Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown

'Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown' is easily one of the most heartwarming and touching Valentine's specials/films out there. It may be a "children's special", but It's guaranteed to make you feel something no matter your age especially around Valentine's Day.

This special covers basic themes of love, infatuation, heartbreak, unrequited loved, and limerence. It even brings in the classic Peanuts philosophical and even existential topics as the each Peanut deals with love and Valentine's Day differently.

I think children will think this a fun little special, but adults may be a little more teary-eyed especially when they have some experience with love and loss.

Give it a watch, its pretty great!

Poor Charlie Brown. He didn't get anything for Valentine's Day. Poor Linus. He is in the same mess too! This special is fun for the family and highly enjoyable. It is kind of normal for children who are in love with older people or adults. This is a good way to teach children to accept the fact that adults go with adults and kids go with kids. The good thing about this cartoon is that we see Snoopy's lovable tomfoolery with Lucy, Charlie Brown and Woodstock which gives out a good laugh (especially with his "pawpet show"). Bottom line: Worth the watch. Rated TV-G because it is fun for the whole family, plus parents can tell their kids the importance of love for their right age and how to accept it. Happy Valentines Day.

Sally likes Linus. Lucy likes Schroeder. Linus is crushing on the teacher, Miss Othmar. And Charlie wants attention from anyone he can get, but especially from a certain little red-haired girl. None of them winds up particularly happy at the end of this show, but that is Peanuts for you. Charles Schulz had a way of showing how things don't always turn out the way you might want, but that's OK, and life will go on. The Peanuts specials were littered with that sort of sentiment.

Perhaps the oddest element to this one is Charlie's unshakable belief that he'll get so many valentines from his classmates that he'll need a briefcase to carry them home! How in the world did he reach this conclusion? Charlie has always been the lovable loser who gets rocks on Halloween, gets laughed at for picking a poor tree, misspells 'beagle' at the spelling bee....he has no right to expect that he'll be getting many valentines at all, much less a briefcase-full. But that's Charlie I guess. Ever the optimist.

Some notes for Peanuts aficionados: strangely, Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Franklin are shown here as being in the same classroom as Charlie, Linus and the rest. This is in complete contradiction to what had been shown before. In every previous episode where it was mentioned, those three lived 'across town' and attended a different school than the other Peanuts characters. No explanation was given for why they suddenly appeared here. It's also odd that, if PP and Marcie were in the class - why didn't they give Chuck a valentine? PP is always flirting with him, and Marcie even kissed him at the end of "There's No Time for Love Charlie Brown." If no one else, at least they should have given him one. Or his sister, Sally! Weird.

Strange also was Sally being in the same classroom with all of the older kids. Previous shows had already established she was in a lower grade. And the teacher, Miss Othmar, left the classroom unattended when she took off with her boyfriend! That can't be proper protocol. So this one is a bit inconsistent, albeit still very entertaining. I would say it lives up enough to the high standards some of the previous shows had set.

8/10. Not their best, but still very good. Would I watch again (Y/N)?: Yes.

From the very beginning of the "Peanuts" specials, it's been clear that the makers were very opposed to the commercialism of many holidays. Remember the protest in "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" -- "It's Easter and they already have their Christmas decorations up!". So the very cynical view of this holiday, which has been completely co-opted by the greeting card and candy industries, in this special, can't really come as any surprise.

Yet at the same time, the animators do take the time, via Sally's recitation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous poem, to offer a sincere tribute to the spirit of the holiday and the sentiments that it's supposed to be about. Admittedly, they also undercut that by having Linus specifically mention her, and the poem, in his ultimate denunciation of the holiday.

No one seems to have a good time or find love in this Peanuts TV special. Charlie gets no Valentine cards, Linus misses out on his opportunity to give chocolates to his favorite teacher and Shroeder vows to never marry Lucy, much to her anger.

It's kinda downbeat for a Valentine's TV special. So much so that kids from all over America sent Charlie Brown a Valentine's card out of sympathy. Which is quite sweet when you think about it. As long as they were all girls.

Still, it's another funny and timeless TV special that you should definitely make the effort of watching if it comes on this Feb 14th. Though it might depress you if you yourself do not receive any Valentine's card.