After a period where there was a year-and-a-half gap between Peanuts specials, the franchise returned to making roughly two new specials a year, with some expectations, through the mid-80s. So There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown followed You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown by less than five months. However, it has such an oddball plotline that maybe they could have waited a bit, and let Charles Schultz take another run or two at the script.
The special starts with a series of blackout gags involving Charlie Brown, Sally, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Franklin (the latter two making their animated special debuts) answering questions at school and/or expressing confusion about their lessons. There are jokes about "new" math and the metric system (which Franklin incorrectly predicted would be the official standard by the time he grew up). The plot finally kicks in when it is revealed that both Charlie Brown's and Peppermint Patty's schools are going on a joint field trip to an art museum, after which everyone is expected to write a report about it. This is especially concerning for Charlie Brown, because as he explains to Linus, his grades are so low that without an A on the report, he's in danger of failing the entire year.
So far so good. But the story loses its way once the two schools arrive at the museum, and Charlie Brown, Sally, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Snoopy accidently go into the grocery store next door. While it's somewhat improbable that an art museum would be directly next to a grocery store, and they both would have the same architectural style, what makes this plotline so weird is that none of them, with the possible exception of Snoopy, don't immediately realize they're in the wrong place. Instead, they go around, admiring the "pop art" of a stack of canned tomatoes and the "dinosaur bones" on display in the butcher block, while talking about how the museum must be in such dire financial straits that they're selling everything in the building.
Of course, the setting is mainly an excuse to have Peppermint Patty flirt with a somewhat oblivious Charlie Brown, who isn't quite sure if he's being flirted with or not. When Marcie calls her out, she responds by insulting Charlie Brown, not realizing he's in earshot.
Meanwhile, Linus and Lucy, along with the rest of the kids are next door at the actual museum, where there are a few more gags about artwork (including an amusing one when Lucy thinks she's spotted Charlie Brown). Also, Snoopy, for some reason, dons an apron and starts actually working the checkout lane (a job that was probably considerably harder in 1973, before the advent of bar code scanning), to the strains of Vince Guaraldi singing a new verse of "Joe Cool".
Everything ends up being somewhat resolved by the end, with Peppermint Patty apologizing to Charlie Brown, Marcie revealing her own crush on him, and Charlie Brown somehow getting an A on his paper describing the supermarket.
There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown feels like a filler special, made less because inspiration had struck and more because they had a contract with CBS. Maybe that would be why, of the next six specials, four of them would be holiday specials.
Next week: Get ready for a holiday feast of toast, popcorn, and jellybeans, in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.
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