Peanuts is designed to be fairly relatable and realistic. There is the matter of the dog (and bird) with the intelligence and personality of a person, but anthropomorphic animals are quite common in animation, so it's not a hard ask to suspend disbelief. There's also the matter that, for the elementary school-aged kids that make up most of the characters, there seems to be no parental authority over them (a situation exclusive to the specials, as parents are frequently mentioned in the strip. Of course, it's a lot easier to have parents hover just offscreen in a four-panel strip than it is in a 30-minute special). If you can get past those two things, then the specials are largely slice-of-life. Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty and the rest go to school, play baseball, hang out with their friends, and all sorts of other, mundane activities. Most of the elaborate fantasies are confined to Snoopy's head.
That's what makes It's Magic, Charlie Brown rather jarring. The title should be taken literally. There is real magic performed in the special, with real consequences. Snoopy's exploits may be mostly ridiculous for a dog, but for the most part, is not outlandish if we think of him, like Peppermint Patty does, as "a funny looking kid with a big nose". But riding motocross or serving as a figure skating coach or dressing up as Sherlock Holmes doesn't compare to making your owner actually turn invisible.
The special begins when Snoopy gets a book about magic from the library. Instead of simply teaching readers how to perform illusions, it apparently teaches real magic. So, in short course, Snoopy is doing a magic show (as "The Great Houndini"), which at first isn't going well (complete with a heckler in the front row). But soon, he's splitting Peppermint Patty into three in a partition cabinet, causing Lucy to levitate, and, as the grand finale, causes Charlie Brown to vanish. Unfortunately, it starts raining before he can make Charlie Brown re-appear, so he's stuck being just a voice and footsteps.
Of course, he quickly realizes he can take advantage of the situation, when he spots Lucy, for some reason, just sitting in a field, with the football teed up and ready to be kicked. Yes, this entire special seems to be built around Charlie Brown finally getting to kick the football, something he gets to do several times before Snoopy finally figures out to make him re-appear.
Most of the voice cast returned from Life is a Circus, Charlie Brown, though this would be the only performance as Lucy for Sydney Penny, who had already appeared earlier that year in the Schultz-written live-action special The Big Stuffed Dog (the big stuffed dog being a giant Snoopy doll) and would go on to be the rare Peanuts voice actor with a sustained acting career, going on to appear in the mini-series The Thorn Birds and the feature film Pale Rider, before becoming a regular on a number of daytime soap operas. This also marked the first appearance in the specials of the mean cat next door, who quickly destroyed Snoopy's dog house during the cold open.
Next week: Charlie Brown searches for the love of his life (not The Little Red-Haired Girl) in Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown.
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