This now-forgotten "Peanuts" animated special aired originally on New Year's Day 1986 (and recently rerun in 2014 on ABC) is a nice addition to any New Year's celebration and indeed a wonderful companion to the Thanksgiving and Christmas specials. The script uses quite a bit of material from classic "Peanuts" strips dating back to the early '60s mixed into a storyline involving the most stressful New Year's holiday one could imagine: Charlie Brown not only has to read "War and Peace" and write a book report on it as assigned by his sadist of a teacher (in the original strip, it was "Gulliver's Travels," by the way), but stresses out over Peppermint Patty and Marcie's New Year's party and the prerequisite dance lessons. Poor Charlie Brown spends 70 percent of the special lugging around a book that's half as big as he is, having no success in getting through it (by New Year's Eve he's still only on page five), and trying to get in some reading time whenever he can (even at the party itself), and the rest of the time worrying about inviting the Little Red-Haired Girl to the dance (much to the disgust of Peppermint Patty, who expects Charlie Brown to ask her and is as usual completely oblivious to the fact that he's not interested in her). Both story lines end as unhappily as one would expect them to in a "Peanuts" special, though there's a bit of a consolation prize for Charlie Brown as far as the party goes...
The special will probably invite the inevitable comparisons to 1984's "It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown," due to the "party" storyline and the inclusion of a few songs. In particular, the 1950s-ish "Musical Chairs" song sounds like a leftover from "Flashbeagle" in that it sounds a lot like an amalgamation of "Lucy Says" (although this time around it's Peppermint Patty and not Lucy who sings the song and dominates the game) and "I'm In Shape." By the way, the reviewer who said the "Pig Pen Hoedown" was included in this special is incorrect; the "Hoedown" is included in "Flashbeagle." Pig Pen appears in this special only as a musician in Schroeder's jazz combo at the New Year's party.
This special is, however, much more cohesive than "Flashbeagle" in terms of story, and doesn't seem as disjointed, as there's very little extraneous material outside of the chief story lines, and Snoopy doesn't hog all the screen time, which, as much as I love Snoopy, can get quite tiring in other "Peanuts" movies and specials.
Overall, very enjoyable even if it doesn't rise to the "classic" level of "A Charlie Brown Christmas," "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," "It's the Easter Beagle..." or "It's the Great Pumpkin...". 7/10. One of the better post-1980 "Peanuts" specials.
