It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown (1974)

And, with this review, we've now looked at every Peanuts special in those first two, decade-themed DVD sets that I've mentioned time and again... and, like the previous two specials that I've reviewed so far this year, I knew nothing about this one before I saw it on the Peanuts 1970's Collection Volume One. If I'd seen at least one of the VHS artworks, such as the one you're seeing right here, going in, I would've surmised that it was about Snoopy and Woodstock attempting to solve a mystery. And unlike the more misleading home video covers for some of the others, like Play It Again, Charlie Brown or You're In Love, Charlie Brown, I would've found, upon watching it, that this one was right on the money, as that's exactly what you get. Naturally, since the two of them are the focus, this one has stretches of no actual dialogue, but at the same time, while the other members of the Peanuts gang are supporting characters, especially Charlie Brown himself, they're not completely side-lined, either, with several of them managing to get one or two standout moments. There are also some really good and even wild instances of animation (along with a notable goof in one scene), some of which would either be recycled or recreated for one of the feature films down the road. However, the "mystery" itself isn't nearly as well done as you would hope, even for this kind of cartoon, and it's solved ten minutes or so before the ending. On top of that, the third act and final resolution aren't all that much to write home about.

It takes some trial and error, but Woodstock manages to build himself a nice bird's nest up in his small tree. Then, while playing around in the birdbath, he gets caught up in a bad thunderstorm but is saved by Snoopy, who gets him out of the bath and dries off his soaked feathers (before mischievously blowing him into his water bowl). Meanwhile, Sally complains about being assigned yet another science project by her teacher, whom she's convinced has a personal vendetta against her. This time, the project has to be something from nature, and Sally is determined not to crack under the pressure and deliver an exhibit that will knock her teacher's socks off. That evening, Woodstock returns to his tree, only to find that his nest is gone. He promptly informs Snoopy of this and Snoopy, in turn, after spying some footprints leading away from the tree, dresses up as Sherlock Holmes and helps Woodstock search for his missing nest. For them, everybody in the neighborhood is a potential suspect, and they go from house to house, interrogating them, and sometimes wishing they hadn't. But even when they track down the culprit, as well as find the nest, they may not be able to take it back without a fight... real or "legal."

This was during the period I've mentioned where, after directing all of the previous Peanuts specials, Bill Melendez took on more of a producing role while directing other projects. In his stead, Phil Roman, who'd worked in the animation department on some of the past ones, as well as the two feature films, and had co-directed A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with Melendez the previous year, made his solo directorial debut with this one. Of course, he would go on to direct a good number of them over the course of the next ten years, with his last solo one being 1983's Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? He would also direct some parts of It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown that same year, but by that point, he'd begun directing the Garfield specials and would soon break away from Melendez and Lee Mendelson, who produced the first two of those cartoons, to form Film Roman to continue making them.

Although the special begins with Woodstock, and the "mystery" at the center of the story is all about him, Snoopy is as much of a main character as he is. After a momentary hitch in building his nest, as he falls right through the bottom when he steps into it, Woodstock manages to construct it in a manner where it's totally secure. Satisfied, he then goes for a dip in his birdbath, only to run into major trouble when a strong thunderstorm kicks up and turns the bath into violent rapids that nearly drown him. But when Snoopy comes by, you see that it's actually not nearly as bad as it seemed to Woodstock. Still, Snoopy scoops him out of the birdbath and puts him on top of his doghouse (he really should've taken Woodstock inside, as he sits atop the house, shivering), when the rain stops and the sun comes back out. Snoopy then takes out a blow dryer and dries Woodstock's feathers... only for him to then use the force of the dryer to blow him off the roof and into his water bowl. Despite this, when sunset comes around, Woodstock is dried and content, and heads back to his little tree, only to then discover that his nest is gone. He promptly throws a fit about it, which catches Snoopy's attention, and when he tells him what's going on, Snoopy, noting some footprints leading away from the tree, decides to investigate. He goes full Sherlock Holmes, from the coat and hat, to the old-fashioned style of pipe (which, in this case, blows big bubbles rather than puffs of smoke, and which seem to gravitate towards Woodstock). The two of them go around the neighborhood, interrogating everybody from Charlie Brown himself to Linus and Lucy, Marcie, and Peppermint Patty. But they come away with no leads and most of the interrogations prove to be more trouble than they're worth. Snoopy then does what he should've done in the first place, which is actually follow the footprints he saw earlier, which lead them to the elementary school and Woodstock's nest, which is being housed in the science lab as an exhibit. They take the nest back and Snoopy puts it back in the tree, but the next day, Sally, who'd taken it for her school science project, is ready to literally fight both of them for it. Charlie Brown then opts to try to find someone objective to settle the manner... and that someone turns out to be Lucy.

It's really entertaining, as well as impressive, how the animators get across Snoopy and Woodstock's personalities and mindsets purely through their facial expressions and movements. During the opening, when Woodstock is building his nest, he comes off like an actual bird, as he does when he's confused upon first discovering that his nest is missing, looking underneath the branch and on the opposite end for it. And yet, at the same time, he uses an apparent invisible elevator to go up and down the tree, and is rather cute when he's getting into the birdbath, splashing himself with water and testing its temperature, before getting into it full on. You also feel genuinely concerned for him when he's getting

thrashed around in the storm, especially as he squeaks in fear and quickly puts together a little raft that's almost immediately torn apart, and it's funny when he later rants about his missing nest to Snoopy. Speaking of Snoopy, despite being his usual mischievous self to Woodstock, you can still see the affection he has for his little buddy, with how he pats him on the head before sending him home after the storm and goes above and beyond to help him find his nest. You can also sense his ego and cockiness when he's dressed up as Sherlock Holmes and which repeatedly blow up in his face, as he's either literally thrown out by Lucy, gets nowhere with Marcie, or is chased around by Peppermint Patty, who thinks they're playing "cops

and robbers." All the while, Woodstock is little more than a butt monkey, as the bubbles from Snoopy's pipe repeatedly float towards and soak him when they burst upon touching him (he runs from one but it deliberately chases and absorbs him, before popping and soaking him anyway) or gets yanked through the mail slot in Marcie's door. When they track down the nest to the school, they run afoul of some of the bizarre science projects in the lab, before grabbing the nest and taking it back home. During the final act, when Lucy is asked to be the objective third party to resolve the conflict, it turns into a mock court case, with her as the judge and Snoopy donning his Joe Cool persona and acting as Woodstock's lawyer, presenting Lucy with documents that are full of

nearly intelligible, complex legal jargon. In the end, Lucy rules in favor of Snoopy and Woodstock, much to Sally's frustration. Snoopy agrees to act as a replacement science project, helping her recreate Ivan Pavlov's salivating dog experiment (he almost blows it for her by not immediately drooling when she rings the bell, like he's supposed to). Meanwhile, that hard-fought nest turns out to still not be perfect, as Woodstock falls through its bottom behind the opening credits.

Charlie Brown's (voiced by Todd Barbee) role here is minimal at best. In his first scene, he listens as Sally rants and raves about having to do another science project. He tries to console her, but she won't listen to anything he says, and when she storms out of the room, all he can do is groan, "Good grief!" He also happens to be the first one whom Snoopy and Woodstock interrogate about the missing nest. They literally sit him down and put a light on above him, but when he learns what the issue is, he tells them that he knows nothing about it and refuses to say anything else. But because of this, when Sally later claims that the "prehistoric bird's nest" she found and was using as a science exhibit was stolen from her, Charlie Brown realizes she was the one who took Woodstock's nest and tells her as much. He next has to stop Sally from getting into a fight with both Snoopy and Woodstock, and comes up with the idea of bringing in an objective third party. He takes them to Lucy, explains that, "It's a matter of establishing ownership," and that leads into the mock trial, which Snoopy and Woodstock win. And when Sally is enraged at this, Charlie Brown and Snoopy come up with an idea for a replacement science project.

As in the past, Sally (voiced by Lynn Mortensen) complains about her schoolwork, telling her brother that science teacher has it out for her, whining, "Every week, she makes me bring in a new exhibit. I'm going to have a nervous breakdown before I'm six years old!... This week, it's gotta be something from nature. Why don't we leave nature alone?! It's not bothering us; why do we have to bother it?... But I'll show her. I won't crack! I refuse to crack! I'll get the best exhibit she's ever seen!" Said exhibit, of course, turns out to be Woodstock's nest, which Sally thought was prehistoric because it, "Was so ridiculous, it had to be prehistoric! No self-respecting modern bird could've built it!" And when the nest goes missing after Snoopy and Woodstock retrieve it, Sally rants and raves again: "I've been robbed! I've been bugged! I've been betrayed!... They're after me! They're all after me! Get my lawyer! Get my bookkeeper!... Get my accountant! Get my lawyer!" Even after Charlie Brown explains that it was Woodstock's nest, Sally goes with the classic, "Finders keepers, losers weepers," justification and sticks with it during the "trial," where she represents herself. When Lucy rules in favor of Snoopy and Woodstock, Sally screams, "I've been robbed! I appeal! I'll take it all the way to the Supreme Court!" She walks home with Charlie Brown, utterly defeated, but when he and Snoopy come up with an alternative for her science project, she's initially unwilling to use it. However, since she has no choice, she goes along with it. During her presentation in class, she first brings up Ivan Pavlov, saying he studied the human nervous system, and adding, "And you all know why we have a nervous system: so we can get nervous making these stupid reports!" In any case, she and Snoopy end the special by recreating the salivating dog experiment.

When Snoopy and Woodstock show up at her and Linus' home, Lucy (voiced by Melanie Kohn) is immediately irked by Snoopy, as he takes her fingerprint, then kicks up a big cloud of dust while searching the living room for more fingerprints. When he finds a broom straw and tries to use it to implicate her, Lucy is unfazed. And when he then handcuffs her to his own wrist to try and arrest her, she drags him to the doorway, swings him around, and flings him with enough force to snap the chain and send him flying. Later, when Charlie Brown comes to her to resolve the conflict that Sally now has with Snoopy and Woodstock, Lucy turns her psychiatric booth into an outside courtroom, donning a judge's robe and powdered wig, while Linus acts as her stenographer. She also charges two cents more than her fee for psychiatric help and demands to be paid up front; when Charlie Brown tells her that she hasn't done anything, she says, "It's a well-known fact that silver in the scales of justice have great affinity." Naturally, she finds the trial to be very frustrating, especially when Snoopy's defense for Woodstock involves documents with tongue-twisting legal jargon, Sally just goes with, "Finders keepers, losers weepers," and Linus proves to be a lousy stenographer, as he hasn't taken down anything since Lucy declared that court was in session. Yet amazingly, Lucy not only sides with Woodstock but comes up with a sensible and fair reason for doing so: he built the nest, therefore it's his.

Linus (voiced by Stephen Shea) only has three lines during the scene where Snoopy and Woodstock search his and Lucy's home for clues, and they're all random and similar non-sequiturs. "Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Snoopy will find it, and find it he must." "Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. When there is a problem, in Snoopy, we trust." "Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. The proof of the pudding is under the crust." That last one aggravates Lucy to the point where she lets out Charlie Brown's trademark, "Aaaugh!" scream at Linus, sending him tumbling backwards. And like I said, he's an awful stenographer. When Lucy tells him, "Stenographer, please read back the plaintiff's last statement," he fumbles his notes and admits, "Uh... Uh, actually, I just got past the 'oyez, oyez,' then, uh... What came after the oyez?'" To that, Lucy lets out another incredulous and annoyed, "Good grief."

Three other members of the Peanuts gang appear here, each when Snoopy and Woodstock show up at their respective houses. After the scene at Linus and Lucy's home, they next go to see Marcie (voiced by Jimmy Ahrens). Standing out on her front porch, Snoopy literally questions her, though she repeatedly tells him that she can't understand his inhuman muttering and finally slams the door on him. Unbeknownst to her, Woodstock wandered through the door while Snoopy was talking, and after she closes it, she's immediately questioned by him, until Snoopy reaches through the mail slot and pulls him through. They then go to see Pig-Pen (voiced by Tom Muller), who's the most accommodating to them, but

they can't tolerate all the dust he stirs up, especially when he walks out onto the porch and happily shakes Snoopy's hand, saying, "I haven't seen you for quite a while. How have you been?" They both choke on the cloud and decide not to even bother interrogating him. As they walk away, he calls out to them, "Nice talking to you! Come again! I don't have too many visitors!" And finally, they go see Peppermint Patty (voiced by Donna LeTourneau), which they really regret. At first confused by Snoopy's getup, she then thinks he's playing "cops and robbers." Wanting to play the robber, she puts on a mask and scares the crap out of him, as she jumps out and shouts at him (the sound of which is, again, that often used audio clip of Peter Robbins yelling from the original specials), cornering

him against the wall and saying, "Your money or your life, you dirty rat! Alright, copper. It's your money or you get cement shoes", in a faux James Cagney impression. Snoopy tries to fend her off, and the two of them get into a fight, only for Snoopy to take off running and Peppermint Patty to give chase, yelling, "Avast, ya lily-livered copper! You'll never take me alive!" (Yeah, she slipped into playing pirates there for a second.) "I don't squeal, copper! No one's takin' me in!" Snoopy and Woodstock run out the front door and into the night, while Patty stands on her front porch and, confused, takes off her mask and yells, "Hey, kid! Come back! We didn't finish the game! Come back, Snoop!"

I touched on the animation earlier, when I talked about Snoopy and Woodstock, and I'll go on to add that the animation throughout the cartoon is quite good. The first truly exceptional scene is when Woodstock is swimming around in the birdbath, when the storm suddenly builds up and he gets flung throughout the churning water. The shots of the clouds forming in the sky, the bolts of flashing lightning, a cutaway shot of some trees blowing in the wind, and the violent, rolling water that just about drowns Woodstock, all look really cool, and you have to admire the detail of Woodstock putting together a little raft amid the mayhem, using the twigs and leaves that get blown into the bath, only for that to almost immediately get destroyed. Like I said, I'm

sure that this animation was either reused or, at the very least, was the inspiration for a scene in the feature film, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, where the gang get caught up in a storm during the river race (the shot of the clouds building up and the violent water are especially similar). The character animation is also quite fluid in spots, be it when Snoopy is blow-drying Woodstock, when he's jumping up and down, ranting about his missing nest, when he shakes himself dry when he gets soaked by one of Snoopy's pipe bubbles (said bubbles are well animated in and of themselves), Lucy flings Snoopy around and around before literally throwing him out of her house, or especially when Peppermint Patty

chases around and fights Snoopy. In the scene where Snoopy and Woodstock track the nest down to the school's science lab, they play around with some other exhibits that they find, leading into some more notable instances of animation. There's one thing that waves around in such a way that watching it makes them both nauseated and they stagger away from it, green in the face. And then, Snoopy accidentally flips the switch on some sort of electrode device that shocks the living crap out of him. It not only zaps him up into the air and turns him into a fuzzball but, for a few frames, it turns him into a small, screaming skeleton (this is the only time I can think of the Peanuts adopting that classic cartoon gag), before he and Woodstock take off running! Seriously, if Woodstock weren't there, would you think that last screenshot was from a Peanuts cartoon?

I hate that I wasn't able to find a rip of the remastered version of this special that was in that DVD set but, even without it, I can still say that, yet again, the backgrounds and environments are very nice to look at, especially since much this one is set outside. The opening shot, panning over to Charlie Brown's house amid the trees, before zooming in to the little one where Woodstock builds his nest, is quite lovely, and there are a good number of nice dusk and nighttime exterior scenes, the former of which not only have a pretty pink sky in the background but also have some purple and blue mixed within some shots, while the latter often have a nice background made up of a gray, cloudy sky with a full moon, as well as the surrounding neighborhood in some instances. As for

interiors, the most memorable home is Peppermint Patty's, mostly due to its bright pink color scheme, as well as the furniture and potted plant that she uses to sneak up on and jump out at Snoopy, and this big, winding staircase she chases him down (which seems to have a picture of a Royal Canadian Mounty on the wall). And then, there's the school, which we've seen before, obviously, but here, we get to see not only the fairly detailed science lab but also some rather interesting exhibits that Snoopy and Woodstock blunder into before they take back the nest. They first come upon this device with a microphone that registers sound-waves on a monitor in front of it, and while Snoopy is impressed with it, Woodstock is

more intent in getting his nest back and rants at him for wasting time playing with it. Second is this machine that stretches and whirls around this pink material akin to taffy, the sight of which gives the two of them motion sickness, and after that is when Snoopy gets zapped by that electrode machine. The only major technical flaw with this aspect of the cartoon is, when Sally is about ready to fight Snoopy and Woodstock on the sidewalk, there's a shot where Charlie Brown is standing behind Sally, as she and Snoopy are putting up their dukes, and there's no background other than the sky, so it looks like they're floating in midair. Back when Paramount put the

special on VHS, they fixed this error by tightly zooming in on this scene, but on the Peanuts 1970's Collection Volume One set, it's left unaltered, as you can see right here. (In case you're wondering why I didn't just get my images from this source, that's because this screenshot is from a YouTube video that lists the special's soundtrack and also illustrates what scenes they appear in onscreen, so the number of specific images is a bit limited.)

Like Play It Again, Charlie Brown, the biggest personal issue I have with It's a Mystery is the story, specifically the mystery itself. I wish there was more to it, and that the investigation, as it were, took longer, with Snoopy and Woodstock having to search farther for the missing nest, getting themselves into even stranger and crazier predicaments. But, not only do they find it ten minutes before the special is over, but you know right off the bat who the culprit is, as the scene where Sally complains about her science project and expresses her determination not to let her teacher get the best of her comes right before Woodstock discovers that his nest is missing. And then, after they find it, they get into that dispute over who owns it, and while it is funny to see Lucy change

her psychiatric booth into a "court of legal aid," dress up as a judge, and have to deal with the mass of legal gobbledygook that is Snoopy's documentation of Woodstock's case and Linus' awful performance as a stenographer, as well as shocking that she not only rules in Woodstock's favor but that it's a fair and reasonable decision, I wish they would've just added to the mystery itself instead. Yeah, I'm nitpicking, and most of the Peanuts cartoons aren't known for being the pinnacle of animated storytelling anyway (I do think this special is stronger on that score than Play It Again, though), but the mystery angle is what intrigues me the most here and I just wanted more done with it.

Little Birdie, a song that Vince Guaraldi himself sang for the previous Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, is reused a couple of times in the score for It's a Mystery as an instrumental. In fact, it's the first piece you hear at the very beginning, when Woodstock is building his nest, and is played again when he discovers that his nest is gone. Similarly, an instrumental version of Joe Cool, specifically a brass version with Guaraldi whistling, is used when Snoopy first puts himself forward as Woodstock's lawyer. As for the original music here, there are two tracks that have the word "mystery" in their official titles. One, just called Mystery, is this electric guitar theme that first plays after Woodstock has fallen through his nest at the beginning and plays a number of times throughout the cartoon, notably when he and Snoopy are going to the various houses, as well as during the ending credits. (This piece of music would be reworked for the very next special, It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, which aired just two months later.) Another theme, which has the same title as the cartoon itself, is this upbeat piece of music that's first heard when Woodstock successfully builds his nest and goes down to his birdbath, and is heard in various versions throughout. It was also slowed down to act as a melancholic theme for Sally, both in the scene where she's complaining about her science project and at the end, when she gives her presentation. Speaking of Sally, a particularly downtrodden, bluesy theme, fittingly called Sally's Blues, plays when she rants about her science project being stolen. There's also a theme called Cops and Robbers, which also plays when Snoopy and Woodstock are going around the neighborhood, but really goes into full swing during the scene with Peppermint Patty.

It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown is another Peanuts special that lacks a bit in terms of story, but in this case, it more than makes up for it with some really great animation, especially for the two leads of Snoopy and Woodstock and in specific scenes, most of the other characters here get their respective times to shine, some genuinely funny and even wild moments, a surprising resolution, and some more memorable music. It is a shame that the mystery wasn't focused on or developed a little more, or that the culprit was all but revealed at the very start, but in the end, that doesn't stop this one from still being fairly enjoyable, especially for big Snoopy and Woodstock fans.

There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown (1973)

I've tried in the past to do this one for Valentine's Day, seeing as how I've already done all of the Peanuts specials that are actually based around the holiday, as well as those with a similar theme, like You're in Love, Charlie Brown, Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown, and It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown. But then, when I re-watched it, I realized that, despite the title, as well as how it does seem to take place in February, as it's mentioned that there are three more months of school left, it has nothing to do with Valentine's Day, and the subject of romance is only part of it. Thus, when you're now finally reading this review, Valentine's has already come and gone. In any case, this is another special that I knew nothing about when I first saw it on the Peanuts 1970's Collection Volume One DVD set, and could only guess at the plot. Upon seeing it, I was surprised to find it was mostly about the pressures of school, even for elementary students, with the main plot being about how Charlie Brown and some of his friends end up in a supermarket when they're supposed to be on a field trip to an art museum. It also focuses on Peppermint Patty's relationship with him, and notably introduces the character of Marcie to animation. And even though the special does focus mainly on the three of them, a fair number of the other Peanuts characters do also get the opportunity to shine, even if in brief moments. Overall, while not laugh out loud funny (though it does have its fair share of chuckle-worthy moments, to be sure), it is kind of unique and well-written, and it is nice to see something go right for Charlie Brown, for a change by the end.

There are three months left in the school year and everybody, both at Charlie Brown's and Peppermint Patty's school, is feeling the pressure, as they're swamped with homework assignments and various tests. While Peppermint Patty complains that, with all this work, there's no time for her to find any romance, Charlie Brown worries about salvaging his grades, which have dropped down to all C's. He then learns that his class is taking a field trip to an art museum, which they then have to write a report on; in order to keep from failing completely, he must get an A on this report. It turns out that Peppermint Patty and Marcie's class are going on the same field trip, and the night before, Marcie, worried that something will go wrong with ir, shows up at Patty's house early in the morning, as in 4:00 AM, so they can walk to school together. This causes Patty to get no sleep whatsoever and walk around in a daze. When they arrive at the museum, they meet up with Charlie Brown, Sally, and Snoopy, the latter of whom simply came along for the ride. They're so busy talking that they don't realize that everyone else has gone inside and they themselves end up going into the supermarket, which is right next door to the museum. Save for Marcie and Snoopy, none of them realize the mistake they've made. Meanwhile, in the museum, Linus and Lucy wonder what became of Charlie Brown as they roam about the building. Eventually, Patty's drowsiness gets the best of her and she and Charlie Brown sit down in an aisle, where she continually hints at her crush on him by insinuating that he likes her. At one point, he walks off, and Marcie and Sally find Patty sleeping by herself. Upon waking her up, Marcie suggests that Patty is in love with Charlie Brown, which she vehemently denies... within earshot of Charlie Brown himself. Now, not only is he depressed about his grades, especially when he learns that he wasn't in a museum, but Patty has to try to make up for insulting him.

Having directed not only the previous Peanuts special, You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, but also the second feature film, Snoopy Come Home, both in 1972, Bill Melendez would naturally return to direct There's No Time for Love. However, the next special, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, would prove to be something of a turning point, as he would co-direct it with Phil Roman, and after that, Roman would be the sole director on a number of the specials leading into the 80's. In fact, save for 1978's What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown!, which he, again, co-directed with Roman, Melendez wouldn't be the sole director on another special until 1982's A Charlie Brown Celebration. He wasn't completely removed from the franchise during this time, though, as he was still acting as a producer on them and would direct some small shorts featuring the characters, as well as the later feature films, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!), before going back to directing many of the specials himself in the later years. However, in a way, There's No Time for Love is the end of an era, as it's the last one in the initial run beginning with A Charlie Brown Christmas where Melendez was himself the one and only director.

Like the other members of the Peanuts gang during the first act, Charlie Brown (voiced by Chad Webber) is really suffering from the pressures of school and is especially down when he learns that he got a C in everything, commenting, "I'm a straight 'blah' student." He also completely fumbles when he attempts to give a report, clumsily admitting that he never got around to doing it and finally yelling, "I throw myself upon the mercy of the court!" Following that, he confesses to Linus, "I worry about school a lot. I also worry about my worrying so much about school. My anxieties have anxieties." And then, he learns about the field trip to the art museum and how he must get an A on the report he's to write about it in order to keep from failing the entire course. Come the day of the field trip, he has to first deal with Sally complaining about having to go on one in the first place, then Peppermint Patty not so subtly hitting on him through reverse psychology, which distracts everyone and causes them to go into the supermarket instead of the museum. Never picking up on how they're in the wrong place, he gets stuck with Peppermint Patty, as she keeps inferring that he likes her. When she falls asleep in an aisle, he wanders away, still worrying about his grades, and is within earshot when Marcie asks Patty if she's in love with him and she denies it, calling him "boring," "dull," and "wishy-washy." Depressed, he walks out of the building and gets back on the bus, ignoring Patty when she runs after him, trying to apologize. Things get a little better when she invites him to come over and write his report along with her and Marcie, saying that if they work together, they might get a good grade on it. When Charlie Brown walks Marcie home afterward, she tells him that Patty actually does like him and what she said at the museum was a slip of the tongue, which only annoys him. But then, Marcie kisses him on the cheek on her doorstep, sending him in a blushing daze (and causing him to commit a major faux pas by calling up Patty and thanking her for the kiss). Once he sees Linus' photos from the art museum, he realizes that he was in the wrong place, but this is after he's already handed in his report. He's convinced that this will lead to him failing for sure, only for him to get the report back with an A, as well as a note from the teacher complimenting him on describing the museum through the "metaphor" of a supermarket.

Unlike Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty's (voiced by Christopher DeFaria) biggest concern over the influx of schoolwork is whether she'll have time to find a boyfriend. It's also obvious, especially to Marcie, that she has a crush on good old "Chuck," and is always inferring as much by suggesting that he likes her, which only puts Charlie Brown off. Speaking of Marcie, Patty is sure that the two of them will end up as buddies on the field trip and suggests she show up at her house that morning so they can walk to school together, only for her to show up at 4:00 AM. She tells Marcie to go home and come back a few hours later, but when she doesn't leave, as she says she can't go back to bed, Patty opts to let her stay over until it's time to go to school. As a result, Patty is drowsy and half-asleep throughout the field trip, and doesn't realize it when she, Marcie, Charlie Brown, Sally, and Snoopy end up in the supermarket instead of the museum. Eventually, it catches up with her and she sits down next to Charlie Brown in an aisle, continuing to infer that she likes him by insinuating that he's the one who has a crush on her. She dozes off and Charlie Brown goes elsewhere. She doesn't wake up until Marcie and Sally find her, and she wonders what happened to Charlie Brown. That's when Marcie asks if she's in love with him and Patty immediately exclaims, "Me? Me in love with Chuck? How could anybody ever be in love with boring, dull, wishy-washy old Chuck?" She then sees Charlie Brown wandering away, looking really sad, and realizes that he heard what she said. Desperate to salvage their friendship, she runs after him, yelling that she didn't mean it, but he gets on the bus and rides off, not paying attention to her. 

To try and smooth things over, she calls up Charlie Brown and has him come over so the two of them and Marcie can compare notes and do good on their reports. She continues to not so subtly flirt with him while they're doing so, having him hand her an eraser and then saying, "You touched my hand, Chuck." But later, after he's walked Marcie home and she's kissed him, Patty is indignant when Charlie Brown calls her up and thanks her for the kiss, prompting her to yell, "What goodnight kiss?!" She slams the phone down

and growls, "That Chuck! He's finally flipped!" At the end, as they're sitting under the same tree that they were at the beginning, she tells him, "Chuck, I want to apologize for saying that you're stupid and wishy-washy and everything. It's not easy for a girl to talk like this to a boy, you know." Charlie Brown responds, "I know. But I always used to think how nice it would be if that little red-haired girl would just come up to me and...", and that's all Patty can take, as she yells, strong enough to literally blow him away, "I can't stand you, Chuck!"

Marcie (voiced by James Ahrens) had only just recently been introduced in the comic strip when she made her first animated appearance here, and she immediately establishes her personality: a bit shy, very awkward, and not understanding a number of basic, everyday things, along with her habit of calling Peppermint Patty "sir," much to her annoyance. Like Charlie Brown, she dreads the field trip, but more because she's worried about everything that could possibly go wrong: "What if I get sick? What if I get lost? I hear you have to bring your lunch on a field trip. What about that, sir? What if I get out there and discover I left my lunch on the bus? What if I get on the wrong bus, and I end up downtown or something?" To calm her nerves, Peppermint Patty tells her about how the buddy-system is used on field trips and that she'll probably be her buddy. She also tells Marcie to come by her home that morning so they can walk to school together. That proves to be a big mistake, as when Marcie wakes up in the middle of the night, she thinks she overslept and runs over to Peppermint Patty's house, where it turns out to be 4:00 in the morning. Though Patty tells her to go home and come back later, Marcie opts to just stay with her, saying she can't go back to bed. During the "field trip," she's the only one who suspects they're in a supermarket (the one hint here of her true intelligence). When they come upon a big stack of tomato cans, which everyone else thinks is a sculpture, and describes it as such, Peppermint Patty admonishes her, saying, "What do you mean supermarket? That's pop art. What's the matter with you, Marcie? Don't you know pop art when you see it?" And when she and Sally are in the meat section, which the latter thinks is a display of dinosaur bones, Marcie, again, calls it out for what it really is. 

More than anything else, Marcie sees how Peppermint Patty likes Charlie Brown, and when she ends up insulting him, Marcie offers to come up with something to help. Notably, that night, when the three of them get together to compare notes and write their reports, Marcie, as Charlie Brown is walking her home, tells him that Patty really does like him. And when she kisses him goodnight, she tells him, "If you don't want that to be from me, Chuck, think of it as being a goodnight kiss from Peppermint Patty,

because I think she likes you." That leads him into mistakenly thanking Patty for the kiss. And at the end, when Patty blows up at Charlie Brown and sends him flying, Marcie shows up and says, "Well, sir, you said the wrong thing again, didn't you?" Patty then asks, "Kid, I want to ask you something. How come you're always calling me 'sir' when I keep asking you not to? Don't you realize how annoying that can be?", and Marcie, after thinking for a second, responds, "No, ma'am," which Patty doesn't seem to like the sound of, either.

Linus (voiced by Stephen Shea) and Lucy (voiced by Robin Kohn) spend nearly all of their scenes together (Schroeder, for the first time in any of these specials, isn't here, so Lucy likely doesn't have anywhere else to go). Their first scene is one of the special's funniest moments, where Linus lays out this problem, "A man has a daughter and a son. The son is three years older than the daughter. In one year, the man will be six times as old as the daughter is now; and in ten years, he'll be fourteen years older than the combined ages of his children. What is the man's present age?", and Lucy just stares at him and says, "I'm sorry. We are unable to complete your call. Please check the number and dial again." Shortly afterward, as Linus is doing his homework, he complains, "New math is too much for me." Lucy tells him, "You'll get on to it. It just takes time," and he responds, "Not me. I'll never get on to it. How can you do new math problems with an old math mind?" Notably, unlike Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Snoopy, Linus and Lucy manage to go into the art museum and often wonder where the former is. At one point, Lucy thinks she sees Charlie Brown, but it turns out to be a sculpture with a big, round sphere that looks a lot like his head. Lucy also complains about how the pictures, "Don't move," adding, "I'm not used to looking at pictures that don't move or have commercials." She then expects to see "Ramona Lisa" and tells Linus not to have any fun, as the trip is supposed to be "educational." Afterward, when the two of them and Charlie Brown are going over the pictures that Linus took at the museum, the latter realizes he was at the wrong place the whole time and feels he's doomed. But when he learns he got an A, and was actially the only one in his class who got one on his report, Linus is more than happy for him.

Sally (voiced by Hilary Momberger) is especially suffering from her school workload during the first act. The special starts with her waking up in the morning, realizing her alarm clock didn't go off, and as she and Charlie Brown walk to school afterward, he, of all people, talks about how she's so uptight and asks her why she doesn't just relax. Cut to her classroom, and she's literally standing up in her seat, asking, "Who can relax?" Throughout the first act, you see her, among other things, writing a report on agriculture, specifically on melon farming (she writes, "Melons have to be planted between May 15th and June 5th. I don't know what to do if you happen to be out of town. I'm glad I'm not a melon farmer,"), making a number of random guesses as to the answer to a problem (after spitting out various numbers between "2" and "12," she comes out and asks the teacher, "Do you have the feeling that I'm guessing?"), and, when asked by the teacher, "Who was the father of Henry IV?", getting so aggravated that she blurts out, "I could not possibly care less!" She then realizes what she just said and quickly apologizes, telling the teacher, "That was just a gut reaction." Like Charlie Brown, she's not thrilled about the field trip, but for very different reasons. As the two of them walk out of the house and to the bus stop, she rants, "I don't know why we have to go on field trips. Why can't we stay in school? Why should we bother the outside world? I think field trips are invented by school custodians to get us out of the building so they can clean it. Do you know what going on a field trip means? It means we ride about 10,000 miles on a bus and we all get sick." Once they're on the bus, she thinks to herself, "So, here I am, on a school bus with the whole class, going on a field trip. I'll probably get sick. I shoulda stayed home! That's what I shoulda done! I can see the headlines now: 'FIVE-YEAR OLD GIRL HIJACKS SCHOOL BUS!.'" She then actually yells aloud, "'Take me home!', she shouted," and then thinks back to herself, "Rats." When they finally get to the museum, Sally is unwilling to go in, but Charlie Brown, not wanting her to get lost, drags her inside and they wind up in the supermarket. In there, she mistakes a pile of tomato cans for a sculpture and the meat section for a display of dinosaur bones. After she and Marcie find Peppermint Patty snoozing in the aisle, Sally disappears until the penultimate scene, when she's walking home with Charlie Brown, Linus, and Lucy.

While he's not along for the field trip, Franklin (voiced by Todd Barbee) appears early on, sitting in front of Peppermint Patty in class, and the two of them have some nice back-and-forth about their assignments. When Patty gripes about having to do a science project, Franklin says, "I'm going to do mine on the various kinds of metals in the earth and how each has affected the progress of mankind." Patty retorts, "Maybe I'll do one on stomachaches." The second time we see them, Franklin is reading a book and tells Patty, "It's a book on psychology. From what I understand, it seems to be pretty good." However, Patty tells him, "Forget it, Franklin. No book on psychology can be any good if you can understand it." In their third scene, there's a switch, as Patty tells Franklin, "We're going to have to learn the metric system, Franklin. By the time we grow up, the metric system will probably be official. One inch is 2.54 centimeters, one foot is 0.3048 meters, and one mile is 1.609 kilometers," and he responds, "I'll never measure anything again, as long as I live." And in their final scene, Franklin complains about a problem he can't understand and Patty tells him, "Just put down 'eleven,' Franklin, and don't worry about it. That's what I did. X is almost always eleven, and Y is almost always nine. One thing I've learned about algebra: don't take it too seriously."

Snoopy (voiced by Bill Melendez) appears briefly during the first act, having sneaked into school using his Joe Cool persona. He lifts his sunglasses and winks at Violet, who promptly slaps the crap out of him and goes back to her work. He comes along with Charlie Brown and Sally on the field trip, and goes into the supermarket with them. Since they pass by a "NO DOGS ALLOWED" sign, you expect him to immediately get thrown out, but that never happens. Instead, he puts on an apron and starts checking out some customers, as well as inspects some of the fruits and vegetables, as one of Vince Guaraldi's "Joe Cool" songs plays on the soundtrack. Snoopy throws a tantrum when a tomato is easily squashed in his hand, is disgusted when he finds a can of cat-food among a bunch of groceries, and laughs while reading a magazine that's about housebreaking a pet. At one point, he pushes a shopping cart full of groceries (the bag he tried to put in it burst) into a line of them, only to get his foot stuck and then get knocked out the door. That's how Linus and Lucy find him when they come out of the museum, though neither of them seem to realize he's stuck. So, when they board the bus, he just drags the cart with him and takes it home.

In terms of animation, while There's No Time for Love doesn't have any real stand-out moments, you can still see, like in scenes where Charlie Brown freaks out in class, Marcie runs out of her room and house, and Snoopy complains while "working" at the supermarket, how the movements of the characters are much more fluid than they were when the specials began. But what really caught my eye was the technical sophistication of the moving background in some shots, specifically the exterior nighttime scenes. When the characters are walking to and from school

during the day, the entire background moves along with them, as per usual, as do objects in the foreground, like trees. But when Marcie rushes to Peppermint Patty's house in the middle of the night and when Charlie Brown walks her home following their studying together, the immediate background of the houses behind them moves, but the stars, clouds, and moon up in the sky remain still, as they would in real life. It may not seem like much to get excited about as I'm describing it, or from these static screenshots, but it's a very sophisticated technique that I don't remember seeing in the previous Peanuts cartoons or, if it was, it didn't stand out as much. 

Speaking of the backgrounds and the design of the environments, while there are the usual simplistic ones with little to no detail (like the various classrooms you see during the first seven or so minutes), some are actually quite well-designed. Besides the lovely backgrounds for the exterior daytime scenes and the tree that Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty sit under a couple of times (I would complain that the grass and leaves are too green for the time of year this is supposed to be, but whatever), the nighttime ones are, in my opinion, some of the

best seen in any of these specials since It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, with the look of the surrounding neighborhood and the full moon in the background when Charlie Brown is walking Marcie home. Interior-wise, the most elaborately designed are the art museum and the supermarket. The former, naturally, has all of its paintings and unique sculptures, as well as one shot of a bunch of kids gathered around the piece of art that Lucy initially mistakes for Charlie Brown. The supermarket,

meanwhile, is much more colorful than you might expect, with the fruits and vegetables section and the banners hanging from the ceiling, and there are a couple of detailed overhead shots showing the big stacks of cans and the aisles with banners that read "Sale" over them. Other interiors, like those of Marcie and Peppermint Patty's homes, give a hint of what their respective home-lives are like. While we never get a good look at the outside of Marcie's home, and don't see much when she gets up and runs out that

night, it's clear from the big staircase she runs down and the bookcase we partially see to its left that her house is quite large and her family is fairly well-to-do. Peppermint Patty's house, which we do see the outside of, is obviously more of a standard, middle-class home, and her bedroom is decorated with football team flags, an actual football, and so on, indicating how much she's into sports.

It goes without saying that, both in terms of drama and comedy, the Peanuts always work best when they're dealing with real-life issues that anyone can relate to, and that's certainly true of There's No Time for Love, which deals with the pressure and anxiety that comes with being in school. The first eight or so minutes alone get into it perfectly, with Sally waking up to find her alarm clock didn't go off, then fretting about school to the point where she's literally standing in her seat in class, Peppermint Patty complaining that she doesn't have any time for romance (that was

definitely true of the private high school I went to), and the kids each dealing with their own, individual schoolwork and anxieties, with Charlie Brown himself worrying about how he's gotten nothing but C's. Besides the moments I've already mentioned, you have scenes at school like Sally attempting to do show-and-tell, only for her buildup to take too long and the teacher to send her back to her desk, as she grumbles, "All the life has gone out of show-and-tell,"; Sally later reading her schoolwork, "Sets. One to one matching. Equivalent sets. Non-equivalent sets.

Sets of one. Sets of two. Renaming two. Subjects. Joining sets. Number. Sentences. Placeholders," until she finally breaks and yells, "All I wanna know is how much is two and two!"; Peppermint Patty, like Sally before her, confidently answering a question, only to get it wrong and comment, "The jury will please disregard that last statement,"; and Peppermint Patty, after reading a math problem just as tough as Sally's, commenting, "Well, I knew it would happen

sooner or later... My education has ground to a halt." And I, for one, can definitely relate to Charlie Brown fretting about having to do a report following a field trip, as I was never good at that kind of thing and wanted to die every time it came up.

In the midst of this, when Charlie Brown asks him, Linus sums up school in about the best way possible: "I think that the purpose of going to school is to get good grades, so then you can go on to high school; where the purpose is to study hard, so you can get good grades, so you can go to college. And the purpose of going to college is so you can get good grades, so you can go on to graduate school; and the purpose of that is to work hard and get good grades, so we can get a job and be successful, so we can get married and have kids, so we can send them to grammar school, to get good grades, so they can go to high school, to get good grades, so they can go to college and work hard..." Charlie Brown then lets out an exasperated, "Good grief!"

While it is similar to Play It Again, Charlie Brown, in that it starts out with a bunch of randomness before getting into an actual plot, I think There's No Time for Love does it better, in that the plot actually comes around while we're still in the first act, and the aforementioned randomness is better connected and builds up to it. However, in terms of humor, I think the section at the museum and supermarket is kind of lacking. While it is funny that they think they're in the museum, are shocked that it seems to be selling off part of its collection so it can stay in business (Charlie

Brown says, "They must be desperate. They're practically giving this stuff away!"), and think that stacks of cans and the meat market are exhibits, it starts to run of steam; fortunately, though, they don't spend much more time there than necessary. And, while certainly harmless, the sequence with Snoopy working in the store and getting his foot caught in the shopping cart feels like it was put in to pad out the runtime just a little bit, as it serves no purpose besides giving him at least one stand out scene. I wish they

instead devoted more time to Linus and Lucy wandering around the actual museum, as I thought the little bit of that we do get was rather funny in and of itself. But once that section is gone by, I feel that the rest of it runs smoothly, as I like the comedy with Peppermint Patty trying to flirt with Charlie Brown, only for him to drive her up the wall with his obliviousness, and I think it's both funny and nice that Charlie Brown ends up getting the only A in the whole class on his report, with his dumb luck being something that the teacher thought was a brilliantly unique way of looking at things.

As he often did with the music, Vince Guaraldi came up with a title theme for There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown that you first hear when the actual title comes up and which you hear sporadically throughout the actual cartoon, in different versions. You first hear it in a sort of synthesizer version, then in a combination piano/guitar version for the scene where Charlie Brown and Linus are walking home from school; an electric keyboard version for when Peppermint Patty calls Charlie Brown up about their working together on their field trip reports and on through their working together, him walking Marcie home, and then calling Peppermint Patty up about that goodnight kiss; a brass version during the last scene under the tree; and a final, high-energy guitar version for the ending credits. Another memorable part of the score is called Pitkin County Blues, which plays during the montage of the kids dealing with the onslaught of schoolwork at the beginning, and perfectly captures the frenzied, stressed out mood they find themselves in. There's also this theme called African Sleigh Ride, which plays during the latter part of the kids wandering around both the museum and supermarket, and which has a sort of Christmas vibe to it, with the sound of sleigh bells in the background, but with a smooth, mellow jazz beat on top of it. And as he'd done for You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, Guaraldi himself sings a "Joe Cool" song for Snoopy. It's the same melody as it was before, only the lyrics are different, talking about how he's working in a supermarket and telling him to be careful of the manager, to get the prices right, and so on. Besides using the classic Linus and Lucy theme a couple of times and Peppermint Patty's theme from before, you also hear some of the music that the combo from Play It Again, Charlie Brown played when Charlie Brown, Sally, and Snoopy go to the bus stop and arrive at their destination.

In conclusion, while There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown may not have been appropriate for Valentine's Day, despite its title, it is very enjoyable. The humor and situations are both fairly funny and very relatable to anyone who was ever stressed out about school, the character of Marcie has a very nice first appearance, all of the major characters here manage to have their standout moments, the animation is still good, the art direction and backgrounds are nicely-detailed and even very colorful in some cases, the music score is memorable, as usual, and despite the typical hurdles he's go through, it's nice that something good happens to Charlie Brown at the end. While the humor during the sequence where the kids are at the museum/supermarket does start to wear a tad thin, it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the story structure is similar to Play It Again, Charlie Brown, only done better. Definitely a Peanuts special you may want to check out if you haven't already.