It’s Your Birthday, Charlie Brown: Reviewing The ‘Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection’

Warner Archive provided me with a free copy of the Blu-Ray I reviewed in this article. The opinions I share are my own.

Much in the same way that every year seems to bring a new collection of the Rankin Bass holiday specials, Peanuts specials have been repackaged for physical media countless times. Trouble is, if you’re a Peanuts fan (and while I don’t believe there’s a term for Peanuts fans the way there is for Disney adults, there probably should be) the temptation to buy that new edition is always there. Can’t have too many copies of A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) lying around, now can we? The hope with a box set like the Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection is that it’ll be the definitive one. In other words, you can get rid of your old VHS and DVDs. You now have the best version of these movies. I’m sorry to say the 75th anniversary collection isn’t the final boss one might’ve hoped it would be.

It’s well packaged. I’ve said this in other reviews recently but if a set has more than two discs lately it can mean lousy packaging but this case is solid. No loose discs. No difficult to press center buttons. The five discs are even cute. Each of them is a different color and features two members of the Peanuts gang. For some reason the booklet that comes with the set and lists all of the specials and the dates they aired on was put behind the slipcover instead of in the box with the discs (which I’ve seen other people mention online, too, so it’s not a fluke). Technically it fits inside the box but then I started thinking maybe there’s a reason they took it out so I’ve left mine behind the slipcover.

The specials are in chronological order and there are 40 total. This includes the stone cold classics that are A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966), as well as other holiday specials like A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973) and Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (1986). I know before this box set was announced I didn’t realise quite how many other TV specials there were besides the movies, like A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, which aren’t included. There are a few TV specials missing (and I don’t mean the new Apple TV+ specials which were for streaming, not television). I wasn’t sure whether It’s the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown was considered a TV special or a movie but it sounds like the former so that should’ve been included and there are four others, including It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown, which I was literally wondering why they never thought to do a birthday special but it turns out they did – it’s just not here.

I was looking forward to watching the other specials, though, and discovering whether there’s a reason they aren’t as well known or if there are some hidden gems in the bunch. One thing I will say is the quality of these specials doesn’t align with when they aired. It’s not like after a certain date they got worse or all of the best ones happened before such and such date. He’s A Bully, Charlie Brown came out in 2006 after Charles Schulz‘s death in 2000 and features Lucy and Linus’ little brother, Rerun, yet it’s a great special about Charlie Brown entering a marble competition to help Rerun win his marbles back.

That being said, there weren’t as many standouts as I was hoping (and again, I’m not talking about the obvious standouts – Christmas and Great Pumpkin – which will always reign supreme). Sometimes I wish the specials went deeper instead of going back to the same well over and over again. There are a lot of specials about baseball, for example, which yes, Charlie Brown had a baseball team but athleticism isn’t the first thing I associate with Peanuts. Meanwhile Snoopy has all these untapped siblings we could’ve been exploring but that barely happens outside of the rare exception like Snoopy’s Reunion (2001) or the even better Snoopy’s Getting Married, Charlie Brown (1985) where Spike comes to visit. All of the Christmas specials tend to be strong (if they also tend to allude to religion) and Valentine’s Day just fits the Peanuts universe so well (the unrequited love of it all).

Why, Charlie Brown, Why? (1990) is pretty powerful but badly needs a disclaimer. It’s about a new character who’s introduced only for it to be revealed that she has cancer. It’s Peanuts’ take on a Very Special episode but, for parents not expecting it, the tone is completely different from the other specials.

Another thing I didn’t realise is how big a role Peppermint Patty plays in a lot of these specials. Because she wasn’t an original Peanuts gang member I’ve always viewed her as a second tier character and yet she gets more screentime than Linus (Charlie Brown’s alleged best friend) and Lucy (who I would’ve said was the female lead).

Most of the specials are around 25 minutes long and the visual quality’s inconsistent. For example, It’s An Adventure, Charlie Brown (1983) doesn’t look restored and It’s Spring Training, Charlie Brown (1996) looks fuzzy. The worst error (and I probably wouldn’t have noticed this if it weren’t for other reviews and I almost wish I didn’t know because it’s the most egregious) is that there’s a line of dialogue missing from the end of You’re in Love, Charlie Brown (1967).

I didn’t appreciate that a few of the specials break the rules. Teachers shouldn’t talk, for example, yet one of them does in She’s A Good Skate, Charlie Brown (1980). Snoopy definitely shouldn’t talk but he does in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown (1985),

Still, while that was a lot of negativity, there are some winners in this set. My top five unsung Peanuts specials are:

• It Was A Short Summer, Charlie Brown (1969) is a great ensemble piece where the gang have to recall their time at summer camp for a school essay assignment on what they did over the summer.
• It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown (1976) sees Sally needing to learn about Arbor Day for school and ends with the gang thoughtlessly (but wonderfully) deciding to plant seeds all over Charlie Brown’s baseball diamond.
• You’re the Greatest, Charlie Brown (1979) is a good special for Marcie fans where she and Chuck enter a decathlon against an antagonist with the brilliant name of Freddy Fabulous.
• Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? (1983) is a low key but very sweet special where it appears Lucy and Linus are going to be moving away.
• It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984) is the best, 80’s jazzercise Peanuts musical that gave the world the song “Pigpen Hoedown.”

The Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection is on sale now from Warner Brothers and to purchase from Movie Zyng.