Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown

This show marked thirty years of Peanuts comic strips and fifteen years of television specials, albeit a bit prematurely. The show aired on CBS in January of 1979 and those 'birthdays' wouldn't come until 1980. But hey, who's counting?

This show is available to watch on Youtube, but I wouldn't recommend it except for the most enthusiastic of Peanuts fans. It's hosted by Phyllis George, who should be remembered by most people born before 1980; anyone after that, probably not.

"Happy Birthday, CB" contains some short interview snippets with its creator, Charles Schulz. George and Schulz are shown chatting as they play tennis, jog, or walk the grounds of his estate. Interspersed throughout the show are animated Peanuts clips. I recognized one from "Snoopy, Come Home"; others looked new, perhaps made for this show. Some of those were entertaining.

Other parts of the program, not so much. The viewer is shown a clip of Schulz's daughter ice skating; that's nice, but really, who cares? There are also a couple of songs sung on camera here, and I would have to say those segments did not work too well either. Particularly strange was a sequence where George and a group of child actors joined together to sing "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," and it just looked so cheesy. Should have been left on the cutting room floor.

So overall, this is a bit of a mixed bag. The animated clips are worthwhile, and hearing Schulz talk about how he came up with various characters like Linus and Schroeder was interesting. Some of the other parts, especially the ones I mentioned above, are somewhat skip-able.

6/10. Interesting at times. Dedicated 'Peanuts' fans will like it best.