When started the Peanuts posts here on this site, there were 45 specials in all, the most recent of those was from 2011, that being "Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown" The 2010's by happenstance ended up being the first decade where there was only 1 new Peanuts special since the things started in the 1960's.
Most of the post Schulz death specials take a plot or vignettes from the strips and purpose them into specials. Which wasn't a new thing, that happened after his death, but it seemed to be the way to go after his death. In the 2010's there was a slight dry up of Peanuts media, not a drought though. There was a French shorts series called "Peanuts", that also ran on Cartoon Network/Boomerang in the US, there was some graphics novels, and even a movie.
Now of the 45 specials only a few had reruns by 2019, those being The Christmas one, the shorts Christmas one made to fill time because ABC wants more ads, The Great Pumpkin, Thanksgiving, an episode of "This is America Charlie Brown", You're Not Elected, I Want a Dog, New Year, She's a Good Skate. Be My Valentine, and A Charlie Brown Valentine. The Easter Beagle stopped running in 2014, because I guess Disney ABC just didn't care, that also meant they didn't run either , Lucy Must be Traded or Charlie Brown's All Stars any more anyway.
In speaking of ABC, they did renew rights, after their initial pick up from CBS in 2000, and that contract was up in 2020. The Streaming is the future folks decided to swerve and cause chaos, but before that some changes happened with Peanuts. In 2010, United-Media owned 80 percent of Peanuts sold that to Iconix Brand Group, the Schulz Family still had 20 percent. In 2017, Canada's DHX bought Iconix's stake and this (as WildBrian ) is who co-owns Peanuts currently. They decided to jump into making Peanuts media quickly. They decided to work with new streaming service , in the great streaming race, with Apple's Apple TV plus, which is the one with that might not have alot of people using it.
Wildbrain made two series "Snoopy in Space" and "The Snoopy Show" for the streaming service, so far. They are doing that thing were they want to milk using Snoopy as a centerpiece even though Peanuts has always been more about the people than Snoopy, but corporation gonna be corporate. In a more sad decision (though some will say, it's the future, and that's where I walk away muttering under my breath) they decided to abandon normal television to have Peanuts specials , the holiday ones mostly, stream on Apple TV Plus (I'm sure their subscriber was happy) after running on a broadcast network of some sort since 1965. It's not really the future, it's that a desperate Apple had money to splash hoping that people would chose them for to be another streaming service they have to contend with. This is did cause some backlash so Apple decided to go to PBS , to help them out and run the fall/winter holiday specials at least once.
In this deal, they made a new special and I don't like the title : "Snoopy Presents : For Auld Lang Syne" the thing that bugs me is the name being that way. Snoopy Presents, instead of the conventional like "For Auld Lang Syne, Charlie Brown" or "A Charlie Brown Auld Lang Syne" or "Charlie Brown's Auld Lang Syne" the focus on Snoopy and his name as the brand is slightly tedious and annoying to me, I'm mostly writing this to say I don't like it as some one who loves Peanuts and even knows why the specials don't use Peanuts in the titles. It's also annoying for consistency reasons where 45 specials use some variation of same title structure and number 46 just walks up here and messes up things. I'm not going to use my distaste for the title though to take away from anything about the special itself. From 2021, this is "Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne" (the only time I will call it this in this post)
The animation style is pretty nice, I'm glad it's full 2D and not 3D CGI, but looks like the budget was increased from the 2000's days (The blanket one from 2011 had nice animation) The backgrounds are nice and feel like Peanuts.
Snowy day/ Copyright Peanuts
This special is going to be focused on Lucy, it's not the first time a Peanuts special focused on not Charlie Brown, especially if you've read my past Peanuts posts. Lucy is happy that her Grandma is coming soon, this is the famous blanket hating grandma. Also we get a "Citizen Cane" mention. Snoopy's brothers and his sister come over to the Brown house for their own fun with Snoopy.
The answer is Rosebud/Copyright Peanuts
Charlie Brown is feeling down that he didn't do well on his resolutions that past year. (I mean, most people don't care about their resolutions after February so...) The first 6 minutes are really setting up things and maybe some Peanuts Easter eggs like they are trying to make sure they remember Peanuts' biggest hits. (I would do the same , but do 80's and 90's strip deep cut references), then on Christmas Eve and Lucy gets a phone call and gets news from Grandma that she's not coming.
It's like a cheap game where you dress up a still Lucy/Copyright Peanuts
Like the Peanuts Movie, using that as a comparison since this is new story instead of ripped from the comics, they use more famous 60's- early 80's designs of the characters (so girls not Peppermint Patty in dresses) the phone is rotary not even push button, etc.
More after the Jump
Anyway, Lucy is crushed that Grandma isn't showing up. She kind of drifts through Christmas Eve and Day and has an existential crisis. The framing of Lucy in Peanuts is always notable, she was a crabby, fussbudget, with a dominating stance. Though through that she wasn't always completely confident. You can see that when she gets mad when Charlie Brown doesn't say she's cute or something. Because of the reruns of specials and the 60's and 70's strips there is this thought of Lucy being frozen in personality. The long lasting Peanuts characters do change or get more complex over time, instead of being stuck in one box. Where by the 90's strips you can see she has softened out without losing her aggressive and fussbudget ways, but she's not as I guess mean This special is maybe trying to show more to her, by giving her a worry that she thinks what if nobody likes her.
Sad Sad Lucy/ Copyright Peanuts
She decides to throw a party for New Year's Eve. So maybe she'll make a better special than "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown". Oh no, she's trying to plan out everything... gee I wonder what might go wrong. Apparently Charlie Brown paid her enough nickels over time she was able to rent an entire ball room. Back to C.B he's trying to build a snowman as a resolution. Lucy goes around inviting various characters to her party.
these hats are mostly useless/ Copyright Peanuts
She also had some of the others also put together the party stuff. Lucy is kind of overbearing I wonder how that might go wrong. Spike has a subplot where he wanted to take a picture with his family but things keep going wrong and then they accidently break his camera in snowball fight.
This special has background characters from the 50's and 60's too like OG Patty, Violet, Shermey, 5. They even use the character Tapioca Pudding for a joke. (Impressed) They also remembered Maynard. (holy wow) Yes, this plot turns into those overbearing party holders trying to hold a perfect planned party and end up trying to be too controlling stories.
He's celebrating 1978 / Copyright Peanuts
The Spike plot ties back in, since Snoopy's family is feeling down because they feel bad about what happened and can't play happy music. You can also tell that Lucy is trying to hinge that success of her party on people liking her. Finally, after watching Linus through the special trying to do everything for Lucy, he gets annoyed after being forced to dress up like Mardi Gras, decides to tell off Lucy and says the party is terrible and walks away and causes others to leave too.
Now it's a Mardi Gras special / Copyright Peanuts
Lucy snaps and starts telling everyone else off. Charlie Brown is so focused on the line and accidently causes a mess too. He goes to find Linus he talks to him. Linus tells Charlie Brown that he was helping because Lucy thinks nobody likes her, and Charlie thinks that's foolish and not true which is sweet.
It's like the wall scene...but colder/ Copyright Peanuts
Linus uses the song Auld Lang Syne to explain what the songs means. The Snoopy family find Spike and decide to sit with him at the bus stop, as he was deciding to leave. The clock strikes New ear and Lucy depressingly lies down. Linus finds her tells her he loves her, which again is another sweet moment, reminding me of some strips and a special where Linus does show his caring for his older sister even when she's a little ...Lucy.. Charlie Brown says the same thing. The line of saying Linus has to love her because brother and him going he doesn't have really, is a good one in a way because that is true, even sadly, but it also shows that love isn't an obligation, you love someone because you can not because you have to.
Charlie Brown tells her how he always keeps going when he fails because of his friends. It gets sweeter as Charlie Brown invited the others to show they care about her. They do a new countdown and cheer in a new year. (Rule 5 of Peanuts: Don't ask where the parents are at midnight ish, sush) Spike's plot is fixed too, so that's something. Later Lucy, talks to her grandma on the phone and everything is fine.
So, I think this was good. Yeah, I'm always nervous on new Penauts media, and this one has an original special story insteading of taking from any strips directly. The atmopshere of the special is really nicely done. The music is calm and fits with other specials and they knew how to get the feelings of how these feel. The animation was well styled and looks good, the characters are in 2D, but they pop out like a graphic novel feel.
I think the focus on Lucy was interesting and welcomed. I think it was something different than doing a story on Charlie Brown being down and trying to "win" again. It focused on the parts of Lucy's character we don't see much in Peanuts media. It didn't add anything that we've not seen, because she has been sometimes worried about how people think of her, but she mostly has a high complex about herself. I also liked they know that Linus cares about his sister even when she's sometimes a little over the top.
The Snoopy family plot was alright, they are trying to jam in as much of the famous beagle as they can, but they were actually more sparing than I thought they would be in a special that starts with his name. (I don't hate Snoopy, I just don't like the him being over extended) The little small plots were nice like Sally trying to stay up for New Year's and Charlie Brown's resolution. Inspeaking of Mr. Brown, while he wasn't the focus, they kept him character and really showed that he cares about Lucy as a character who cares about those around him.
I will add that I notice that this and "The Peanuts Movie" and some other recent Peanuts media do like to harken back to the biggest years of the comics in style , which are the 60's and 70's. They like to have time pieces from thos times, even a little older. There was an 80's boombox in there along with a record player. The strips did kind of mesh in with times, 90's strips have some 90's stuff in there, but Penauts is timeless at the same time. This story idea is timeless, it's about feeling that people don't like you maybe because one person disappoints you.
I do think it was a well done special, pretty enjoyable, it's a werid length of time (to me ) since most Peanuts specials are 25 minutes to 47 minutes, except that one 18 minute special, this one is 38 minutes. I guess not having to conform to normal commerical television also helped it, there wasn't a lot of filler feelings, it is a paced a little slower, but it's Peanuts exepect that, just as long as it's not too slow or minutes of nothing happening. That would be something, wouldn't it?
Auld Lang Syne the song/poem is about perseving the oldest improtant realtionships in your life. This special's message is simply that. Sometimes we maybe forget or think that things are down but maybe there are those out there who care and both sometimes need to remember that.
It's someone slightly more entertaining than "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown" moslty because you don't have to see Charlie Brown worry about reading War and Peace because his teacher is kind of confused. Though, I don't hate that one, there is something really engaging about this one.
That's it, tune in next time, when in 10 years will be writing about the 47th Peanuts special, that you can only watch in pill form. mmm consume media literally.
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