 1980s, The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show. They would also show three of the four movies (Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, Snoopy Come Home, and Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back) which were pretty enjoyable and I'm glad that they were made so I can eek out a few more words into this article.

It's literally ONE minute before Christmas Holidays and Charlie Brown is thinking how the teacher hasn't given any work to do over the holidays and BAM, she tells them to read and then write an book report on War and Peace.  Yes, the depressing old Russian story that's like 8,000 pages and is way over the reading level of fourth grades. What I'm saying is the teacher is a fucking sadist. So Charlie Brown goes home and starts trying to read this insanely long, insanely depressing story about war. Linus comes in and tells Charlie Brown about how Leo whatever's wife Sonya had to re-write the book seven times with a dip pen and to stop whining and read the damn book. Except nicer and not realizing he's being a doof. 

To make things worse Peppermint Patty is having a boys asking girls dance party on New Years Eve and wants Charlie Brown to ask her out, and Charlie Brown is oblivious to the fact that Peppermint Patty wants him to ask her out. I don't get the Peppermint Patty and Marcie are lesbians joke. The CANON of Peanuts show that they have crushes on Charlie Brown. Plus are all weirdo children gay? Plus the joke has been done about four thousand nine hundred and eight three times and really needs to die. Please. 

Anyway Charlie Brown FINALLY asks out the Little Red Head Girl (who is apparently named Heather) and did you know that Charles Shulz had a unrequited love who was also a Redhead. Wild. Anyway you know he gets his hand stuck in the mail letter thing doors used to have. Do doors even have them any more? Anyway guess what happens she actually SHOWS up to the party but Charlie Brown is sleeping out side in the backyard. Poor Charlie Brown never wins, but he never gives up. Gotta respect that. Oh, he finally reads and writes the report at 3am the night before and gets a D- and the teacher decides that he or she loves being a sadist and has them read Crime and Punishment another long ass depressing Russian book.

This was actually a pretty fun special, I laughed several times. I liked the one scene with Rerun the best, where he blows square balloons and Linus keeps trying to get him to blow a correct balloon. Shit if my little sister blew a square balloon I'd have freaked my ass out and made her never stop. Uh, the music in this is pretty good too. I like the depressing Russian sounding music that plays every time Charlie Brown tries to read the book. I also like the one song from the special about musical chairs. It's very catchy. The music isn't as good as the Vince Guaraldi stuff, but Ed Bogas and Desiree Goyette who did the music for a lot of the other specials. This one isn't as good as the A Charlie Brown Christmas  or  It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown but it's certainly better than It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. Can you believe they made Arbor Day into a special before New Years? That's absurd. Who the fuck gives a shit about Arbor Day? Not me. Fuck Arbor Day.

Next Time: I'm not watching It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. I don't even know when Arbor Day even is. No we are going to watch Inspector Gadget Save Christmas. How many people Saved Christmas? I know Ernest did it. So did Elmo. Where will Inspector Gadget fall on that scale?!? Find out next time!