'Toon Reviews 8: Peanuts 1970s Specials Part 5

It’s a Mystery Charlie Brown

What most people may not know is that this decade is where we first saw the duo of Snoopy and his little bird friend, Woodstock, in action.  In the previous decade, it was just the beagle who did all the comedic antics while the kids would go about their day, and it wouldn’t be until the 1970s when he would get a sidekick to work off of.  Woodstock’s first animated appearance was in the 1972 feature film Snoopy Come Home where he served as Snoopy’s travel companion and typed his thoughts on a typewriter.  As for TV specials, he was first shown helping Snoopy make campaign signs in “You’re Not Elected” and got into a big number of comedic antics in the Thanksgiving special we just covered.  The Snoopy and Woodstock pairing is a nice addition to the Peanuts special aesthetics where even though they’re very different from each other, mostly size-wise, they’re always there for each other no matter how difficult helping them may be.  It also gives Snoopy a friendly layer to his overall off-the-wall character.  I bring all this up because the Snoopy and Woodstock pairing is a major factor of this particular special.  It has Woodstock’s newly-built nest get stolen, so as is common for him to do when his little friend needs help, Snoopy goes to great lengths to retrieve the nest by turning detective in an attempt to track down the thief.  So, who took Woodstock’s nest is the mystery, but it’s honestly not hard to figure out since there’s a scene of Sally complaining about needing to find something from nature for her science class right before Woodstock finds that his is nest gone.  Because of this, there’s not much suspense when Snoopy and Woodstock spend much of the special tracking the nest thief down.  We do thankfully get a lot of enjoyable moments where they interrogate different kids, most of the comedy coming from them not understanding what’s going on.  However, shortly after these scenes, Snoopy and Woodstock come across a trail of footprints that lead to the nest right back at Woodstock’s tree where they started the search, making all that time they spent interrogating the kids, enjoyable as it was, pointless.  So, they uncover the nest from the science lab at school, and in the very next scene we learn that Sally took the nest for her science project; big shock, I know.  That said, Sally’s rant of being robbed is pretty hilarious, not to mention one that sets up what resolves this issue of who should get the nest.  The resolution is a trial, the typical way to settle issues in real life, with Lucy acting as the judge.  The setup of the trial is nice and amusing featuring Sally stating her case with the weak “finders keepers” argument, and Snoopy, as Woodstock’s representative, giving files that over-state Woodstock’s case mostly with legal terms that Linus, posing as the stenographer, can’t seem to get.  Heck, I’ve never been able to get the terms even to this day.  Ultimately, while both sides don’t offer anything compelling to the argument, Lucy amusingly concludes that Woodstock should get the nest.  It’s a good concluding point for Woodstock, but since Sally’s problem is a reasonable one, especially if you’re a student with a history of doing projects, it’s nice that things end well for her too when she begrudgingly accepts Snoopy’s help for a different science project.  Basically, the special’s conclusion is satisfying.  The mystery portion may not be strong and the story may not have a lot of substantial moments, but there’s plenty of strong comedy, amusing character interactions, and a nice display of Snoopy and Woodstock together in action to make this special a good one to watch.

Recommended

The Ranking

1. There’s No Time for Love Charlie Brown
2. You’re Not Elected Charlie Brown
3. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
4. Play it Again Charlie Brown
5. It’s a Mystery Charlie Brown

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next special, "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" big on memorable moments from the characters as well as featuring a more positive side to the message of an earlier special.

If you would like to check out other Peanuts special reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.