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A new year means a new beginning to start fresh and find new ways to improve upon your talents and virtues. As I get older, I find that holiday to be much more meaningful than what most may suggest as I use that time of year to look forward to what I can accomplish and set plans and goals. One of the best animated franchises to look into the deep meaning behind the concept of New Years is Peanuts. In a franchise specializing in crafting big memorable stories on popular holidays, New Years seems like a good fit for what many consider to be the usual criteria. However, coming out at a major hit-or-miss era, today's featured special is really not the best way to ring in an end to the old and beginning to the new. For this MC Toon Reviews Shorty, here's:
Happy New Year Charlie Brown
(January 1, 1986)
Believe it or not, although this Peanuts holiday special is not as well-known as many others, it's one I grew up with a lot since I happened to have the VHS present in my collection. At a young age, I actually had a lot of fun watching it, mainly because of the pleasing atmosphere of many Peanuts characters getting together for a New Years celebration. Time has passed since then and my mind has become far more critical, and I see this special held back by a good amount of significant issues, mostly with the story.
Almost as prominent as New Years is a subplot on Charlie Brown dealing with difficulties schoolkids like him tend to face during winter break. Just when he think there's no assignments and it's going to be a nice easy break from school, his class is hit with a task of reading the book War and Peace and writing a report on it. For someone who spends most of the special complaining about the difficulties of the assignment, it's impressive that Charlie Brown is the most sympathetic character here. All the complaints about what he has to do feel completely justified. The special does not exaggerate that it's a very long book with a very slow story. Heck, there are even times when Charlie Brown narrates direct lines from the book. Basically, there are legit reasons for Charlie Brown to feel overwhelmed by War and Peace as it truly is a really difficult story to read, especially for someone of his age. For that, you can't help but feel for him when he has to put that assignment over any exciting tradition or custom related to New Years. Even if it's the easy way out, it's also not hard at all to blame him for finding a more mainstream alternative to the reading the book and doing the report. Then again, seeing Charlie Brown lament over doing something genuinely hard definitely takes me back to my own school days, even if very few of them were in elementary school.
You may think that Charlie Brown struggling with War and Peace is what ends up holding this special back. Well actually, that part would not be so hard to deal with if it wasn't for its execution. The one thing that has his assignment go from a relatable difficulty to just plain unfair is how the world around Charlie Brown seems to handle it. Even though reading War and Peace and writing a report on it was assigned to the entire class, all the other kids go about New Years preparations like they have nothing else to do. Never mind that the book itself is filled with themes and subjects not suitable for young children. The fact that it's a huge difficult book should certainly be a major thing to throw them off regarding the assignment. If Charlie Brown can't get through it easily, how can the other kids do so? They're clearly not any smarter than he is, so the idea of them getting through the assignment easily can take the audience out of the experience. Plus, with Charlie Brown being the only one to treat the assignment realistically and believably, it feels like the world is making him suffer for no good reason. Some might argue that's the point of his character, but usually, in the best Peanuts works, there's something he can be satisfied with. That's not the case here, and the sadistic tone makes itself known as the special goes on. Other characters talk about a fun New Years party, and no matter how much Charlie Brown brings up needing to read War and Peace, they act like his concerns mean nothing. It especially makes usual traits like Peppermint Patty's absent-mindedness when Charlie Brown tries to tell her something hard to accept. Even Linus, who's meant to be the most supportive to Charlie Brown's dilemmas, shows no real sympathy. When Charlie Brown laments over the difficult burden placed on him, all he does is lecture him on the tedious process of Leo Tolstoy's wife putting War and Peace together. How is that supposed to make him feel better? This isn't even the worst part about Linus' role in the special, but that will come soon enough.
Now, it really can't be denied that there are some spots that show even simple attempts to make this a pleasing New Years show. When taken out of context of the bulk of the plot, the gang prepping for the New Years party is genuinely fun, right down to everyone talking about how great the party's going to be. Even things like Linus telling Sally he's not her Sweet Baboo despite all her claims and Peppermint Patty not taking the hint that Charlie Brown's not into dancing with her are kind of funny. There are also a few short scenes of humorous party preparations from blowing up square balloons to Snoopy and Woodstock readying their fanciest clothes for the affairs. There are even some delightful musical sequences that even Charlie Brown can't resist. One of them is a well-written background song highlighting dance steps and moves that match up perfectly with the visuals of the gang performing them during lessons.
However, the most memorable musical sequence takes place at the actual New Years party where everyone plays musical chairs and Peppermint Patty sings the rules of the game. The melody's lively, the words are smartly written, and the action is pleasing too. As you watch the sequence, you'll notice that Charlie Brown actually gets close to winning, only losing to Peppermint Patty. It's still a loss, but it's much closer to victory than he's accustomed to, so this can be seen as the best thing happening to him in the entire special. Too bad it has very little connection to the main plot.
What does have some connection to the main plot does set out to give it monumental value. After Charlie Brown is convinced to go to the party despite his assignment, he plans on asking his crush, the Little Red-Haired Girl to come as his date. The big thing about it is that despite getting caught in the mail slot of her door and the door opening, he has the courage to invite her personally. That's a welcome break from the norm with him always chickening out due to his infatuation and is a major setup to finally getting closer to her. Then the events of the main plot come in and spoil what could have been the most satisfying moment of the special. Charlie Brown arrives at the party first, and despite getting in on its activities including the aforementioned musical chairs, he still forces himself to read his assigned book. Late at night, he goes outside to read, and is soon all alone to do so after a meaningful conversation with Peppermint Patty about New Years resolutions.
While he's all alone with his reading, the Little Red-Haired Girl comes, and we get a good look at her too, and Linus is around to greet her. Even after all the times Charlie Brown has told him about his love for the girl, Linus has the gall to dance with her instead of look for Charlie Brown. That right there is flat out treachery to all the loyalty Linus has shown Charlie Brown in his animosity-filled life. In his time of despair brought about by an unfairly difficult school assignment, not only does he not sympathize with him, but takes away his one chance at true happiness. How is that possibly ok? Why doesn't he just try to look for him? At the very least Peppermint Patty should tell him where Charlie Brown is since she was just talking with him. Then to cap off the special is a ton of misfortunes that bring Charlie Brown down as if he hadn't sunk as low already. He misses out on joining the gang in welcoming the new year at midnight. He's berated by Peppermint Patty and Sally for broken dates that were never his fault to begin with. He learns he missed his chance to dance with the Little Red-Haired Girl thanks to Linus and even a kiss from Marcie can't make up for his look of despair and heartbreak. To add to that, after all his efforts to finish War and Peace and write that report, he ends up with a cold D- and is given another near impossible reading assignment. In case I haven't made it clear already, this special's story decisions doom it to suffer at the hands of some of the most unfair execution in the history of the Peanuts franchise.
There really was good potential for a fair showing of a Peanuts New Years celebration based on what starting fresh in a new age can mean for people. However, with less emphasis on that and more on Charlie Brown seeming like the only kid around who has to pull off an aggressively difficult assignment, it all falls apart. It could have worked if the assignment was for a more reasonable book and it was clear that the whole class had to do it based on the comic strip that inspired the special. Also helping the case could have been if Charlie Brown chose to do his report on War and Peace instead of be forced to and made good progress in it like in 2015's The Peanuts Movie. Since these concepts obviously don't happen despite being good fixes to the execution, the special remains unpleasant. The best parts of the special are those that deviate from the main plot to show fun Peanuts New Years scenes which keep it good and watchable, and explain why I liked this as a kid. As I have grown older and wiser over the years, I can say that kids can watch and enjoy it fine, but through analyzing what the whole special's really all about, it's faults are not excusable.
There are many things to watch to ring in a new year, and while "Happy New Year Charlie Brown" isn't the worst thing to watch, it's not a very good one either.
With kids:
Worth a Look
With yourself:
Skip It
See you in the New Year of 2020, for great new reviews to explore. Until then:
Stay Animated Folks!
This review is dedicated to the memory of Lee Mendelson (1933-2019), a key figure responsible for bringing the beloved Peanuts characters to the great medium of animation.
