New Charlie Brown Christmas Special

Did anyone else catch the new Peanuts holiday special that aired tonight? It wasn't the classic that A Charlie Brown Christmas has always been, but to me at least, it wasn't bad at all. The premise was basically Linus and Lucy's little brother Rerun's attempts to get a dog for Christmas.

I was skeptical, since of course, this would have had no involvement from Charles Schulz, but really my only complaint was that it seemed a bit padded at a full hour. Otherwise, it was actually pretty faithful to the original spirit of the characters, and quite charming.

 

Nuts, I saw a promo for that during last night's football game (even intended to do a thread about it today), but plumb forgot about it.

Glad to hear it was decent enough, although last night's ad said something to the effect that it was "a future holiday classic", which struck me as more than a little presumptuous. Hopefully the kids enjoyed it.

Remember when Nickelodeon was showing all the old "Peanuts" specials (other than the Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving ones)? Did that deal expire, or did the network just decide ol' CB and his pals no longer pulled the right audience demos?

 

Shucks, missed it. If it's on again, someone let us know! Do you know if David Benoit still did the music for the special?

 

I'm confused. Didn't Schulz have a clause in his contract that stated that when he goes, everything "Peanuts" -- including animated specials -- goes with him?

 

I believe the agreement was only that when Schulz passed away, the daily comic strip would end (or in this case, go into reruns), and that no other artist would take it over.

Long before his death, there were contracts and licenses in place to continue merchandising, licensed artists to draw new things like calendars and greeting cards, and apparently plans for further animated specials.

I can't find any information about a rebroadcast (though the original A Charlie Brown Christmas will be on this Saturday night), but I see that there are plans to release the new special on DVD in time for next Christmas.

The title, by the way, is I Want A Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown, which is odd, because Charlie Brown himself is hardly in the special, the focus mainly being Lucy, Linus and Rerun Van Pelt.

 

I think that "....Charlie Brown" phrase is more of a standard Peanuts cliché than anything else. Maybe it's "comfort food" for us old-timers who grew up watching the originals on TV.

At least this special seems to have a plot to it. That other piecemeal special from the 90's (or late 80's?) didn't.

 

Frankly, I can't accept any new Peanuts as "good" Peanuts.

It's kinda like Disney without anyone from the Disney family in it... what's the point?

 

I couldn't sit through 10 minutes of this show. I enjoy most of the older Peanuts specials, but this one was pretty bad...

 

Judging by the promos, the animation looked pretty dreadful. Unfortunately, I missed this, so can't give my opinion on it.

I'm sure it'll be shown again next year.

Evan

 

I think that Schulz gave Bill Melendez carte blanche as far as animated Peanuts goes, even after Schulz's death.

A good half of the specials while Schulz was still alive sucked. Don't expect an improvement now.

Hey, remember when animated "Charlie Brown and Snoopy" shared CBS saturday morning with other treasures like the animated "Dukes of Hazzard" and "Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince "?

 

Yeeee-hawwwwww!

 

Has the animation on any Charlie Brown special ever been anything to write home about?

 

This might be the newer Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon also contained on the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD as a bonus. I have the DVD, but haven't watched it yet.

 

You wouldn't think so, but i made an interesting discovery this weekend. My daughter and i were watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on the local ABC affiliate. Just for kicks, i switched from the standard feed to the HDTV feed for the same station. We were both startled by how much better the picture was. No, it didn't look 3-D. It's mid-60s animation that was done for TV. Nonethless, the HD picture looked noticably better. The noise was gone and the colors were more vibrant. (OK, i normally don't use that word, but i don't know how else to describe it.) I was really impressed by how much of a difference HD made even on some like ACBC.

 

No, you're thinking of "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown," from 1992. It's basically just a collection of Christmas-themed daily strips that have been animated.

 

Nope, that one was pretty lame. The one we're refering to is brand new, produced just this year. It'll be out on it's own DVD next Christmas.

Not a classic, but not bad at all, either.

 

I believe the agreement is that they can only produce animated shows based directly on comic strips Schulz wrote and drew. So it's not really correct to say there is NO Schulz involvement, as the story is adapted from his work. In essence, no one else will be allowed to write the characters.

 

And I'm pretty sure that all licensed products like calendars, greeting cards, etc, must only feature existing artwork done by Schulz. They are not allowed to get anyone else to do new artwork of the characters.