Happy New Year, Charlie Brown

"No book report has ever been finished by just reading the dust jacket."

The history of Charlie Brown is a timeline of things that happened while he was looking the other way. Everyone has that story of how they left the ballgame early and missed the greatest play in sports history. Poor Charlie Brown lives every day like that. You can keep your Willie Loma and John Procter. The greatest tragic hero in American literature is a boy named Charlie Brown.

This is a very good special, and it includes the famous "Pig-Pen" Hoedown scene.

That should of been a better title. First of all, Charlie Brown is assigned to read "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. (That is book is super long!) Second, wants to meet Heather, the Little Red-Haired Girl, but he gets tangled up with Peppermint Patty who pressures him to have fun with her. I remember seeing this for the first time in the late-eighties in a birthday party during my childhood. When I saw it again in the early and mid-nineties, it taught me how to talk to people at the store when I am having trouble looking for something at a store or library. Charlie Brown was annoying anyone, but he was desperate to get his holiday homework done! (Hey Charlie Brown, if there is no film, strip, record, or computer game based on "War and Peace" don't worry there is a movie made in 1956, watch the movie and things will go your way hopefully.) This special brings back memories for me. I enjoyed watching it. It reminds me of the clothes I wore, the warm and friendly faces of my friends and family, the food I ate and was devoid of worries! This cartoon is worth playing whenever you are having parties with kids and whether it is New Years Eve or not. Do I recommend it? Yes (despite the way [children's] television is going these days). I saw it ABC recently, and let me tell you that this special got cut to pieces for more commercial time. That aside, give it a watch. Happy New Year!

Although not the best animation of Charlie Brown and Snoppy, it is a short short film. This short, had a great animation, had actors and had a story, the only part I did not like, was the fact that the story does not have a very good development, making the story a bit annoying. Even so, I highly recommend it.

Due to an unfinished homework assignment over holiday break, Chuck Brown is left to read War & Peace while everyone else parties. The two songs in this special, about dancing (Slow, Slow, Quick Quick) and musical chairs are entertaining. Altogether, worth the watch if you are a Peanuts fan.

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.