Un grandissimo compleanno, Charlie Brown!

You know a special is thoroughly uninteresting when the main premise of Linus waiting for someone special to come to his birthday party doesn't show up until the last few minutes. As off putting as the digital ink & paint look, I can give the crew a pass as this was the first Peanuts special to be handled in that technique. That said, less forgiving is how poorly structured this entire special's story is, and they under utilize the character of Mimi so badly that I wish she appeared in at least half of the special's run time. Too many scenes are spent on birthday nonsense or the characters doing their things.

Mimi's actual singing voice is pretty phenomenal and David Benoit's modern compositions are a lot of fun to jam to, but that's about it. Considering this was one of the very first Peanuts specials to be released straight to home media instead of television, it was probably for the best that we were spared this embarrassment being broadcast to the world.