| It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | Animated TV Special |
| Created by | Charles M. Schulz |
| Directed by | Phil Roman |
| Voices of | Todd Barbee (Charlie Brown/Schroeder) Melanie Kohn (Lucy) Stephen Shea (Linus) Linda Ercoli (Peppermint Patty) Lynn Mortensen (Sally) James Ahrens (Marcie) Bill Meléndez (Snoopy & Woodstock) |
| Theme music composer | Vince Guaraldi |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Lee Mendelson |
| Producer(s) | Bill Meléndez |
| Editor(s) | Chuck McCann Roger Donley |
| Running time | 30 min. |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| First shown in | April 9, 1974 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown |
| Followed by | Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown |
| External links | |
| www.snoopy.com Official website | |
It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is the 12th prime-time animated TV specials based upon the popular comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It was originally aired on the CBS network on April 9, 1974.
Contents |
Summary
The special is set up in several connecting sub-plots.
While most of the Peanuts Gang is getting ready for Easter; Linus, certain it's all a waste of time, futilely tries convincing everyone the Easter Beagle will take care of everything; but his pleas fall on deaf ears. Only Sally believes him, though she still has some suspicions after the 1966 Halloween fiasco waiting for The Great Pumpkin.
Peppermint Patty and Marcie attempt to color eggs, but as it's Marcie's first time, she doesn't know how to prepare the eggs properly. Marcie's first attempt fails as she fries the eggs on a griddle and flip them with a spatula. In their second attempt, Marcie tries cooking four eggs on a waffle iron. Then she unsuccessfully tries to put one in a toaster. Then she tries roasting the remaining seven eggs in the oven. In their third and final attempt, Patty tells Marcie the eggs must be boiled. Marcie breaks the eggs into a pot of boiling water, inadvertently making egg soup. Each attempt ends with Peppermint Patty doing a huge, ear percing, blood curdling, glass shattering scream.
Woodstock, waking up shivering from a chilly spring rain in his open-air bird's nest, goes to Snoopy for help, so Snoopy goes to the department store to buy Woodstock a birdhouse. At first Woodstock hates it, but he soon renovates the interior into a quintessential 1970s pad, complete with a television, artwork, a sunken bed (perhaps a conversation pit), carpeting and a quadrophonic stereo system. Curious to see the inside, Snoopy accidentally smashes the house to pieces when his snout gets stuck in the entry hole. So he goes back to the Macy's department store to buy another house for his feathered friend.
Lucy, unwaveringly believing that Easter is the "gift-getting season" much to Schroeder's chagrin, decides to have her own Easter egg hunt, hiding each egg she paints to find them all on Easter morning. Unbeknown to her, Snoopy follows behind her and takes the eggs.
Easter morning arrives, and so does the Easter Beagle, tossing eggs to everyone, even tossing one into Woodstock's new bird house. Unfortunately he runs out of eggs by the time he gets to Charlie Brown, and responds with an embarrassed smile.
It doesn't take long for Lucy to realize that the Easter Beagle gave her one of her own eggs, and 10 weeks later, Lucy is still brooding about it, so Linus suggests she go and talk about it with Snoopy. She goes out to Snoopy's doghouse to pick a fight, but Snoopy takes the fight out of her with a disarming kiss on the cheek.
Television
The program's rights are held by ABC Television, where it runs annually. It ran annually on ABC from 2000 up to April 11, 2006 [1]. In 2007, the network, without any explanation, did not air the program, but it returned on March 18, 2008, as filler programming against American Idol. The TV special was watched by 6.32 million viewers and received a 3.8/6 household rating & a 1.9/5 in the 18-49 rating, in fourth place behind Idol, NCIS and The Biggest Loser, and fifth place if Spanish-language Univision is counted.[1] In 2009, the show improved in ratings with a similar time slot, but still remained in fourth.
DVD Releases
It was released to DVD twice, first on March 4, 2003 by Paramount Home Entertainment and again on February 15, 2008 on a Remastered Deluxe Edition DVD from Warner Home Video. It also came out in the UK from Firefly Entertainment in 2004, with Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown.
Trivia
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Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (November 2009) |
- When Sally asks Linus, "Are you sure? Are you certain?", you can see that a color mistake is on her shoe box.
- A rare instance of Snoopy talking (he shouts "HEY!" before dancing with the rabbits in his fantasy).[2]
- The song that the music boxes play (and which Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Snoopy dance to) in the second scene in the mall is a classical piece written by Johann Sebastian Bach and entitled "Menuet from the Anna Magdalena Notebook (BWV Anh. 116.)." The song was also used in "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown".
- The rest of the score features funk-inspired guitar riffs, a departure from the usual jazz music used up to this point.
- When Snoopy arrives to do his Easter Beagle gig, the music in the background is from the first movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. This marks a rare occasion in the Peanuts specials where Beethoven's music is heard but Schroeder is not playing it. The music played immediately before the Easter Beagle's arrival, while Sally blames Linus for ruining her Easter, is the funeral march from the second movement of the same Beethoven symphony.
- In one of the most shocking pieces of display ever (and an egregious example of Christmas creep), the mall department store had its Christmas display up in the middle of April, including a sign forewarning that there were only a mere 246 days left until Christmas. Creator Charles Schulz likely made a point with this saying that Christmas is too commercialized, the main point of the first Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. One of many customer complaints is that department stores put up their decorations too early.
- Some scenes have been cut from the TV broadcast due to commercials, and are exclusive to the DVD and VHS releases are when Schroeder tells Lucy about Easter, when the gang rides the escalator in the department store two floors up and Snoopy takes it two floors down, when the gang returns to the first floor with Marcie with the new eggs and Sally with the new shoes, when Marcie and Patty return to the department store get the third dozen eggs and when Lucy complains about her Easter egg and attempts to fight Snoopy but ends up being kissed.
- An amusing scene shows the gang and Snoopy getting on the UP and DOWN escalators (respectively) from the same floor, then crossing paths twice. Sally double-takes each time they pass.
- The program was recorded at San Francisco's Coast Recorders in late 1973-early 1974.
- In a rare moment of continuity among the Peanuts animated specials, Sally at one point references an event that had occurred in a previous holiday special, namely Linus and her fruitlessly waiting in a pumpkin patch for the "Great Pumpkin" to appear. This event occurred in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. This moment of continuity also serves to further point out the plot similarities between ...Great Pumpkin... and ...Easter Beagle..., namely Linus being derided for believing in and waiting for the arrival of an unusual holiday-themed creature that the other characters repeatedly exclaim does not exist (but once Snoopy arrives and does his Easter Beagle gig, the characters seem to believe him after all).
Film Credits
- Written and Created by Charles M. Schulz
- Directed by Phil Roman
- Produced by Bill Melendez
- Executive Producer Lee Mendelson
- Music Composed and Performed by Vince Guaraldi
- Music Supervision John Scott Trotter
- Animation: Don Lusk, Sam Jaimes, Bill Littlejohn, Al Pabian, Joe Roman, Patricia Joy, Bob Carlson, Rod Scribner, Bob Matz
- Storyboard: Frank Smith
- Layout: Bernard Gruver, Evert Brown, Dean Spille
- Backgrounds: Robert Connavale
- Animation Checking: Carole Barnes, Joanne Lansing
- Painting: Marie Ardell, Patricia Capozzi, Sheri Lonsdale, Brigitte Strother, Cheri Weber, Chandra Poweris, Adele Lenart
- Film Editors: Chuck McCann, Roger Donley
- Camera: Dickson/Vasu
- Voices - Coast Recorders
- Music - Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco, California, USA
- Mix - Producers' Sound Service
- A LEE MENDLESON/BILL MELENDEZ PRODUCTION
- Production In Association With UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. and CHARLES M. SCHULZ CREATIVE ASSOCIATES
- ©1974 United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
- All Rights Reserved
References
- ^ [http://www.zap2it.com/tv/ratings/zap-ratings031808,0,1925771.story FOX Cuts In on ABC Tuesday]. Zap2It.com. 19 March 2008. and Fitzgerald, Toni. Miss Guided lands short of the mark. Media Life. 19 March 2008.
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRwsTyUPIYE
External links
| Preceded by “It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown” |
Peanuts television specials | Followed by “Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown” |
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