Peanuts Holiday Videos (DVD and VHS) |
Peanuts Holiday Collection (A Charlie Brown Christmas / A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving / It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown) Available Formats: |
Two of the all-time cartoon classics It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (a Peabody and Emmy winner from 1965) highlight this three-disc, six-episode set. Although the DVDs contain no extras (good grief!) and could have been combined on a single disc (drat!), the collection looks and sounds wonderful on DVD. The content is the same on the VHS and DVD sets, with two episodes per tape or disc. Accompanying Pumpkin is You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, a cute spin on politics that has aged very well since its 1972 release. Christmas sports a lackluster sequel of sorts, It's Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown (1992) that has Sally dwelling on getting (instead of giving), Charlie Brown facing a spending dilemma, and everyone suffering stage fright before the annual school play. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973) also won an Emmy but is not as well known as others; it also suffers from not having the original cast. Snoopy is foremost in helping to put on an impromptu feast (toast and popcorn) as the gang keeps forgetting the true meaning of the holiday. Also on the disc is a better Thanksgiving venue, The Mayflower Voyages (1988), part of the This is America, Charlie Brown series that breathed new life into the franchise. Mostly narrated by Linus, the show traces the Pilgrims' plight and doesn't talk down to youngsters on the hardships they faced. It's a treasure of a gift (for others or yourself), all nicely packaged.
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Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (1982) Available Format: |
Ring in the new! Some things, however, don't change with a turn of the calendar page: Charlie Brown still has homework to do on the night of the big New Year's Eve party.
This is a Charlie Brown classic that covers all the basics: Homework during Christmas break and finding someone to kiss when the clock strikes midnight. Poor Charlie Brown has been given a doozy of a homework assignment...read War and Peace over Christmas vacation. Plus he has to go a New Year's Eve party and somehow manage to kiss that "little red-haired girl." Of course, War and Peace puts him to sleep (literally!) and Charlie Brown wakes up after midnight. Snoopy and the gang naturally have the time of their lives (and guess who Linus kisses at midnight?!) This is a video you simply have to own and should be watched with A Charlie Brown Christmas. |
Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975) Available Formats: |
"Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz retired from the cartoonist's life early in 2000, and indeed left a few loose strings hanging among his chronically dissatisfied characters. He never did, for instance, cut Charlie Brown much slack in the romance department (or let him kick Lucy's football, for that matter). Sympathetic readers might have taken note of a story in the press just before Schulz said farewell, in which the inspiration for Charlie Brown's unrequited love interest--the never-seen, too-distant, "little red-haired girl"--was identified as a woman who turned down a marriage proposal from Schulz a half-century ago. That bit of biographical detail now adds poignancy to Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, a 1975 television special built upon years of Valentine's Day "Peanuts" strips. This half-hour show finds Charlie Brown suffering, typically, the ignominy of receiving no hearts-and-flowers greetings while the rest of the gang, including Snoopy, spend their day sorting through piles of love notes. Worse, Schulz's famous sad sack can't get up the nerve to approach his unapproachable angel, though there may be--just may be--a glimmer of hope this time around. It may be Valentine's Day, but not much else is different in the "Peanuts" neighborhood.
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It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown (1974) Available Formats: |
The thirteenth installment in the evergreen Charlie Brown animated series, It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, is a delightful romp through the rites of spring. The running gag that holds this string of episodic misadventures together is Peppermint Patty's futile attempts at explaining how to make Easter eggs to Marcy. Highlights of this rather surreal Peanuts outing include Snoopy's dancing with little bunny rabbits inside a kaleidoscope, Sally heading to the mall to purchase a pair of platform shoes (this video was made in 1974), and Woodstock's lavishly equipped bachelor-pad birdhouse. As with the best of the Peanuts cartoons, this will entertain children and adults alike, and is one of the last of the series to feature a music score by Vince Guaraldi.
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It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown (1976) Available Format: |
It's baseball season! But where will Charlie Brown play when the pals commemorate Arbor Day by turning his field of dreams into a small forest?
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It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) Available Formats: |
Charlie Brown gets rocks in his trick-or-treat bag, Linus awaits a visitation from the Great Pumpkin in his terribly sincere pumpkin patch (while the adoring little Sally sits tight with him), Snoopy falls asleep, Lucy harasses Schroeder, and Pig-Pen kicks up a dust storm even beneath his costume in this classic television broadcast. Funny stuff, but also graced with Charles Schulz's more poignant and gently satiric themes from the 1960s on the influence of faith, failure, and hope in our lives.
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A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973) Available Formats: |
This sweet, heartwarming 1973 offering from the Peanuts gang (and Charles Schulz) once again shows Charlie Brown in a pickle, as his erstwhile friends impose upon the hapless would-be-host to provide a memorable and traditional Thanksgiving feast. And as much as Charlie Brown would rather forget the whole thing, he just can't help but try for fear of being labeled a failure. Ultimately it's up to Snoopy and Woodstock to save Charlie from certain embarrassment, and it falls to Linus to impart to all assembled the true meaning of Thanksgiving. This very special Emmy Award-winning cartoon features the usual sweet unassuming humor that only the Peanuts can provide, along with the melodic Vince Guaraldi score, and is one of those childhood classics meant to be enjoyed again and again.
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This is America, Charlie Brown - The Mayflower Voyages (1988) Available Format: |
A new land, a new life. With help from that round-headed kid and others, the Pilgrims settle into their new homeland and celebrate the first Thanksgiving feast.
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A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) Available Formats: |
This half-hour Christmas show is one of the truly lovable animated specials in TV history, a status proved by its annual network telecast since 1965. A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first, and best, of a series of programs based on the Charles M. Schulz cartoon strip "Peanuts." Hapless hero Charlie Brown finds himself depressed at Christmastime, searching for the true meaning of the holiday amidst the glitz and commercialism of the modern age. Appointed director of the school holiday pageant, Charlie Brown ventures out with Linus to buy "a great, big, shiny aluminum Christmas tree." Instead they bring back a miserable tree--a real one. A Charlie Brown Christmas shows off the "Peanuts" gang doing what they do best: Lucy is bossy, Snoopy is crazy, Linus is sweet, and Pig Pen is, well, filthy. Instead of using adult actors trying to sound like kids, the production features real children providing the voices, an endearing effect. The jazz music score, composed by Vince Guaraldi, has become a classic in its own right; like so much about this program, it's an unexpected but perfectly right choice.
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It's Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown (1992) Available Format: |
Snow on the ground, goodwill in the air and - good grief! - another Christmas play to perform!
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