It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown is the second Christmas-themed animated television special based on the comic strip Peanuts. It was originally released on VHS as a promotion at Shell gas stations in September 1992, and aired on CBS on November 27th of that year.
Synopsis
The special is made up of several Christmas-themed vignettes, all based on storylines from the strip.
- Linus attempts to sled down a hill in a paper box.
- Charlie Brown tries to sell wreaths, despite that it isn't even Thanksgiving yet.
- Peppermint Patty worries about her Christmas book report.
- Peppermint Patty and Marcie attend a performance of George Frideric Handel's Messiah.
- Snoopy becomes a street corner Santa Claus.
- Woodstock and his bird friends play chamber music inside a snowman's hat.
- Charlie Brown tries to explain the true meaning of Christmas to Sally (who mistakenly thinks that it is about "getting all you can get while the getting is good") when she is writing a letter to Santa, but she will not listen. She later tries writing to Mrs. Claus.
- Snoopy, Woodstock and his friends dance with the candy canes that were on the Brown family's tree.
- Sally goes to Linus's house for the meaning of Christmas and complains about calling birds in "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Linus tells Sally about Albert Schweitzer and how he disliked Christmas presents because he "hated to write thank-you notes."
- Charlie Brown wants to buy a nice pair of gloves for Peggy Jean. He sells his entire comic book collection in order to buy the gloves, only to find that Peggy Jean has already bought herself a pair.
- The children participate in a Christmas play, in which Sally, who is playing the part of an angel who has to say the line "Hark!" to summon a herald angel, continually rehearses her single line, and Peppermint Patty is forced to play a sheep to Marcie's Mary. Sally ends up saying "Hockey stick!" when she finally goes onstage, much to Charlie Brown's embarrassment. Later, a kid named Harold Angel comes by to visit Sally.
- In the final scene, Lucy tells Linus to get out of the beanbag he is sitting in, but Linus refuses, saying that they remembered the time when they opened presents under the Christmas tree, and thinking that why they haven't been nice all day. Lucy walks off, angrily tells him that he's driving her crazy. The film ends with Linus saying, "Joy to the World".
Trivia
- This was notably the last new animated special based on Peanuts to have its broadcast premiere on CBS. The next special, You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown (which was also first released directly to video and sold exclusively at Shell gas stations), premiered on NBC, and the two that followed it (It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown and It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown) were released directly to video without any televised airing. All Peanuts television specials made since then have premiered on ABC (who also currently owns the broadcast rights to the other Peanuts holiday specials), with the exception of the 2011 direct-to-video special Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, which had its broadcast premiere on FOX.
- The original VHS release for the special mistakenly identified Peggy Jean as "the little red-haired girl" (Charlie Brown's usual unseen love interest) in the description. Further adding to the confusion, the special depicts Peggy Jean as a redhead when she is a brunette in the strip.
- The storylines about Charlie Brown selling wreaths and the Christmas play were previously adapted in The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show segment "The Play".
Releases
The special made its debut as a direct-to-video VHS release sold exclusively at Shell gas stations in 1992. It was released on VHS again four years later by Paramount Home Video in 1996. Paramount later included the special on the original DVD release of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 2000. It has since accompanied A Charlie Brown Christmas on all of its subsequent releases, including the "Remastered Deluxe Edition" DVD and Blu-ray released by Warner Home Video in 2008, as well as its iTunes and a PlayStation Network digital downloads.
VHSShell, 1992
VHSParamount Home Entertainment, 1996
Cast
| Voice actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Jamie E. Smith | Charlie Brown |
| Bill Melendez | Snoopy Woodstock |
| Marnette Patterson | Lucy van Pelt |
| John Christian Graas | Linus van Pelt |
| Mindy Ann Martin | Sally Brown |
| Phillip Lucier | Peppermint Patty |
| Lindsay Benesh | Marcie |
| Sean Mendelson | Franklin |
| Deanna Tello | Peggy Jean |
| Matthew Slowik | Harold Angel |
| unknown | Violet Gray Patty Frieda |
External links
- Peanuts Wiki: It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown
- It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown at the Internet Movie Database
- Platypus Comix's review