Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! is the 30th prime-time animated TV specials based upon the popular comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It was originally aired on CBS on January 1, 1986. This is a semi-musical program, following the lead of It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown.

Plot

Over the Christmas holidays, Charlie Brown is assigned a book report that is due on the first day back from the break. The book: War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. Charlie Brown struggles to find time to read the book but keeps getting distracted, first by dance lessons, then by a New Year's party that all his friends are attending. At one point he goes to a store and unsuccessfully tries to buy the book in comic book form, then as a "tape or cassette," a computer game, and finally a film strip.

Things get worse for Charlie Brown when he tries to invite the object of his desires, the Little Red-Haired Girl, by getting his hand caught in the mail slot while delivering an invitation to her house (to which she doesn't respond). He leaves the party and sits on the front porch of the host's house to read his book, but falls asleep. He is awakened after midnight by an indignant Peppermint Patty and Sally, Patty because Charlie Brown did not dance with her and Sally because Linus danced not with her, but with the Little Red-Haired Girl, who had arrived while he was on the porch.

Charlie Brown eventually finishes his book report - on the last day and night before Christmas break ends. He hands it in to his teacher, and receives a grade of D-minus (the teacher says that "it looks like it was written on the very last night of Christmas vacation"). Linus then prepares Charlie Brown for his next assignment—reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, causing him to faint in his desk^[1].

Notes

• This show contained one of the few appearances of the Little Red-Haired Girl, who does not appear in the comic strip. However, it should be noted that her appearance is not the decision of Charles Schulz (although he did write this episode ^[2]).
• This special was based on a comic strip story Schulz made at the end of 1964 and the beginning of 1965, except the book Charlie Brown's class had to read was Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. According to Schulz's son Monte, War and Peace was Schulz's favorite book.
• The version of War and Peace that Charlie Brown reads is the classic translation by Constance Garnett.
• Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!was dedicated "To The Loving Memory of Bernie Gruver".

DVD release

Warner Home Video has announced a DVD and high definition Blu-Ray Disc release for October 6, 2009 as a bonus feature for the Remastered Deluxe Edition of I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown.^[3]

ABC Telecast

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! returned to television for the first time in several years on December 30, 2008, paired along with Rankin-Bass's Rudolph's Shiny New Year, on current Peanuts rights holder ABC. In order to save room for Rudolph's Shiny New Year, ABC made edits to the show.

Cast

• Chad Allen: Charlie Brown
• Jeremy Miller: Linus van Pelt
• Melissa Guzzi: Lucy van Pelt
• Elizabeth Lyn Fraser: Sally Brown
• Bill Meléndez: Snoopy and Woodstock
• Aron Mandelbaum: Schroeder
• Jason Mendelson: Marcie
• Kristie Baker: Peppermint Patty
• Desirée Goyette: Singer ("Slow Slow Quick Quick")

Production credits

• Executive Producer – Lee Mendelson
• Produced by – Bill Melendez
• Directed by – Bill Melendez and Sam Jaimes
• Written by – Charles M. Schulz and Warren Foster
• Music by – Desirée Goyette and Ed Bogas

References