I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (2003)

I'm pretty sure I never saw any part of this on TV in the years since it was first aired and I definitely know I'd never heard the title until just recently, when I was looking up some other Peanuts-related Christmas cartoons. So, when I went into it on Dailymotion just a week before I started this review (which was a very annoying experience, due to that site's trying nature and technical difficulties), I knew nothing about it, other than, due to the title, it apparently revolved around Snoopy and was 41 minutes long rather than the usual 24 or so. I figured that maybe it was going to be the story of how Charlie Brown first got Snoopy, receiving him as a Christmas present; I definitely didn't expect it to revolve around Rerun, whom I've barely seen featured in any of these cartoons, nor did I expect to see Snoopy's brother, Spike, whom I'd only seen beforehand in an episode of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show (at this point, I've not seen any of the other cartoons that feature him). After watching this special, I do think it's more well-made and benefits from having a more consistent main plot than what you get in something like It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, but it tends to drag due to being longer than your typical Peanuts cartoon, I didn't find it to be all that funny, and I kind of hate seeing a five-year old kid getting repeatedly screwed over. It's already rather sad to see an older kid like Charlie Brown get caught up in such misery and bad luck but when it happens to one as young as Rerun, it can feel downright mean.

Christmas is coming, but Rerun van Pelt isn't having the best time in the days leading up to it. Besides his terrifying rides on the back of his mother's bicycle, he's embarrassed by Linus, bullied by Lucy, and, the day before Christmas vacation, he gets suspended from kindergarten for telling a little girl that the two of them run away to Paris as a joke. Since he likes to play with Snoopy, Rerun decides that he wants to have a dog for Christmas but, unfortunately for him, his mother won't allow it, saying dogs are too much trouble to take care of. He tries to compensate by playing with Snoopy more often, but Snoopy soon loses interest in doing so. Rerun then goes as far as to offer Charlie Brown money for him and asks a sidewalk Santa and his "secretary" (Snoopy and Woodstock) to bring him a dog for Christmas but neither of his plans work out. When Snoopy receives a letter from Spike, his brother who lives in the desert, it gives Rerun the idea to invite Spike to come live with him and he has Snoopy write a letter to him. Sure enough, Spike makes a trip across the country to visit, but Rerun's plan to make him his dog may involve more than Spike is able to handle.

This would prove to be Bill Melendez's next-to-last work as director, as he died just five years later and two years after his truly final one, 2006's He's a Bully, Charlie Brown. As with the previous special, Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown, Melendez co-directed this one with Larry Leichliter, who'd been involved with the Peanuts as far back as 1975's You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown, on which he was an assistant animator, and had gone on to serve the same role on many of the specials and feature films that followed, as well as the first two Garfield specials, which Melendez produced. By this point, he'd directed 2002's Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales on his own and would co-direct He's a Bully with Melendez, before moving on to work on other cartoons (most notably, he's directed over a hundred episodes of Adventure Time).

Like Charlie Brown, Rerun (voiced by Jimmy Bennett) is a character whom you can't help but have sympathy for, given how his day-to-day life is far from enviable. He has to endure rides on the back of his mother's bicycle as she goes on trips into town and nearly hits about everything in her path; bullying and verbal abuse from Lucy; the embarrassment of having Linus as an older brother (he goes as far as to insist that he's an only child when other kids ask him about his siblings); he gets suspended from kindergarten for simply suggesting to a girl in his class that they should head off to Paris, which is labeled as "harassment"; a shop-owner literally throws him out the front door for telling him to put a price on his "tab"; and he would like nothing more than to have a dog for Christmas but his mother won't let him, as she says they're too much to deal with. The only little bit of genuine fun he has is when he plays with Snoopy, but even that doesn't last, as Snoopy loses interest and actually gives him a rejection slip at one point. Rerun is so determined to have a dog that he tries to buy Snoopy off of Charlie Brown, except he only has 16 cents, and then asks a sidewalk Santa, whom he doesn't know is actually Snoopy, to bring him one for Christmas. Eventually, he gets the idea of taking Snoopy's brother, Spike, in as his own dog and has Snoopy send him a letter to invite him down to do so. While Spike does come along and Rerun gets to have some fun with him after Lucy fattens up his skinny frame, it isn't long before he's no longer allowed to keep him and Spike heads back to the desert. As if Rerun weren't already bummed, Lucy then ropes him into being in the school play and he nearly forgets his one line, only remembering it when Lucy threatens to clobber him if he doesn't.

It's a shame Rerun has to go through so much crap because he's not only an innocent five-year old but is infinitely more optimistic than the rather dour Charlie Brown, as he believes Snoopy is the greatest dog in the world and that Charlie Brown is lucky to have him. He's also a lot smarter and wittier than you would expect, given his age. For instance, when Lucy threatens to knock his building blocks over at one point, he tells her, "Years from now, after you're married, and you and your husband want me to cosign a note so you can buy a new house, I'll refuse," and when she stomps off, he comments, "Younger brothers learn to think fast." He placates his kindergarten teacher by acting like the project she gives them is so ingenious, whispering to the pig-tailed girl, "When she's happy, we're happy." When he gets suspended just for a dumb joke, he's smart enough to know that it was idiotic for what he said to be construed as harassment, saying bluntly to Lucy, "Stupidity." And when he's stuck on the back of his mother's bicycle, he takes time to reflect on things, such as "people" and "life," at least, when he's not terrified that she's going to crash into something. In any case, at the end of the special, Rerun goes back to Snoopy to try to get him to pull him along on his sled. After some nudging from Charlie Brown, Snoopy does join him outside but makes Rerun pull him along on the sled instead, prompting Rerun to wonder if his mom was right about a dog being too much trouble.

Just because Rerun is her little brother doesn't mean that Lucy (voiced by Ashley Rose Orr) is any easier on him than Linus. She pushes him around just as bad, if not worse, stating outright early on that she has 90% of the rights in the household and each of her brothers only has 5%. She also doesn't even understand why she should be expected to live in a house with two brothers, yelling about it and storming out. There's even a moment where she literally grabs him and throws him out the front door when he starts talking about how if it's possible that the youngest child of three can develop an immunity against his siblings' weirdness. Later, when Rerun is playing in the sandbox, which has been moved into the garage, Lucy shows up with Sally, demanding that he leave and threatens that the two of them will gang up on him if he doesn't comply. She also continuously tries to dissuade Rerun in his desire for a dog, telling him that their mother won't let him have one, that dogs aren't always fun, saying he should ask Charlie Brown for confirmation on that, and she refuses to take him to see Santa Claus because she'd rather go flirt with Schroeder. But, besides her bullying, Lucy also does what she considers to be her looking out for Rerun, describing herself as his "compass." When Snoopy is dressed as a sidewalk Santa, she tells Rerun exactly what he is but this doesn't discourage him, as he likes this "Santa" all the more for it. And, as usual, Lucy constantly aggravates Schroeder while he's practicing on his piano, trying to disparage him by saying that a child's piano only has a range of one octave and criticizing Beethoven, calling him a bad influence on him since Schroeder is so set on copying the man's every decision.

To Lucy's credit, when Spike shows up after she doubted if he would find them, she takes pity upon his thin, malnourished physique and decides to fatten him up, which she succeeds in doing. By the end of it, though, Spike ends up thin again and Lucy informs Rerun that their mother, who was only letting Spike stay before out of pity for how bad he looked, says they can't keep him anymore but assures him that Charlie Brown will find him a home (that doesn't work out). Then, in what she says is an attempt to take his mind off losing Spike, Lucy signs Rerun up to be in their school play and assures him when he becomes nervous about it that he only has one line he has to remember. But, come the night of the play, Rerun starts to freak out about not being able to recall his line and Lucy threatens to beat him up when they get home if he doesn't remember. This threat is enough to jog his memory and he says his line, after which he promptly faints.

Unlike his brother and sister, Linus' (voiced by Corey Padnos) role here is very minimal. Save for a couple of moments where he tells Charlie Brown about how his mother takes Rerun with her when she bikes into town and notes that her riding isn't quite as hazardous as it once was (i.e., she goes through a hedge instead of a brick wall), his only significant scene is after the opening credits, when he's sitting on the couch with Rerun and Lucy. He's not too thrilled about Rerun denying that he's his brother, due to how he sucks his thumb and carries his blanket around, and, as usual, he's terrified of Lucy. When she tells Rerun that, as an older sister, she's like a, "Compass to guide him through life," Rerun asks Linus if that's true. With both Rerun and Lucy looking intently at him for an answer, he hides his face under his blanket and says, "I'm not here." This prompts Lucy to storm off, shouting about how could she be expected to live in a house with two brothers, and Linus tells Rerun, "Big sisters are the crabgrass in the lawn of life." That's when Rerun, again, brings up his infant-like habits, which he himself doesn't do, despite being five, and says, "As the years go by, you'll probably develop a real resentment towards me." Irked, Linus throws his blanket over Rerun, who then comments, "And you'll find different ways to get even." Later, when Spike shows up and Lucy decides to fatten him up, Linus is horrified when he sees that she gave him his blanket to wear as a hospital gown and asks her why she wouldn't fix a milkshake for her own brother. And like, Charlie Brown, Rerun, Lucy, and other members of the gang, he takes part in the Christmas play at the end.

While he has more of a role than Linus, this is another example of a Peanuts special where Charlie Brown (voiced by Adam Taylor Gordon) is not the focus of the story. After a couple of moments early on where he's shown hanging out with Linus and/or Lucy, his first major scene comes when he tells Rerun about Snoopy's relatives and the ill-fated visits some of them have paid him. He allows Rerun to play with Snoopy whenever he feels like it, acting as something of a middleman to set up their play-dates, although Snoopy himself ultimately decides whether or not he's interested, and sometimes he does stuff with Rerun while Charlie Brown is searching for him. After Snoopy loses interest, Rerun asks Charlie Brown if he could buy him. He does ask Rerun how much money he has but, when he sees that Rerun only has 16 cents, he tells him he'd need $10 million and walks back into the house. When Snoopy receives a letter from Spike about his attempts to celebrate Christmas out in the desert and Charlie Brown tells Rerun that Spike does live out there by himself, it gives Rerun the idea to invite Spike to be his dog. But, when that plan doesn't work out, Charlie Brown tries to have someone else in the neighborhood adopt Spike but doesn't get any takers, so Spike ultimately goes back to the desert. At the end of the special, after convincing Snoopy to go out and play with Rerun one last time, though not in the way Rerun intended, there's a rather random scene before the credits where Charlie Brown is lying in bed, with Snoopy on top of him, and he says, "Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, 'When will it all end?' Then a voice comes to me that says, 'Right after the credits.'"

Sally (voiced by Hannah Leigh Dworkin) has a few scenes here, first appearing before the opening credits when Rerun first asks to play with Snoopy. After telling him that Snoopy's resting, she rather meanly says to go find something else to do, suggesting he go home and read a book. When Rerun says he can't do that, Sally goes, "Well, that's too bad. Find something you know how to do," and goes back inside, with Rerun answering, "Well, I know how to play with a dog!" She's later seen with Lucy when she tries to make Rerun remove himself from the sandbox in the garage and later tries to give a sidewalk Santa, whom she doesn't know is actually Snoopy, her Christmas list, only for it to get chucked in the trash by Snoopy's secretary, Woodstock. Sally's biggest scene comes when she makes the mistake of using Snoopy's "Ace Airline" to go Christmas shopping. First, you see her getting dressed but having all sorts of trouble: not being able to tell which boot goes on which foot, fighting with her coat's zipper, and unable to put her mittens on because she can't tell where the thumb goes. She gets frustrated and declares, "I wasn't made for winter!" Regardless, she still goes with Snoopy, though she complains about the flight's lack of complimentary orange juice and that no one welcomed her aboard (Snoopy kisses her on the nose to make up for the latter), learns that the emergency "oxygen mask" is just a paper bag with eye-holes cut out of it, and that her complimentary lunch if Snoopy's dogfood. When they run into snow, she demands he take her back and he does, though the two of them get knocked off the doghouse at the end of the "flight" and she stumbles dizzily back into the house.

Schroeder (voiced by Nick Price) spends about 98% of his screentime doing, what else, playing his piano and getting annoyed by Lucy. Right off in his first scene, he counters Lucy telling him that she liked him the moment she first saw him with, "I disliked you the first time I saw you," and, when she asks him if Beethoven had any girls around him when he was practicing the piano, he growls, "No, I don't think Beethoven had any crabby females hanging onto his piano while he was trying to practice." Snoopy and Woodstock help him get rid of her the first time by coming in and shaking the snow they're covered in onto her, and when she bugs him a second time, he flings his piano out from under her twice and then uses the musical notes to literally attack her, sending her running out of the house. The third time she shows up, he's shocked when she calls Beethoven a bad influence but, when Charlie Brown is trying to find Spike a new home later on, he refuses to take him because he says Beethoven never owned a dog (if he was such a fan of him, he'd know Beethoven actually had a number of dogs). And he also takes part in the Christmas play at the end.

Franklin and Pigpen (both voiced by Jake Miner) make brief appearances near the end of the special. Franklin is one of the kids Charlie Brown tries to pawn Spike onto, describing him as a good watchdog. He asks if he's the kind of dog he'd like by his side if he had to go somewhere at night and Franklin says, "I sure wouldn't want to be seen in the daylight with him." He then takes part in the play, as does Pigpen, who speaks his lines quite eloquently and proper. Violet (voiced by Kaitlyn Maggio) is someone Charlie Brown tries to give Spike to but she isn't taking him, saying that she'd rather have one of the coyotes that live out in the desert with him. Maggio also voices the pig-tailed girl who's in Rerun's kindergarten class but isn't too happy about being there, complaining about the projects they're forced to do. This is prompts Rerun to suggest they run away together to Paris and leads to him getting suspended for "harassment."

Snoopy (voiced by Bill Melendez) gets up to quite a bit of mischief here, with the special opening with him going sledding in his food-bowl along with Woodstock and a group of his bird friends. Later, he harasses Linus and his blanket, gives his bone to a depressed Rerun who's sad about not getting a dog, helps Schroeder chase Lucy off by shaking a bunch of snow onto her, getting excited by his piano playing to where he goes out and dances with Charlie Brown and Rerun, before flinging them into a snowbank, and is good enough to play and spend time with Rerun for a bit, particularly when he offers to give him a Christmas cookie. But, he soon tires of it and gives Rerun a full-on rejection notice when he shows up another time. After collecting some of Schroeder's musical notes and decorating a small tree with them, Snoopy dresses up as Santa and works a sidewalk, with Woodstock acting as a secretary who writes down everything that Sally asks for Christmas and then throws the list into a waste basket. As in It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, Lucy makes the mistake of questioning whether or not Snoopy is a real Santa and gets bopped on the nose with the hand-bell he rings. Though Lucy then tells Rerun that he's just a dog dressed up as Santa, Rerun ends up liking him because of that and asks him for a dog for Christmas. Snoopy motions for them to make a contribution and when Rerun does, he shakes his hand and mutters something that Rerun translates as thanking him, that it's for a worthy cause, and to say hello to, "The stupid kid with the blanket, and his crabby sister." Later, he takes Sally on quite a wild "flight" when she tries to go Christmas shopping and gets a postcard from Spike, who talks about his attempts to have Christmas in the desert. Rerun later gets the idea to have Snoopy send Spike a letter inviting him to come be his dog and the two of them greet Spike when he shows up, though it isn't longer before they have to see him off back to the desert. At the end of the special, Rerun tries to get Snoopy to come pull him on his sled. Snoopy initially laughs off the suggestion but Charlie Brown implores him to and he does go outside, only to make Rerun pull him on the sled.

Spike, Snoopy's thin as a nail brother who lives out in the desert, sends Snoopy a letter detailing his attempts to celebrate Christmas there: decorating a tumbleweed, getting some snow, only for it to melt, making a tumbleweed man rather than a snowman, and stringing lights around a cactus, only to get tied to it as a result. Hearing that he lives alone, Rerun comes up with the idea of having Snoopy send Spike a letter to come be his dog and Spike does indeed drop by, carrying a cactus with him the whole way. However, when he arrives, Lucy is so taken aback by how thin and unhealthy he looks that she decides to fatten him up (this same plot was used in an episode of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show that featured Spike). She succeeds in making him much pudgier than he was when he first arrived and he does have fun playing with Rerun, but after he gets dragged along on one of the terrifying bike rides Rerun has to take with his mom, he's back to being as skinny as he was before. Lucy then tells Rerun that their mom has decided they can't keep him anymore, as she simply felt bad for him when he first showed up, and that Charlie Brown will find him a good home. But that plan doesn't work either, so Spike has no choice but to go back to the desert. Thinking about the ordeal he had on Mrs. van Pelt's bike, it's clear he figures he'd be better off back there anyway. He says his goodbyes and makes the long journey home, stringing up Christmas decorations again once he gets back.

Other members of Snoopy's family are briefly featured in flashbacks. His brother Marbles, who looks more like a Dalmatian than a beagle, is said to have visited at one point but left after Snoopy took him for a wild ride on his doghouse/airplane. Two other brothers, Olaf and Andy, are also shown to have dropped in on him but, after the two of them made an enormous mess in his house, Snoopy suggested they go visit Spike instead. But, they took a major wrong turn somewhere and ended up in Alaska rather than the desert and became sled-dogs. Snoopy's sister, Belle, who lives in Kansas City, is mentioned but is never actually seen, although she had appeared before in the 1991 special, Snoop's Reunion. And finally, Woodstock pops up randomly here, usually hanging out with Snoopy or acting as his "secretary" when he's dressed as Santa Claus, though he also appears in a jack-in-the-box that Rerun has with him when he's confronted by Lucy and Sally out in the garage.

As you might have noticed by now, this is one of the most visually appealing Peanuts specials that's ever been made, benefiting greatly from being produced in the 2000's. Not only are the colors very bright and vibrant and the backgrounds and settings nice to look at, especially when they're covered in snow and have a gray, overcast look to them that brings about the feeling of winter, but the animation is also better than what you normally get with the Peanuts, coming off as surprisingly fluid and energetic in some instances (like when Schroeder is really tickling those ivories and Snoopy dances with Charlie Brown and Rerun), and the whole just feels very technically sophisticated. What I especially like is how you get a bit more variety of environments and settings, with the interior scenes having more detail to them instead of just being a blank wall and floor with a smidge of furniture. In the van Pelt house, you get to see the living room, which is almost completely beige, with purple-colored furniture, the kitchen/dining room, and a bedroom, and you also see the interior of Rerun's kindergarten class, a type of classroom I don't think had ever been shown in one of these cartoons before. I especially like how, when Lucy goes to Schroeder's house for the second time, you see her walk into this hall full of artwork and sculptures of Beethoven and with wallpaper where the bottom has rows of piano keys drawn on it, before she rounds a corner to go into the room where Schroeder is always practicing his piano, which has a small Christmas tree in the background. Speaking of interior scenes, during the flashback to Andy and Olaf's visit with Snoopy, you see that the inside of Snoopy's doghouse apparently has a den with lots of funky furniture. And I like seeing a bit of the desert where Spike lives, as I think this kind of environment has always looked really good when it's been done in the Peanuts style, most notably in the movie, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown.

One thing I forgot to mention in It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown but applies to both of these specials is that Christmas itself never seems to come during the story or, if it does, you don't see the characters celebrating it the way they do the other holidays. It seems to be implying that the day Spike arrives is either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, seeing as how Lucy told Schroeder "Merry Christmas" in an earlier scene, but then, Spike stays long enough for Lucy to fatten him up, spend time playing with Rerun, get roped into going with Rerun and his mother to get a Christmas tree, and when he goes back home to the desert, he's still putting up Christmas decorations. And it's after he goes home that Lucy ropes Rerun into participating in the Christmas play, so it feels like the holiday hasn't come and gone until the final scene, when Rerun goes to play with Snoopy again. Yes, this is being overly nitpicky for a Peanuts cartoon but, after a while, I find myself wondering if this thing forgot it was supposed to be Christmas-related. Like I said, Christmas never seemed to really come in It's Christmastime Again but that one was so scattered, being made up of random vignettes, whereas this has a more straightforward narrative and, therefore, it's much more noticeable. In fact, Christmas itself never appears to come during the plot of A Charlie Brown Christmas, seeing as how most of that special is about the rehearsal of a play that they never actually put on, but the feeling of the holiday is so intrinsically part of it, with Charlie Brown wondering what it's actually all about, that I never thought of it until just now.

That leads me to another major issue with this one: even though it's only 41 minutes, it still feels like it overstays its welcome and the story starts to drag. You get so many scenes of Rerun wishing he could have a dog, only to be reminded that his mother won't allow it, him spending time with Snoopy, and learning about his extended family from Charlie Brown that you could start to wonder if it's going to go anywhere. Moreover, the scenario where he gets suspended the day before Christmas vacation starts, the scenes between Lucy and Schroeder, the section where Snoopy does his Santa routine, and Sally's uncomfortable flight with Snoopy come to feel like what they are: padding. And it's because of this special's prolonged nature that it feels like Christmas gets extended much more than it should be. Long story short: these specials have such simple plots that it's not a good idea to stretch them out for longer than a half hour.

And finally, as I've touched on, it rather sucks watching Rerun get put through all of this hell. It's no secret that Peanuts, despite its deserved classic and family friendly status, can sometimes come off as rather mean-spirited and cruel in regards to the unfairness, humiliation, and emotional abuse the kids, especially Charlie Brown, deal with, and while Rerun doesn't get it as bad as the other kids have in past specials like You're in Love, Charlie Brown, Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, and especially It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, which actually enraged viewers with how badly Charlie Brown was treated, it's still pretty crappy. While it's not unexpected that Lucy would be as mean to him as she is Linus, seeing her attempting to full-on intimidate him out of the sandbox in the garage comes off as especially jerkish, even for her, as it does when she threatens to beat on him if he forgets his line during the play. While I can accept the notion of Rerun's mother not wanting him to have a dog, as that's hardly uncommon, the moment where that store-owner literally tosses him out the door and into a snowbank ranks up there with all those dickhead adults who gave Charlie Brown rocks when he went out trick-or-treating. That's to say nothing of Rerun, a five-year old, getting suspended from kindergarten for him telling that girl they should run off to Paris together, which, sadly, is something I could see happening in this day and age, despite how ridiculous it is. Even Snoopy, who's not exactly known for his compassion anyway, eventually stops playing with Rerun, actually giving him a rejection notice and forcing him to pull him on his own sled. And then, there's the moment where Rerun tries to build a snowman but the hot sun causes it to melt, despite his attempts to save it. Rerun's comments after it's completely melted make it come off as more comical than it would have been otherwise, especially with his frantic begging beforehand, but still, it feels like even nature is against him.

The special opens with Snoopy leading Woodstock and a group of his friends up a steep hill that overlooks the town. Snoopy motions for the birds to get into his food-bowl, which he's brought with them, and he pushes it back down the way the way they came, hopping in and joining them. They have a quick but wild ride, going down the slopes and around curves, before flying off into the air and landing in a small tree down below. Charlie Brown and Linus walk up, the latter commenting, "Christmas decorations are getting more lifelike every year, Charlie Brown." After that, the two of them, along with Lucy, are seen building a snowman, when Linus tells Charlie Brown that their mother took Rerun with her on her bicycle for some Christmas shopping. It then cuts to Rerun on the back of the bike, who's already fretting about his mom's crazy pedaling, even though they're just now leaving the garage. He describes himself as a "white-knuckle flier" in this kind of predicament, yelling for her to look out at various obstacles and trying to calm himself by singing Jingle Bells, which doesn't help at all. Following that bike ride, Rerun, completely wiped out, heads over to the Brown house to play with Snoopy, but Sally doesn't let him come in, telling him that Snoopy's resting.

After the credits, you get a scene where Linus, Lucy, and Rerun are sitting on the couch, as Rerun talks about how he tells the other kids that he's an only child and that he won out in a discussion about crabby sisters (Lucy is actually proud of this, declaring herself a celebrity since everyone knows about her). Per Lucy's suggestion, he tries to figure out what his "job" in the family should be, when she suddenly storms off in irritation about having to live in a house with two brothers, while Rerun annoys Linus with his comments about blanket and thumb-sucking that he throws his blanket on him to make him be quiet. Following the moment between Rerun and Lucy over the former's building blocks, Rerun's theory about a third child developing an immunity to his siblings' weirdness annoys Lucy to where she picks him up and chucks him out the front door. The next day, Rerun is in his kindergarten class, placating his teacher by telling her how great the project she's given them is, while spending time with the girl with the pigtails. When she says she's tired of all this kindergarten stuff, Rerun suggests they run away to Paris. She asks him if he has any money and he says he has 50 cents, which he thinks should get them bumped up to business class. But, the next day, that girl tells Rerun that the principal wants to see him and when he does, he finds out that he's been suspended for harassment. He goes home and tells Lucy about it, describing it as having been "fired."

Linus is pulling Rerun around on a sled, as Rerun says their mom should let them have a dog, when Snoopy, who'd been spying on them from behind a tree, runs at Linus, grabs his blanket, drags him around by it, swings him around, and then flings him through the air. He slams into a snowman Lucy finished making, as Rerun walks up to them, asking, "Having a dog could be fun, don't you think?" That night, Rerun makes a letter to Santa Claus, intending to ask for a dog. When Lucy asks him if he thinks Santa will bring him something their mother doesn't want him to have, Rerun responds with this remark: "Ooh, Supreme Court stuff!" The next day, he head to a pet store, passing by Snoopy, who walks out carrying a bone, and asks the owner for a leash, collar, and food-bowl, asking him to put it on his tab. This leads to him getting tossed out and into a snowdrift, landing right next to Snoopy. He tells Snoopy that Lucy's right and Santa won't bring him a dog, sighing that he'll likely just get a pair of socks and an orange, if he's lucky. He sheds a tear over this and Snoopy gives him his bone, seemingly out of pity. Later, he's playing in the sandbox in the garage, when Lucy and Sally show up, the former demanding he leave so they can play in the box, saying that it's two against one. But, Rerun cranks a jack-in-the-box, which pops open to reveal Woodstock, indicating that it's now two on two. Lucy growls in frustration, when she hears her mother calling. Rerun is not happy about hearing this, groaning, "It's B of the B Day!", and runs out of the garage. Sally asks Lucy what that meant and she explains, "It's Back of the Bike Day." Instantly, Rerun finds himself on the back of his mother's bike, passing by Charlie Brown and Linus on the sidewalk. Charlie Brown comments on how well Mrs. van Pelt handles the bike, noting that she went through a hedge instead of a brick wall, while Rerun says that they only hit four parked cars the day before. He then sings, "Over hill, over dale...", then looks behind him and says, "Poor Dale." Rerun then takes the time to wax philosophic, since it's giving him a lot of time to think, including about what would happen if they ran into a tree, before noting that they're heading for the cleaners and drag a line of connected coat-hangers behind them. With the sound of a barking dog, Rerun explains that it's a German shepherd that chases them every day and never stops until he throws a shoe at it, adding, "I'm running out of shoes!" His mother goes through a short burst of snow, Rerun explaining that they tend to slide all around, as well, and they then proceed to go to the supermarket and through the mall, before getting back on the bike. Rerun says he sometimes goes through a whole day without ever touching the ground.

Meanwhile, Lucy is over at Schroeder's house, aggravating him with her fawning over him and reading facts about toy pianos that he doesn't want to know. That's when Snoopy and Woodstock come in, covered with snow, and shake it off all over Lucy, sending her storming out of the house. Schroeder high-fives Snoopy and he and Woodstock start dancing to the music, with Snoopy bounding happily out the door. He comes upon Charlie Brown and Rerun on the sidewalk and briefly dances with them before sending them into a snowdrift behind them. Charlie Brown why he can't just have a normal dog, while Rerun tells him he's lucky to have a dog at all. He asks him if he Snoopy has any family and Charlie Brown mentions Belle. He then tells him about his brother, Marbles, who visited for just one day, as Snoopy took him for a wild ride on his doghouse, and shows him a picture of two other brothers, Olaf and Andy, saying that they spent some time with Snoopy as well. However, the flashback to their visit shows that they destroyed the inside of his house, so Snoopy suggested they go visit their other brother, Spike, out in the desert. Charlie Brown shows Rerun a picture of Spike and comments that Andy and Olaf somehow ended up in Alaska when they to visit him. Rerun laments that he wishes one of Snoopy's siblings could be his dog, before asking Charlie Brown if he could come over sometimes and play with Snoopy, which he allows as long as his mother is fine with it.

One day, Rerun attempts to play with a basketball by himself, only to end up flipping over with it and sliding across the ice when he tries to go for a slam-dunk. He then heads over to Charlie Brown's house with the ball and tells him to see if Snoopy wants to come outside and shoot some baskets. He goes to look for Snoopy, when Snoopy runs out the door, takes the ball, bounces it around, sinks a basket, and then heads up from the net a little bit and tosses the ball, making another basket. He heads back to the house, hands the ball back to Rerun, and runs inside. Charlie Brown shows back up, saying he couldn't find Snoopy but says he doesn't think he would be interested. Rerun then offers to give Snoopy a Christmas cookie if he comes out to play. Hearing this, Snoopy comes charging out and plays with Rerun, swinging with him and jumping out of the swing and into the snow with him. Rerun gives him the cookie, only for Snoopy to grab the whole bag of cookies and take off, munching them as he goes. Rerun figures, "I guess dogs have to eat a lot." The two of them are then seen playing with bubbles. Rerun blows one up into the air, only for Snoopy to jump up and catch and hold it in his mouth like a ball, before letting it go and allowing it to pop, leaving Rerun to wonder how he did it. After that, they're sitting on the front step, when Rerun asks Snoopy how he decides if he should back at any passersby. The answers? Snoopy takes out a coin, flips it, looks at it, and then lets out a tiny, "Woof." Next, they're in Rerun's house, playing with cards by throwing them up into the air. The idea is to see how many each person has facing up on the floor but Snoopy proceeds to grab all of the cards out of the air and build a house with them, again amazing Rerun. Some time later, Rerun comes by to play fetch with Snoopy, only for Snoopy to hand him a slip of paper that reads, "Thank you for your offer to come out and play. We are busy at this time, however, and cannot accept your offer. We hope you will be successful elsewhere." Incredulous, Rerun says to himself, "Dogs have rejections slips?!" Undeterred, Rerun shows up again the next day, this time asking if Snoopy wants to come out and "frolic." He explains to Charlie Brown that he says "frolic" because they're updating the neighborhood and then tells him to ask Snoopy to come out and "romp" in the snow, explaining to Charlie Brown what romp means. Charlie Brown pops back in the house, and then sticks his head out the door again, telling Rerun, "He says no. 'No' means to deny, or refuse, or disagree." After he fails that evening to get his mother to agree let him have a dog, Rerun next tries to buy Snoopy off of Charlie Brown but he tells him he has 16 cents and he'd need to have $10 million. Charlie Brown walks back in the house and Rerun asks, "How would it be if I gave you 16 cents now, and the rest later?" That doesn't work, so Rerun decides it's time to see Santa Claus.

He intercepts Lucy just as she's going into Schroeder's house again and asks her to take him to see Santa, but she tells him that she's busy and that she might take him the next day. She walks into the house, through the main hall, and leaves her coat and small hat on a figure of Beethoven before heading into the living room, where Schroeder is again practicing the piano. She leans on the piano, as always, and asks Schroeder if Beethoven ever bought his girlfriend fuzzy mittens as a Christmas present. When Schroeder says he doesn't think so, Lucy tells him that now is his chance to do something Beethoven never did, but he's already planned to do such a thing... and yanks the piano out from under her, sending her flying. Undeterred, Lucy crawls back over, now asking if Beethoven ever played Jingle Bells, suggesting he probably thought he was too good for it. Schroeder, again, yanks the piano out from under Lucy. This time, he plays the piano hard enough to where the musical notes take form, float over to her, and rain down on her, sending her running. Snoopy then shows up and, noticing the shower of notes, collects some in a bucket, and uses them to decorate a small Christmas tree, sitting down next to it with a proud grin on his face. Apparently inspired, he then runs to his doghouse, digs out his Santa Claus suit, borrows a literal piece of music from Schroeder, and sets up on his street corner, where he rings his bell in tune with it. Sally shows up and attempts to give him her Christmas list, which Woodstock scribbles down, only to chuck into a waste bucket when he's done. Sally then goes home and tells Charlie Brown about what she just went through.

The next day, Lucy keeps her promise to Rerun and takes him to see Santa, though when they come upon Snoopy, she decides to check him out before allowing Rerun to talk to him. Lucy quizzes Snoopy about his lack of reindeer, about how he's going to land on the rooftops, go down chimneys, and come back up, declaring he'll give up after three houses. Snoopy proceeds to bonk her on the nose with his hand-bell, sending her away. Charlie Brown then brings Snoopy his food-bowl and he sits down to eat some, only for a little girl to spot him and exclaim to her mother that Santa is eating out of a dog dish. Lucy then brings Rerun up and tells him that this Santa is merely a dog in a Santa suit, but Rerun runs up to Snoopy and hugs him, before asking for a dog as a Christmas present. Snoopy rings his bell and motions for a contribution. Rerun flips a coin into the box and shakes Snoopy's hand, when Lucy drags him off. Unfortunately for Rerun, Lucy, again, tells him their mom won't allow it and that he wouldn't know how to take care of a dog anyway, later telling him to just ask Charlie Brown. Rerun later visits Charlie Brown again and he tells him that dogs need a lot of care and attention. Rerun decides to watch how Charlie Brown is with Snoopy so he can be better prepared for caring for one should he get it. As they watch, Snoopy, wearing his pilot hat, puts a banner on the side of his doghouse's roof that reads ACE AIRLINE. Sally, after struggling to get her winter clothes on, comes out, planning to use this "plane" to go Christmas shopping. Snoopy helps her get on top of the doghouse and, appearing to crank an invisible propeller, they appear to take off. Sally complains about there not being any complimentary orange juice and that no one welcomed her aboard, which Snoopy makes up for by kissing her. After that, Sally comments on how smooth the flight is, as if they're not flying at all, only for Snoopy to do a loop. She asks about the emergency oxygen masks they're supposed to have and Snoopy puts a paper-bag with eye-holes over her head. When she then says that she thought passengers were served a lunch, Snoopy gives her his food bowl, and follows that up with a question about what happens when they reach the ocean, which is answered by Snoopy putting a diving mask on. It starts snowing and Sally, saying she's getting cold and wet, demands to be taken back and Snoopy complies, apparently "landing" hard enough to knock them both off the roof. Seeing all this, Rerun proclaims Snoopy to be the greatest dog in the world, while Sally dizzily walks back to the house.

Charlie Brown gives Snoopy a letter addressed to him. He opens the envelope and takes out a note, laughing as soon as he looks at it and reads. He gives it back to Charlie Brown, who tells Rerun that it's a letter from Spike. In the note, Spike details his attempt to celebrate Christmas by decorating a tumbleweed, which worked, until the thing blew away. He also mentions attempting to be like a tumbleweed, bouncing through life without a care, but that didn't work out well. He goes on to describe some cold mornings that prompted him to light the fireplace in his home, which is a big, hollowed-out cactus, and that it even snowed, prompting him to attempt to build a snowman. But, he didn't get far before the snow stopped, prompting him to build a tumbleweed man instead. He strung Christmas tree lights around a cactus, saying that it was fun up to a point, as he ended up getting snagged in the lights and tied to the cactus. With the letter done, Snoopy walks away, laughing, while Charlie Brown tells Rerun that Spike does, indeed, live in the desert by himself. This gives Rerun the idea to make Spike his dog and asks Snoopy to send the letter. Snoopy pulls out a typewriter and types a letter to Spike, Rerun saying that he can be his dog and that they'll celebrate Christmas together.

Again, Lucy is over at Schroeder's house, bugging him. After telling him merry Christmas, she says that she notices there isn't much mistletoe in the room, prompting him to again jerk the piano out from under her. Though she tumbles in the air again, she composes herself quickly and calls Beethoven a bad influence, citing that a number of musicians never get married because he didn't. She pounds her fist on the floor and sends Schroeder flying, insisting, "That's what I call a bad influence." Later, Rerun is building a snowman to greet Spike and it turns out well, as he gives it a hat, a tie, and two sticks for arms. Woodstock comes in and lands on its left arm, but then, it quickly melts under the sun, despite Rerun's attempts to salvage it. He's left laying in the slush, groaning, "You can talk to the moon, but the sun won't listen." Despite this bit of discouragement, Rerun is then overjoyed when he's told that Spike answered Snoopy's letter, saying that he and his "friend" are making a painful journey to come visit him. The reason why he describes it as a painful journey is because the friend in question turns out to be a potted cactus he's lugging around. Rerun and Snoopy wait for Spike on the former's front porch and, despite Lucy's skepticism, it isn't long before he comes walking down the path to their house. Snoopy runs to greet his brother and the two of them dance excitedly after embracing. However, Lucy is shocked when she sees how skinny Spike is, calling him, "As thin as a promise," and deciding to take him into the house and feed him. With that, Lucy is seen dressed as a nurse, while Spike, wearing Linus' blanket as a hospital gown, gets into bed, where Lucy serves him a milkshake. Linus, already taken aback by Spike wearing his blanket, asks Lucy why she never fixes her own brother a milkshake and she answers, "When he's through, you can lick the straw." Some time later, Lucy joins Charlie Brown and Linus out in the snow, proclaiming that, thanks to her, Spike is no longer skinny, and sure enough, when he walks out the front door, he's now got a big belly on him.

With that, Rerun starts playing with Spike. First, the two of them play fetch with a ball, though Rerun dubs the game "slobber ball," due to how wet it is when Spike brings it back to him. Next, the two of them are playing cards and each put their various hands down hard enough to send the other twirling up in the air. Lucy asks them what this game is called and Rerun says, "We don't have the slightest idea." After that, the two of them are jumping up and down on a jigsaw puzzle. Rerun explains to Lucy that they're forcing the pieces that don't fit to fit. Lucy just walks and the two of them carry on, when one of Rerun's teeth pops out, making him fret, "I must be getting old. Next, I'll start losing my hair!" Unfortunately, Rerun has to go with his mother to pick out a Christmas tree, and Spike gets dragged along for the ride. Instantly, the two of them are panicking, as it seems like Mrs. van Pelt is going to hit everything in her way, with Rerun commenting, "I hate looking at the world through my fingers." Following that, Spike is once again skinny and Rerun's mother has decided they can't keep him anymore. Lucy assures Rerun that Charlie Brown will find him a nice home, but his efforts don't go too well. First, Violet turns down the offer because of how bad Spike looks, and so does Franklin. Then, Schroeder turns him down simply because he says that since Beethoven never had a dog, neither should he. When he goes back in the house, Charlie Brown exclaims, "Beethoven would have liked this dog!" Spike then has no choice but to go back to the desert, and after remembering the ordeal he had with Rerun on the bicycle, he figures that it's for the best. He shakes Charlie Brown's hand and hugs both Snoopy and Rerun, before picking up his cactus and heading home. He tries to thumb a ride but doesn't get any takes, until a hippie-looking girl on a skateboard picks him up and takes him on to the desert.

Dejected, Rerun then learns that Lucy has signed him up to be in their Christmas play, a prospect that terrifies him, as he says he can't memorize lines. Lucy assures him he only has one line and that she'll help him. Come the play, Rerun is up there with Lucy, Charlie Brown, Violet, Linus, Schroeder, Pigpen, Franklin, and Patty, when he starts freaking out because he can't remember his line. He whispers this to Lucy, and when it comes around to when he's supposed to say his line, Lucy tells him he'd better remember or she'll slug him when they get home. With that, Rerun blurts out his line, "The star that shone at Bethlehem still shines for us today," saying it perfectly, and fainting once he lets it out. On their way home from the play, the kids talk about whether Spike got home in tune to celebrate Christmas and we're shown that he did, as he ties a banner that reads MERRY CHRISTMAS to the arm of a cactus, though he has to hold one end up himself. Rerun then tries to sell Charlie Brown a picture he drew of Snoopy but he says he'd be more willing to pay him if he were a "starving artist." He then asks if he could have Snoopy come out and pull him on his sled. Charlie Brown ducks back in the house and then pokes his head back out, saying that Snoopy won't stop laughing at the request. Rerun has him ask Snoopy again and this time, Charlie Brown comes back with a question from Snoopy: if Rerun has a silver harness with golden bells and fancy tassels. Needless to say, he doesn't, but Charlie Brown goes back in and implores Snoopy to play with Rerun. Snoopy does join him outside, only to jump on the sled himself and force Rerun to pull him down the street, making him wonder if dogs are too much trouble after all. We then get that last scene with Charlie Brown and Snoopy in bed before the ending credits roll.

As he had done for several specials at this point, jazz composer David Benoit handled the music by both using Vince Guaraldi's old themes like Linus and Lucy (this time, the actual Guaraldi version, rather than a redone one) and Christmastime is Here and also coming up with some pieces of his own that fit in well with Guaraldi's material. He reuses a bit of a nicely jovial, festive theme that was featured in It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown and comes up with some nice, low-key, mellow music for much of the rest of the special that goes well with the story's wintertime setting. My favorite original part of the score is the theme he composed for Spike, which is this rustic, old-timey piano piece that sounds a bit like Go Tell It On The Mountain and fits really well with the country vibe of someone who lives out in the desert.

I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown is a pretty fair Peanuts special, mostly in the technical department, as it has nicely colorful visuals, a versatile number of environments and settings, some pretty good animation, good music, and it's interesting to see more obscure characters like Rerun and Spike get major roles. But, the story drags due to the special's extended length, it's never really funny, Christmas itself never seems to truly come except near the end, and it's kind of sucky watching Rerun get put through so much crap, especially at the hands of the ever-unseen adults. If you're a Peanuts fan and you'd like to see something other than the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, you could do a lot worse than this, but it's also possible to do better, so keep that in mind. In any case, merry Christmas, everyone.

It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown (1992)

I initially thought I might have seen a little bit of this on TV some time in the 2000's but, more than likely, I think what I actually saw was Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, as this hasn't been aired since before the annual Peanuts specials moved from CBS to ABC. Regardless, I've known for a long time that there are other Christmas-related Peanuts specials besides the classic one that started it all, but it wasn't until just a couple of weeks ago that I actually tracked them down to watch. Since I always like to put up at least one review for Christmas, and I've already done both A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Garfield Christmas Special, I figured now would be the perfect time for this. This was the first Christmas-themed special to be made since the original in 1965 and also marked the end of an era, as it was the last of them to premiere on CBS (the next one, 1994's You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown, debuted on NBC and after that, there wouldn't another one made for television until 2002), so it does have some historical importance, despite being one of the specials that few have heard of. Going into it, I wasn't expecting it to be anywhere near the level of some of the classics of the 60's and 70's or to have the same emotional weight as A Charlie Brown Christmas, but I also didn't expect it to be so scattered and utterly unremarkable either. This special not only has virtually nothing in the way of a story, as it's cobbled together from a number of different plots and vignettes from the comic strip, but there's also nothing that makes it stand out for any significant reason, good or bad, and, save for the last third of it, it's not all that funny either.

Like I said, there is no one story that makes up this special; instead, it's a number of minor episodes strung together with no through-line other than the Christmas holiday. These include: Charlie Brown going around town, trying to sell Christmas wreaths, even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet at that time; Peppermint Patty not liking the idea of having to read a book over Christmas vacation and her and Marcie attending a performance of Handel's Messiah, which Patty writes about at school the next day; Snoopy acting as a sidewalk Santa; Charlie Brown and Linus trying to explain to Sally the true meaning of Christmas but getting nowhere with it; Charlie Brown attempting to scrounge up the $25 necessary to buy Peggy Jean a pair of gloves as a present; and, save for Charlie Brown and Linus, the kids participating in a Christmas play, which involves Patty stuck with playing a sheep and Sally as angel with one line that she, inevitably, manages to foul up.

Despite being in his mid-70's by this point, Bill Melendez continued to direct not only most of the Peanut specials, including this one, but, that same year, he also co-directed Frosty Returns, the "sort of" sequel to the Rankin-Bass classic from the 60's. He was still an active producer on both those he did direct and those he didn't, and the switch from made-for-television to direct-to-video was hardly a factor to him in that regard. It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown would be far from one of his last projects, as he would keep on working on both animated specials and even Peanuts-related video games, right up to his final years in the late 2000's.

Charlie Brown (voiced by Jamie E. Smith) is the focus of only a couple of the vignettes in this special and, in both, he has his usual run of bad luck. In the opening, he's attempting to sell Christmas wreaths door-to-door but keeps running into problems: people either call him out on it not even being Thanksgiving yet, slam the door in his face, take a wreath as a "free sample," or, in the case of Franklin, admonish him for adding to the over-commercialization of the holiday. Apparently, Charlie Brown's attitude towards that latter idea has changed significantly, as when Franklin asks him if he doesn't get that that's what he's doing, he answers, "Not until I sell one." Sally tries to help him but she ends up making things worse, first by exaggerating the quality of the wreaths and then being brutally honest about them when Charlie Brown gets onto her for her lying. Later on, Charlie Brown tries to buy Peggy Jean a pair of gloves as a present but, unfortunately for him, they cost $25, which he doesn't have. He goes through all sorts of trouble, selling his Joe Garagiola signed baseball and massive comic book collection (neither of which the local kids are impressed with), and does manage to get the money... only to then find that Peggy Jean has bought herself a pair of gloves. Not wanting to waste the gloves, he ends up giving them to Snoopy. In the other stories, he attempts to teach Sally the true meaning of Christmas, to no avail, and listens to her practice her lines when she's cast as an angel in the school play. He's there for the performance, but leaves after she blurts out "hockey stick" rather than,"Hark!", as she was supposed to and embarrasses herself badly.

Despite her brother now being a bit more amiable to the idea of commercializing Christmas, Sally (voiced by Mindy Ann Martin) is still the one of the two who doesn't know the true meaning of the holiday. When she offers to help Charlie Brown with selling the wreaths, she initially tries to do so by lying, telling a potential customer that the wreaths, "Were made from the famous forests of Lebanon." But, when he admonishes her for it, she decides to be brutally honest at the next house, asking the potential customer, "Would you like to buy a Christmas wreath made from some junky old branches my brother found in a Christmas tree lot? You wouldn't, would you? I can't say I blame you." She then decides the wreaths need better packaging and attempts to sell them by bringing Snoopy along and hanging them on his nose. Later, Sally is writing a theme for English class about the true meaning of Christmas and makes her feelings about it very clear, as she writes that it's all about getting stuff, that, "Christmas is getting all you can get while the getting is good." Charlie Brown tries to tell her that she means "giving" but she continually blows him off whenever he brings it up. She then makes out a Christmas list for Santa Claus and, after admitting she doesn't know how to spell her own brother's name and puts down "Sam" because she knows how to spell that, she decides instead to write to Mrs. Claus, whom Charlie Brown tells her is sometimes referred to as Mary Christmas. Linus later tries to read to her the story of Christmas from the book of Luke but, every time he tries, she ignores him and rattles on about having to shop for her brother. Eventually, Linus gives up and Sally wonders, "Is that it? I always thought the Christmas story was longer than that." Despite his better judgement, Linus continues trying to educate Sally after she complains about not understanding the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, but gets nowhere with that as well. Finally, she's cast as an angel in the school play and feels she only has to say the line, "Hark," after which "Harold Angel" is to sing. She repeatedly rehearses and memorizes her line, right up to her moment in the play, only to say "hockey stick" and send the audience into hysterics with laughter and getting everyone in the play angry at her.

Peppermint Patty (voiced by Phillip Lucier) and Marcie (voiced by Lindsay Benesh) are the focus of the first story told after the credits. Patty is aggravated with having to read a book over Christmas vacation and, after calling Charlie Brown for suggestions about how to get out of it, she thinks she's managed to do so by watching a movie version of A Tale of Two Cities on TV. However, she then says, "The only parts I didn't understand were the parts about the shampoo, soap, and the coffee," with Marcie informing her, "Those were the commercials, sir." In trying to get out of reading, Patty tells Marcie that her grandfather once told her that her head would fall off if she read too much, prompting Marcie to hold onto her head while she reads, and then, she builds a snowman, saying that if she doesn't, no one else will and he deserves the right to be given life. Later, Patty has forgotten which vacation is coming up, as she now thinks it's Thanksgiving, and when Marcie sets her straight, Patty wonders how she's supposed to read one book when she can't remember the one she read for Thanksgiving, to which Marcie says, "Duck, sir. Easter is coming." After that, the two of them attend a performance of Handel's Messiah, during which Marcie stands with everyone else during the hallelujah chorus, only to end up folded up in the seat, with her feet sticking out behind the cushion. The next day at school, Patty is writing about the performance, only to learn that neither she nor Marcie know what Handel's first name was. Taking a guess, Patty puts down "Joe Handel." When the school play rolls around, Patty opts to star as the Virgin Mary, only to ignore Marcie when she tells her that she's already been cast in the role and to learn about it in class from the teacher. As if she weren't already irked, she then finds out that she has to be a sheep, and later takes it out on Charlie Brown, calling him to ask if Mary ever wore glasses and getting mad when he doesn't know what Mary she's referring to, making him wish he could be a wrong number for once. While Marcie does okay in her role, Patty is a complete mess in her sheep costume, both before and during the play: tripping over a curb on the way over to the theater, bleating so loudly during a scene between Marcie and Franklin that the latter can't hear her, and, like Sally, blowing her "lines" and barking and meowing, causing the audience to burst out laughing.

Those are the members of the Peanuts gang who have the most to do; everyone else's roles are either little more than small, incidental parts or cameos. Linus (voiced by John Christian Graas) appears at very beginning when he tries to get Sally to go sledding with him in a box down a snow-covered hillside, only for her to decide against it and cause him to fall over in it. He tries it again, only to fall backwards instead of going forwards, and when he finally gets it right, he goes careening down the hill and ends up crashing beside a small pine tree, the box landing atop it. As mentioned, Linus also attempts to teach Sally about the true meaning of Christmas a couple of times but gets nowhere with it, and he and Charlie Brown attend the play and witness her epic fail firsthand. Yeah, as you might have noticed, this is an instance of Linus not being completely aggravated and annoyed by Sally's presence, as he often is, even going as far as to walk her to the theater and eagerly wait for her moment. She, in turn, never fawns over him like usual. As for Lucy (voiced by Marnette Patterson), she has no role here at all. All she does is walk by and get annoyed by Snoopy when he's dressed up as a sidewalk Santa at one point, suggest to Charlie Brown that he should sell Snoopy when he's trying to scrounge up the money to buy Peggy Jean a gift, and, at the very end, attempt to force Linus to move out of a beanbag chair so she can sit in it, only for him to throw something she said before back at her, forcing her to stomp off in anger.

Franklin (voiced by Sean Mendelson) appears during the opening as one of Charlie Brown's potential customers for a wreath and tells him that he's adding to the over-commercialization of the holiday. He also appears in the Christmas play as Gabriel and has a scene with Marcie, only for Peppermint Patty to blot out Marcie's lines with her loud bleating. (Given that this special was produced right after It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown, I'm just glad Franklin didn't do any rapping.) Violet (voiced by Deanna Tello) appears a couple of times, initially as the first person Charlie Brown tries to sell a wreath to, only for her to tell him it's not even Thanksgiving yet, and in the one scene with Lucy and Snoopy. Deanna Tello also voices Patty, another would-be customer who tells Charlie Brown the same thing, and Peggy Jean, whom I'd never heard of until I watched this and, therefore, I was utterly confused by the idea of Charlie Brown actually being lucky in having a girlfriend. I also didn't think she was much of a girlfriend if she thought his name was "Browny Charles" but then, I read up that she appeared in the comic strip before and when Charlie Brown met her at summer camp, he was so flustered that he called himself that. I thought it was actually kind of interesting that they would keep continuity with a story that wasn't actually adapted into animation itself. And Frieda (voiced by Brittany M. Thornton) appears as a wreath customer who swipes the one wreath right out of Charlie Brown's hands, saying that she loves free samples.

Sad to say but, if you're diehard fans of them, you're not going to get your fill of Snoopy and Woodstock (voiced by Bill Melendez) here, as neither of them are focused on very much. In fact, Woodstock is never seen by himself but rather, with two or three other birds he's friends with, playing chamber music inside a snowman's hat and randomly dancing outside with Snoopy, using candy-canes from Charlie Brown's Christmas tree as actual canes. Snoopy, as I've already mentioned, also ends up having his nose used as a hanger for the wreaths by Sally and is also seen as a sidewalk Santa, who not only rings a bell but also has a small horn that toots loudly, much to Lucy's aggravation.

This is a prime example of something, Peanuts special or otherwise, that has no business existing, as it's just 23 minutes of virtually nothing. On a technical level, it's just fine. It looks good enough, with plenty of nicely-drawn, snow-covered exterior scenes, bright colors, and more than enough Christmas iconography, and being made in the 90's, it also sounds much better than many of the specials of the past, with the music being especially well-done. I also like how it touches on ideas such as the irritation of having to do schoolwork over a break and whatnot but, by the end of it, all you've done is watch a bunch of randomness with nothing to connect it other than the basic idea of Charlie Brown and the gang having a number of misadventures around Christmastime. There's nothing wrong with it having no real plot to speak of and just being a series of vignettes, as that can be used to describe a number of Peanuts-related material, but since there's no main plot that it's all hanging from, which you usually do get, you might find yourself wondering what the point of it all is. And as far as comedy goes, it's not all that funny, save for some moments during the play that do genuinely make me laugh, so it hardly can be called truly worthwhile in that regard, either. As usual, let's now go through it and see just how vapid and random it is.

When it begins, you see Linus pushing a cardboard box up a snowy hill, with Sally trailing behind him. Reaching the top, the two of them crawl into it and Linus tells Sally to lean forward and jiggle her feet so they can slide down the hill's other side. Sally, however, decides against it and crawls out, causing Linus to fall forward in the box and face-plant in the snow, to which she says, "If I'd have known you were only going that far, I would've stayed in." Linus then tries again by himself, pushing the box back up to the top of the hill and climbing in. He attempts to put it in "fast-forward" but it slides backwards this time and overturns on top of him. The third time he tries it, he manages to go bounding down the hill's right side but it ends up out of control and crashes at the bottom, the box landing on top of a small tree there. Lucy and Sally are standing there and Lucy, ignoring the fact that her brother just almost killed himself, comments, "I think they look better when they have a little star or an angel on top." It then switches to Charlie Brown, as he goes around trying to sell wreaths door to door. He first goes to Violet, who tells him that it's not even Thanksgiving yet and says that, by the time Christmas comes around, the needles will be falling off. Charlie Brown's advice? "Don't hang it near the turkey." He gets the same reaction when he tries to sell one to Patty, asking her if she'd like to buy a "Thanksgiving wreath" instead. After Franklin briefly lectures him about adding to the over-commercialization of Christmas and Frieda takes one of his wreaths as a "sample," Charlie Brown laments that nobody has a harder time than him selling the wreaths, with the next person whose house he visits slamming the door on him with enough force to send him hurtling backwards into the snow. That's when Sally, who thinks he's going after those "big holiday bucks" lends her help. That leads to her trying to sell the wreaths with an outrageous lie, saying they're made from the forests of Lebanon and adding, "If you buy two, we'll throw in an autographed photo of King Solomon." Of course, after Charlie Brown gets onto her for this, Sally decides to be brutally honest about the wreaths at the next house, and when the door is slammed in their faces, she tells him, "See? Your way doesn't work either!" Following that, Sally decides that the wreaths need better packaging and ways to show them off, so she brings Snoopy with her to hang them on his big nose. After that, there's a moment where Linus passes by a snowman, when he hears what sounds like chamber music emitting from it, though he's unable to find where it's coming from. It turns out to be Woodstock, who's under the snowman's hat, and that leads into the opening credits.

After the credits, we get into the story with Peppermint Patty and her not liking having to read a book during Christmas vacation. She first complains about it to Charlie Brown over the phone, asking him if he knows how to get out of it, and then, she thinks she doesn't have to read the book, A Tale of Two Cities, because she just saw a movie of it on TV, though she thought the commercials were part of it. She tells Marcie that she's afraid to read because her grandfather said that her head would fall off if she read too much and Marcie offers to hold her head from behind while she reads. She proceeds to procrastinate further by building a snowman outside, with Marcie telling her she's weird for going on about how, as the snowman's creator, it's her duty to bring him to life. Finally, Patty randomly now thinks it's Thanksgiving vacation rather than Christmas and frets about she can read something for the latter when she doesn't remember what she read for the former. We're not done with her and Marcie yet, though, as they're then attending a performance of George Handel's Messiah, with Marcie telling Patty that everyone stands during the section with the hallelujah chorus. Come that time, everyone is standing and Marcie does the same, standing on her seat, only to get caught up in the seat when the cushion flops back on her. Patty grumbles about how Marcie always embarrasses her, no matter where they go. The next day at school, Patty is writing about the performance, when she asks Marcie about Handel's first name. Marcie admits that she doesn't know it, forcing Patty to guess, and she decides to refer to him as "Joe Handel." Following that, we see Snoopy dressed up as Santa Claus, ringing his bell like he's collecting for the needy. Lucy and Violet walk by him, the former complaining how they're going to have to listen to the bell every time they walk by, while Violet wonders if he could make some other noise. Snoopy does just that, as he pulls out a toot-horn and squeezes it. Lucy comes back by, this time with Linus, and tells her brother to ignore Snoopy, when he toots at them and causes them to tumble into each other in surprise. Lucy then storms up to Snoopy and accuses him of not being a real Santa, which he retorts by shoving the tooter in her face. She walks away, and Snoopy is now confronted by Sally, who also accuses him of not being real. She asks him where all of his helpers are and then, Woodstock and two of his friends walk by, each carrying a sign that reads "HELP." Sally responds to this with, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen!" Linus, once again, hears music coming from a snowman, and this time, he lifts the hat up to see Woodstock and three of his friends playing chamber music underneath.

Next, we have Sally writing her theme for English class on the true meaning of Christmas, only for Charlie Brown to see that she's writing about how it's all about the joy of getting. He tries to tell her that it's actually about "giving" but, both times, she ignores what he says, groaning, "Like, wow," the second time, prompting him to walk away. After that is the moment where Sally is making her Christmas list and, after her brother is stunned to learn she doesn't know how to spell his name, she quizzes him about Santa Claus and his wife, the latter of whom he tells her is sometimes called Mary Christmas. Sally decides to write to her instead, scribbling, "Congratulations on deciding to keep your own name." In the next scene, Snoopy takes a candy-cane from the tree and does a little number with it, twirling it like a cane and dancing. Sally notices that all of the tree's candy-canes are gone and Charlie Brown tells her to look outside. When she does, she sees Snoopy, Woodstock, and two other birds dancing with the candy-canes. Sally then asks Linus to tell her the origin of Christmas, saying she doesn't see what all the fuss is about, save for the notion of getting presents. Linus tries to read to her a passage from the second chapter of Luke (namely, the very one he recited on stage in A Charlie Brown Christmas) but, every time he starts reading, she cuts in, complaining about shopping, that she hasn't gotten Charlie Brown anything for Christmas yet, that she doesn't want to spend a lot of money, and she wonders if she could get him something for free. Linus collapses in the chair from exasperation and Sally comments on how she thought there was more to the story of Christmas. Following a fade to black, Sally is still with Linus, when they hear the Twelve Days of Christmas playing over the radio. Sally comments that she hates that song and asks Linus what a calling bird is. He tells her that it's a type of partridge and reads a passage from Samuel I alluding to its significance. Sally's response? "If I get socks again for Christmas this year, I'll go even more crazy!" Linus then tells her that he once read that Albert Schweitzer hated the idea of Christmas gifts because he didn't like having to write "thank you" notes, but Sally can asks is who Albert Schweitzer was. (Truth be told, I didn't know who that was, either.)

Charlie Brown is in a shop, asking about a pair of gloves for a girl he likes, but when he's told that the gloves would cost $25, he asks if he could buy just a thumb instead. At home, he talks to Sally about it, who accuses him of being a cheapskate and suggests he put it on his credit card. He tells her doesn't have one and Sally says, "So long, Peggy Jean." He then talks with Linus and Lucy about it, and while Linus tells him that Peggy Jean will like anything he gives her if she really likes him, Lucy chimes in with, "If you don't give her exactly what she's expecting, she'll hate you for the rest of your life." After showing her the gloves, Lucy suggests that Charlie Brown sell Snoopy, who blows a raspberry at her. Lucy then says, "I take it back. He's probably only worth 50 cents." Unable to get the money, Charlie Brown is content with just standing and looking at them in their glass case, only to be told that he's fogging up the glass. He then tries to sell his baseball that's signed by Joe Garagiola, only for the kids to show up at his booth to ask if it's the bus stop, if they can get change for a dime, and if he has a Billy Jean King autograph instead. Next, he decides to sell his comic book collection, which is quite extensive, and still, a would-be customer asks, "Are these all you have?" Despite these setbacks, Charlie Brown manages to get the $25 and is about to buy the gloves, when Peggy Jean shows up and shows him a new pair of gloves she just bought for herself, much to his dismay. He later tells Linus what happened and that he decided not to give her something she already had; he gave them to Snoopy instead. (Side-not: I just realized that he hadn't yet bought the gloves when Peggy Jean showed him the ones she just bought for herself. Why would he have a reason to still buy those he was planning on getting for her?)

Now, we get to the last story, which revolves around the Christmas play, and for me, is where this special finally picks up after the chain of randomness it's been up to this point. It really makes me wish that the entire special had been this story, as seeing the Peanuts characters deal with memorizing lines, being forced into parts they're not crazy about, and completely messing up during the actual performance is much more entertaining than just about anything else we have here. Some would argue that making the play the focus of the entire special would be stepping on the toes of A Charlie Brown Christmas but, while the idea of their putting on a play was a big part of that story, it was also about so much more, whereas this could have been an opportunity to simply have some silly fun with this plot. Plus, we never got to see the actual play in that special but rather, just the rehearsal, so it could have easily been its own thing.

In class, Peppermint Patty mentions to Marcie that she's going to ask their teacher if she can play Mary in the upcoming Christmas play, completely ignoring Marcie telling her multiple times that the teacher has already asked her to play the part, instead going on about how great she would be. She only learns the situation when she asks the teacher and, incredulously, she exclaims, "Mary never wore glasses!" Later, at home, she calls Charlie Brown to ask him about it and, after getting irked when he doesn't know what Mary she's referring to, she complains about Marcie being able to play the part and that she's stuck playing a sheep, making Charlie Brown regret having ever picked up the phone. After that, Sally announces to her brother that she's going to be an angel in the play, telling him that she only has to say, "Hark!", and then, according to the script, Harold Angel will start to sing. She continuously memorizes and practices her line, dreading the possibility of forgetting it while out on stage. Charlie Brown suggests she could make up something if she did forget, but when she puts "hey" out there as a possible replacement, he tells her it's not very biblical. Finally, she asks him to look at the script while she recites her line one last time and he tells her that she has it, before heading out while wearing her angel wings. As she leaves, she tells her that he and Linus will be in the audience. (Incidentally, during all of these scenes between them, Charlie Brown is messing around with a hockey stick for apparently no reason. Keep that in mind when the play comes around.) While Linus walks Sally to the theater, she heads backstage when she gets there, and Linus and Charlie Brown take their seats, Marcie and Patty, dressed in her sorry-looking sheep costume, head there as well. Patty complains the whole way and trips and falls forward when they hit a curb. Marcie asks, "Slouching towards Bethlehem, huh, sir?", and Patty groans, "I can't stand it!"

Once at the theater, Patty frets about how she can't remember her lines, with Marcie telling her that all she has to do is go, "Baa!" Patty wonders if Laurence Olivier ever had trouble remembering his lines, while Sally keeps practicing her line of, "Hark!" The play starts and Marcie and Franklin head out to do their first scene, leaving Patty behind to continue complaining about being stuck playing a sheep. In the scene, Franklin, playing Gabriel, says his lines to Marcie, but when she goes to do her dialogue, Patty, who's suddenly in the scene, baas so loudly that Franklin then tells her, "I am Gabriel, Mary, and I couldn't hear you because of the sheep." They get plenty of applause for that, though, as the curtain draws back. Backstage, Patty is still fretting about not remembering her lines, with Marcie, again, having to tell her that she just has to go "baa." The next scene comes up and Marcie drags Patty out to the stage. She recites her line, "And there were shepherds in the field watching their flocks by night," but Patty gets so nervous, she forgets the type of animal she's supposed to be and blurts out, "Woof! Meow! Moo! Whatever." The audience erupts into laughter and Patty, completely embarrassed, sings, "And a partridge in a pear tree," as Marcie drags her offstage with her shepherd's cane. In the audience, Charlie Brown and Linus wait for Sally's part, and it comes after the dancing sheep (which are kept off-screen). Sally walks out onto the stage, stands in the spotlight, only to say, "Hockey stick!" instead of, "Hark!", despite the fact that she had been memorizing that one line repeatedly backstage. While everyone else laughs at her, Charlie Brown and Linus are utterly confused as to why she just said that.

Back at home, Sally can't over her massive goof, ranting to Charlie Brown, "I said 'hockey stick!' Why did I say 'hockey stick?' All I had to say was 'hark,' and I said 'hockey stick!' I ruined the whole Christmas play! Everybody hates me! Moses hates me, Luke hates me, the Apostles hate me! All fifty of them!" Charlie Brown is then talking on the phone with someone, telling them that he left after Sally's blunder, adding how she gets everything mixed up and that she thought someone named Harold Angel was going to sing. The doorbell rings and Charlie Brown answers it to find a red-haired kid standing outside. The kid says, "Hi. Is Sally home? My name is Harold Angel." Yes, I'm dead serious about that. The special ends with a random scene where Linus is watching TV while sitting in a beanbag chair and Lucy tries to make him move. They have this exchange: "Remember when we were siting around the Christmas tree, opening our presents? That's when you said it." "That's when I said what?" "It was beautiful. You said, 'Why do we have to be nice to each other only on Christmas? Why can't we be nice to each other every day?'" Lucy storms off in irritation, as Linus intones, "Joy to the world."

The best thing this special has going for it is the music, which is made up of new versions of some of Vince Guaraldi's classic themes, like Linus and Lucy and Christmastime is Here, done and arranged by David Benoit (it's actually the first time Guaraldi's music had been heard extensively since It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown, the last one he composed before his death). Benoit also comes up with some pieces of his own, including some subtle, instrumental versions of classic Christmas songs like Oh, Christmas Tree and Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, as well as a very nice and festive jazz arrangement for the opening credits, which really sounds like something you would have expected Guaraldi himself to have composed. All of this material sounds very appropriate for a Peanuts cartoon set around this time of year, with the reworkings of the classic themes sounding better than they have in a long time, and you could easily find yourself listening to it by itself.

It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown is far from one of the worst Peanuts specials but it definitely ranks as one of the most unimpressive or memorable. While it looks and sounds good, especially in regards to the music, and the voice acting for the characters is pretty spot on, there's nothing about it that makes it stand out, as it's just a series of random scenarios and stories that are strung together, with the only constant factor being that they take place around Christmastime. Save for the story of the Christmas play at the end, which could have easily made up an entire cartoon in and of itself, it's not all that funny either, with some attempts at humor falling flat or making you go, "What?", like the Harold Angel gag at the end. All in all, it's completely harmless, and since it's only 23 minutes long, watching it will hardly put a big dent in your schedule, but I would only recommend it for the most diehard of Peanuts fans. You'd really be much better off sticking with the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas instead.