Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales - 'Toon Reviews Shorty

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We’re still in December, and there’s more Christmas material for me to look into.  For this shorty, I’m covering another special from the Peanuts franchise.  Like another special I covered, I feel that this one also is not up to the greatness of the iconic Christmas special from 1965.  It’s especially felt since this one frequently airs after "A Charlie Brown Christmas" to fill up the hour-long timeslot.  Nevertheless, I still find it quite enjoyable by Peanuts standards. This is:

Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tales

(December 8, 2002)

In many respects, it would be appropriate to also refer to this special as “It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown 2.”  Like the former special, there’s no specific story.  It’s just its own set of short vignettes about different Peanuts characters doing something Christmas-related.  However, I feel like the setup is done better here because you already know that it’s what you’re going to get going in.  Not only is it given away by the emphasis on Christmas tales in the title, but each segment is introduced by a Christmas card opening.  This way, each segment is able to exist as its own story and flow at its own pace.  It still has the issue of going against the original classic’s message against commercialism which severely holds it back from greatness.  I can’t be too hard on that since really that should be expected going into a special marketing Peanuts characters doing popular Christmas activities. 

In addition to this, the special also has a few drawbacks inherent with Peanuts specials released at this time, in the early 2000s.  It was just in the advent of the death of the original creator, Charles Schultz.  A lot of the creative punch and enthusiasm going into the specials had been phased out.  The characters seemed to fall flat a bit through struggling to get mileage out of their one dominant trait.  The same could be said for much of the stories through stretching out common plot threads of the franchise for much longer than necessary.  Maybe it’s just me through being thrown off by weaker vocal performances than the old days and an art style feeling a bit too modern for the tone of the franchise.  I guess these feelings will be clearer if I were to look at other specials from this era. 

The question for here is, does this setup work better for when a special consists of many short segments as opposed to one long story?  Let’s find out by looking at each individual Christmas tale:

The first tale is in all honesty, among the more directionless ones in this special.  It’s just 2-3 minutes of Snoopy just goofing around, but set to a Christmas theme.  He starts off ice skating while trying to convince Lucy to make him her partner.  Then he’s suddenly posing as a salvation Santa where he’s met up by the Van Pelt kids and plays accordion.  Finally, he appears back home where through trying to be friendly with the cat next door, he ends up getting a Christmas tree cutout in his doghouse.  It’s all right for a decent laugh, but for how thrown together this segment seems, it’s far from Snoopy at his best.

Linus’ segment fares a little better.  It too consists of radically different subjects, but they both make up for that for being very humorous and have a common theme of writing letters.  It starts with him writing a letter to Santa Claus while trying to sound polite. Humor consists of admirable objections from Lucy and a punchline about deciding to ask for Santa’s catalogue. 

The rest of the segment has an interesting setup.  He meets a girl in class who has a strange fascination with changing her name everyday.  This makes a normally simple task of sending her a Christmas card very difficult.  It too comes with a funny punchline where Linus sends the girl her card which is returned to him because the name and address don’t exist.  When asked the reasonable question why she even bothers with this difficult person, he flatly responds that she fascinates him. 

It’s funny for boiling down to the basics of why kids keep up with crushes, but it’s a little disappointing that the segment just stops instead of ends.  It would’ve been great to hear exactly what that girl’s deal is.

This leads us to what Sally gets up to in her segment.  I often get some decent enjoyment from her mixed up approaches to certain things, and that continues to be the case here.  It’s shown right at the start when she writes a letter in complete belief that the famous Christmas gift-giver is Samantha Claus.  Charlie Brown humors her a bit to get her to come up with oddball reasons why Samantha has a red suit and white beard.  Also hilarious is Sally’s mood swings through going from having a tirade of making a fool of herself to calm and happy when she sees Charlie Brown wrapping her Christmas present. 

We once again hop from topic to topic without proper transitions, but it’s all made good through how enjoyable Sally makes everything we get.  There’s a short scene of her attempts at being religious. She draws stamps of shepherd bunnies for Christmas cards, and wants to know the name of the star the wise men followed to Bethlehem. 

After that comes another prominent subplot of her “falling down” a Christmas tree instead of cutting one down.  The funny thing about this move is that her practice of just staring at a tree really hard to make it fall down actually works.  It also shows for all her quirks, she’s capable of being reasonable.  The deal was that she could take the tree from the yard of the kid it belonged to if it really fell down.  Even though it does, Sally does feel bad for how upset the kid is about her taking the tree.  It all works out though when he lets her have it anyway. 

Then in one of the smoother topic transitions, a scene of Charlie Brown and Sally decorating the tree leads to a talk about fruit in stockings.  This is followed by a cute ending gag where Sally ensures to get lots of fruit by nailing many little stockings to the wall.  It’s all fun stuff from her for sure.

Of all the segments here, this one seems to be the most focused.  It may seem like a random scene collection, but they work for covering one certain theme.  Lucy has the reputation for being the bossiest of the group with a lot of attitude issues.  As the first moments of this segment show, she’s setting out to make better attempts at being good at Christmas. 

Of course that’s easier said than done with her trademark attitude being as strong as ever regardless.  She calls foul at Charlie Brown’s suggestion of being nice all year round instead of just at Christmas.  She goes through her usual shtick of leaning around while Schroeder plays piano and bugs him about buying her stuff.  Lucy’s biggest role in this segment is constantly trying to coax Linus into doing what she wants.  There’s humorous banter as she has him write an overly formal letter to Santa, and has nonsensical logic for how the Bible says Linus absolutely must get her a gift.  Apparently the single mention of the word “sister” is the deciding factor. 

While it’s not decided how she feels about her attempts at being good for Christmas, the audience can see that Lucy has a peculiar way of appeasing.

Now for the last segment of the special from the usual titular character of the franchise, Charlie Brown.  In a way, it works as a segment to end the special, through leading up to Christmas morning.  The beginning doesn’t seem like the best fit for that though with Charlie Brown writing a Christmas card for the Little Red-Haired Girl which is never brought up again.  I do give it credit for revealing the name “sweet baboo” as something exclusive to his whole family and not just Sally. 

The rest of the segment is just of simple preparations for Christmas Day on the night before.  There’s leaving something for Santa, Sally asking about sugar plums, and her comedic way of waking her big brother up for the big day.  Now, Christmas Day itself isn’t all that triumphant here.  It just serves as a basis for a sight gag of Snoopy in a weird Christmas sweater and Woodstock ending up with a toy bike that was meant for Sally.  Still, all this is very funny even if it’s nothing too special and that Charlie Brown is outclassed entertainment-wise in his own segment.

There’s no denying that special exists for no other reason than to give people more Peanuts Christmas scenes after A Charlie Brown Christmas ends.  While it’s no secret that it falls flat compared to that classic work, it becomes much more enjoyable if you go in knowing what to expect.  While the production values with bland visuals and less passionate than average voice actors prevent it from being one of the best specials, it’s fine seeing them in short segments.  Each is their own little story that doesn’t go longer than it needs to.  Furthermore, even if just seeing Peanuts characters enjoy Christmas isn’t poignant without a big lesson to take from it, it’s plenty enjoyable anyway.  Plus, making its vignette driven setup better known puts it over “It’s Christmastime Again” at least.  There’s really no need to watch it when the more iconic Peanuts Christmas special is over, but if you choose to, you’ll get the right amount of Christmas cheer out of it.

Recommended

That’s it for this ‘Toon Reviews Shorty. Until the next one:

Stay Animated Folks,

And Merry CHRISTMAS!

'Toon Reviews Shorty: What Have We Learned Charlie Brown?

You know, it's interesting to note that I've been posting reviews on this blog for a whole year now.  It's really immersed me in a field I've been interested in for a long time, and I'm impressed with how far I've come since I've started. I've organized the reviews of different shows better than ever, and I've even gathered a lot of followers through a Facebook page and Twitter account.  So, to mark this occasion, I'm going to break from the currently scheduled review sets and look into something very special considering what day this one-year anniversary happens to fall on.  In other words, it's time for another MC Toon Reviews Shorty.

This shorty is the very first one to focus on an individual Peanuts special.  You might be wondering why I’m looking at an individual special and not making a full set of reviews on a certain decade like I did with the 60s and 70s specials.  As a reviewer, I need to have easy access to all the specials of a decade so I can record my thoughts on them, especially those I never grew up with.  They can be on DVD, websites like YouTube and Dailymotion, and even VHS.  Even if I didn’t have good access to one, I would be unable to do a true cover of the decade.  Regarding the specials of the following decade, the 1980s, that’s the case. 

I grew up with a few specials from the decade and any special I didn’t grow up with can easily be seen on Dailymotion as of this year.  However, there is at least one special from the 1980s I never owned or grew up with and can’t find on any safe and trustworthy video website.  Not to mention, it never got a DVD release.  I could buy the VHS through online retail, but it’s too expensive and it's not worth putting in a lot of money for one home media format I and many others have long moved on from.  However, since I reviewed all the specials from the previous two decades, I’m basically committed to reviewing Peanuts now, so I have to find a way around this.  All the other Peanuts specials I can get access to viewing will be reviewed as an MC Toon Reviews Shorty no matter what decade they’re from.

On this day, Memorial Day, as we honor the Americans who gave their lives for a noble cause during the two World Wars, this Peanuts special will be on:

What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?

(May 30, 1983)

 

At the tail-end of my look at the 1970s Peanuts specials, I mentioned how the specials started becoming more hit-or-miss from the second half of that decade onward.  Some stories wouldn’t be as interesting, certain tropes of the franchise would go too far, there would be less appealing music (which is still fine), and the unique childlike tone of Peanuts would start becoming unrecognizable, mainly due to the odd decision of having adults be seen and heard.  We’d still get strong specials during this era, and this special is one of them for how it does tap into the distinguishable tone of the franchise (despite the presence of adults) while also combining it with heavy subject matter not often seen in family material.

The special is a companion to the 1980 feature film Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (And Don’t Come Back) which was about Charlie Brown and his friends going to France as exchange students.  The film is both ambitious and a bit misguided (mostly as a Peanuts film), but that’s another topic.  While it simply ended with Charlie Brown, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Snoopy, and Woodstock driving off into the distance without a mention of how they got home, this special sets out to answer the question while highlighting the sights they saw along the way. 

Told in flashback and picking up almost exactly where the film left off, it starts off feeling like a simple travelogue mostly fueled by antics of their car breaking down, starting the replacement car through a repeated animation of Charlie Brown getting shocked by the spark plug, and constantly losing their way.  It’s a classic case of things continuously going wrong while on a road trip that very few people can see coming which we can all relate to.  There’s also minimal dialog in these moments which makes the travel hassles easier to stand out than they would if there was constant talking.  Huge spaces between character lines simply give a better sense of atmosphere of the moment, and happening during more light-hearted moments of the trip home foreshadows for how the atmosphere is utilized in the heavier moments.

Since it’s not always certain of what one may run into while travelling, especially to kids, the childlike tone of Peanuts is on great display when the gang discovers the background of the beach they spend the night at.  It’s a beach of major American significance, Omaha Beach in which allied soldiers, including American ones, fought to liberate Western Europe from Nazi rule on D-Day during World War 2.  Normally, characters just being at the battle sight wouldn’t sell how huge the place is.  However, through atmosphere-crafting, there’s plenty of silence to take in the emotional weight of the battles fought and the lives lost at Omaha Beach, especially through the visual composition of actual footage and photographs of the battles superimposed onto the beach’s backdrop.  The dark shots of mine fields, fighter jets dropping bombs, and destructive shots and explosions from tanks and battleships give a somber mood fitting for a setting of war right down to a sad music piece to mark the devastation of the fact that lives were lost.  The addition of shots of Linus, a philosophical child, looking around the beach as the footage plays adds to the emotional weight with the mere fact that someone so young and innocent is standing among the sight of all too real tragedies, perfectly representing the heartbreaking effects of war. 

It’s a very deep and respectful tribute to the historic sight and the lives lost there, and it continues with most of the special consisting of the group simply walking through the sites and their cemeteries holding those who were killed in battle.  There’s no quirks from the featured characters, just silent and tactful moments of the kids observing their surroundings of the beautiful and historic landmarks and the men who gave up their lives in the name of freedom.  It doesn’t just apply to Omaha Beach. Other times when details of the battles are brought up feature a lot of silence and respect from the characters further enhancing the emotional effects of the War.  

In addition to learning about World War 2, the group later explores the battle site of Ypres, where the allies fought during World War 1.  Speaking of Ypres, the moments of everyone exploring its poppies of Flanders Fields and battle trenches are also among the special’s most effective where they take in the hard effects of war following the mention of a legend that the poppies are said to be white flowers turned red with a cross in the center, representing even more casualties of war.  The emotional toll is completely sold with Linus, who’s famous for delivering milestone passages, recites the renowned war poem, “In Flanders Fields” accompanied by visuals of the poem’s lines, selling its message of all the importance of carrying out the legacy of those who died for our freedom.  This moment marking the end of the flashback sells this special’s great strength of paying respect for the sacrifices of the defenders of freedom throughout the World Wars, and all other wars actually, through silence and restraining, and effective deliveries from the mouths of children.

If there is one weak point to this special, it would have to be with the handling of the light-hearted moments.  For so much emphasis on heavy war-related history and how well the special pays tribute to it, comedic antics of the group advancing in their return trip feel really out of place.  It’s fine at the start since we’re just easing into the heavy stuff, but from the moment the gang recognizes they’re at Omaha Beach, there really is no room for comedic stuff.  Right after a heavy historic anecdote, we instantly cut to an inappropriate light-hearted scene of either of Snoopy messing around or a repetitive instant of Charlie Brown getting shocked by the car’s spark while everyone glosses over his pain. 

These moments are fine on their own, but in a special focusing on honoring the lives lost during some of the biggest battles in American history, these are not good fits whatsoever.  We even end the special with this flaw when, in the present, after Charlie Brown finishes recounting his return trip to Sally, instead of them discussing something meaningful like what exactly was learned from the experiences, Sally just points out that her big brother is gluing in his photos upside down.  That’s not even mentioning the fact that we still don’t see how Charlie Brown and his friends got home, technically meaning that the special failed at what it was meant to do as a continuation to Bon Voyage.  Maybe if there were better transitions from the serious to the light-hearted this wouldn’t be an issue, but to me, the tonal difference sticks out far too much.  While the jarring shift in tone is noticeable, nothing about the strengths are really destroyed, so the respectful stuff is still powerful.

From my experience, not a lot of people take Memorial Day very seriously, mostly seeing it as a day off from school or work to hang out at home and celebrate the coming of summer.  For that, it’s great that there are works out there like this special to show what it’s all about and go above and beyond with attributing to the thousands of devoted Americans who gave everything, including their lives, to secure freedom for all.  Standing out with great atmosphere crafting and genuinely innocent deliveries of the tragic information from child characters, it’s an impactful Peanuts special utilizing the franchise’s strengths for an effective cause.

Highly Recommended

That’s it for this ‘Toon Reviews Shorty, and my heart goes out to all the people we’ve lost in all the big wars throughout history.  They will be forever remembered in securing our freedom. 

We’ll return to our currently scheduled reviews next time, and after posting reviews here for a year, I look forward to continue to do so hopefully for years to come.  As always:

Stay Animated Folks.

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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

'Toon Reviews 8: Peanuts 1970s Specials Part 9

It’s Arbor Day Charlie Brown

Everyone knows that Peanuts has a lot of holiday specials in their repertoire, but it’s pretty interesting to note that they have one for a holiday as obscure as Arbor Day.  It’s a holiday that very few people talk about, it’s barely commercialized, and there aren’t any widely known ways to celebrate the day.  It’s basically one of those holidays that people treat like an ordinary day, so the thought of making a TV special on it feels like the crew of these specials were desperate to come up with a holiday they could make a special out of that they hadn’t tackled yet.  Still, this is a good special, but not one that will most likely be looked at as one of the stronger ones.  The major premise of the special exemplifies how much of an obscure holiday Arbor Day is.  It features Sally needing to do a report on the holiday, and it’s presented in a manner that doesn’t make it different from her needing to do a report on an ordinary day of the year.  That said, we do get into more of the spirit of the day when Sally becomes inspired by her research to plant trees and other plants in any available field.  Ultimately, she gets most of the gang to plant a whole garden of crops.  The only catch is that they plant them all over Charlie Brown’s baseball field.  For this part of the special, I’m kind of mixed regarding how to feel.  Most of my apprehension comes from how absolutely no one thinks it’s a bad idea to plant crops on a field made especially for baseball games.  It’s pretty idiotic for them to not realize that crops can easily get in the way of games.  While we do have Linus be the only one to have doubts about the plan, the doubts just get shot down every time.  The idiotic tone carries into the actual baseball game portion of the special when the team actually gets a major advantage at victory because of the crops making the game difficult for the opposing team.  It really gets you to beg the question why the opposing team never demands the plants to be taken down or that the game be played at a different field.  Not to mention, the game gets so much focus in the second half, it’s easy forget that this is an Arbor Day special.  Now, even with the idiotic tone of the story, what we see is still pretty enjoyable.  Charlie Brown gives an appropriate reaction to the plants all over the baseball field, the gags that get his team points are fun to watch, there’s some amusing character dynamics throughout, and it’s great to watch Charlie Brown’s team have a good chance at victory since they’re known to always lose.  It makes you feel bad for them when the game is ultimately rained out when they’re so close to securing the win, and one against a team led by Peppermint Patty at that.  Well, at least the mention of the plants still being there prevents the end from being a total downer, even if it was stupid to plant them on the field in the first place.  While the stupid plot-driving decisions to this story are hard to ignore and Arbor Day is shown as prominently as it is in real life, the charm of Peanuts with the character interactions, comedy, and unique childlike approaches to life make it a fine viewing experience, even if it’s not one of the best.

Recommended

The Ranking

1. There’s No Time for Love Charlie Brown
2. It’s the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown
3. You’re Not Elected Charlie Brown
4. You’re a Good Sport Charlie Brown
5. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
6. Be My Valentine Charlie Brown
7. Play it Again Charlie Brown
8. It’s a Mystery Charlie Brown
9. It’s Arbor Day Charlie Brown

As I close this review, I should point out that this special is the last one to feature original music from Vince Guaraldi.  In a shocking turn of events, he died of a heart attack just hours after completing the score for this special.  I bring this up because, as I stated in the post on the 1960s Peanuts specials, his music was a major driving force in the Peanuts specials being as great as they are.  The smooth, easy-going jazz compositions just seemed to fit perfectly with the down-to-earth writing, the simple animation, and the fact that kids were the core cast of characters thus creating an atmosphere that helped the Peanuts specials stand out from other forms of media, and it was true for the specials of this decade too.  Once he was gone however, new musicians were brought in to work for specials to come.  While their music was very good for the most part, it wasn’t as memorable or fitting to Peanuts as what was offered before.  Plus, considering that “It’s Arbor Day” was really not as well-written as previous ones, this is a good sign that the specials were about to become unsure of their identity with many stories varying in quality.  Some were as good as the older specials, some were decent but not very memorable, and others…well you’ll find out soon in the review of the next 1970s special.

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

'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.

'Toon Reviews 8: Peanuts 1970s Specials Part 4

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Of all the Peanuts specials released in this decade, this is probably the most well-known. It revolves around one of the three major year-ending holidays, the other two already having specials which were released the previous decade. Also, it’s advertised a lot around the Thanksgiving season, and it’s one of the few Peanuts specials to win an Emmy award.  While it’s not as strong or thought-provoking as the holiday specials that came before it, it’s still worthy of its classic status. 
Peppermint Patty invites herself, Marcie, and Franklin over to Charlie Brown’s place for Thanksgiving. Since she’s too absent-minded to know that these actions aren’t socially appropriate and that Charlie Brown can’t bring himself to object, the plans are set in stone.  The problem is Charlie Brown and his family already have plans to visit their grandmother for Thanksgiving. To Charlie Brown, it’s impossible to explain things to Peppermint Patty. 
The way around this problem is a clever one that nicely ties into his capabilities.  He, along with Linus, Snoopy, and Woodstock put together a dinner for their friends before the big one at grandma’s. The catch is that the dinner consists of food that’s incredibly easy to prepare such as toast, popcorn, pretzels, and jelly beans.  It’s a unique and charming Thanksgiving dinner to say the least.  In fact, I actually recall some Thanksgivings where I had some of that food along with our own traditional Thanksgiving menu out of intrigue (usually toast and popcorn).  Basically, the scenes of the dinner preparations have that distinguishable childlike charm of Peanuts to add to the appeal and are also pretty fun scenes to make up the plot.  Plus, there’s a fun and entertaining feel from the many comedy moments with Snoopy and Woodstock as they work to set up the dinner, making this special great for a couple of laughs. 
However, the preparation of this dinner is not just great for fun, it also ties into the overall message of the holiday.  When Peppermint Patty and company finally arrive and dinner is served, Peppermint Patty completely lambasts it. Doing so, she shows a mindset that the only proper Thanksgiving dinners are traditional ones.  It’s certainly a way harsh moment from her on account that Charlie Brown took so much time to prepare it for her, and that it was forced onto him. 
Thankfully, her behavior doesn’t harm the special’s quality since Peppermint Patty is soon called out for it by Marcie and feels bad.  She also lets Charlie Brown know that she regrets her behavior and is fine with the dinner by having Marcie, someone who’s better at socializing, do the talking.  This part of the special really shows that despite her faults, Peppermint Patty means well and has friendly intentions at heart, making her a strong addition to the cast.  It also effectively shows that Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what you have and being together with others, not having what you feel you’re expected to have. 
In fact, the whole ending sells the message.  Charlie Brown decides to take everyone with him to his grandmother’s dinner while Snoopy and Woodstock are left at home to dine on their own turkey dinner.  The fact that Snoopy COULD make a turkey all along without anyone knowing is especially a nice implication of how everyone has grown to be more thankful for what's present. That said, does this scene have Woodstock turn out to be a cannibal? Good Grief! 
With strong comedy, great character moments, effective ways of showing Thanksgiving's meaning, and Peanuts’ childlike charm,  this special is one of the essential holiday traditions.

Highly 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

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next special where Woodstock takes up the starring role for the first time in "It's a Mystery Charlie Brown."

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