By the end of the aughts, it appeared that the Peanuts specials were largely dead. Despite decent ratings for He's a Bully, Charlie Brown, ABC didn't seem interested in commissioning any other specials, content to only run the old holiday specials every year. Charles Schulz, of course, had been dead for nearly a decade, and Bill Melendez would pass away in 2008. Lee Mendelson was still alive, but nearly 80, and had largely retired. However, Warners, which had recently took over the video rights to the franchise from Paramount, was interested in restarting the franchise, and proceeded to recruit a whole new production team.
Taking over as producer was Margaret Dean, a veteran of numerous Warner Bros. animated properties, including Batman and Scooby-Doo. Coming in to direct was Pixar vet Andrew Beall, who had also worked on such Warner Animation titles as The Iron Giant and Space Jam. He would be co-directing with Frank Molieri, another Warner vet who had worked on numerous Looney Tunes titles, as well as SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons Movie, and several of Don Bluth's films. The script would be directly adapted from numerous Peanuts strips from the 1950s and 1960s by Schulz's son Craig as well as Stephan Pastis, a veteran comic strip writer best known for the widely popular Pearls Before Swine (a particular favorite of mine). Everything was in place for Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown to launch a new era of Peanuts specials. Sadly, however, it would prove to be a one-and-done.
The special, as the title implies, revolves around Linus's blanket, and more particularly, Lucy's attempts to force Linus to give it up. She does have a reason for this, namely that their blanket-hating grandmother is on her way for a visit, and expects Linus to be blanket-free by her arrival, but Lucy being Lucy, she takes sadistic delight in her brother's obvious pain at being separated from his blue companion.
Being based mostly on strips from the 50s and 60s, the special adopts a decidedly retro look. While no specific time period is mentioned, based on the outfits the kids are wearing and the technology in their homes, it seems that this takes place in the early 60s. And in keeping with that setting, there's no sign of characters introduced later on, like Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Franklin, and Rerun, while characters like Original Patty, Violet, and Shermy, all of whom were largely phased out of the strip by the 70s, make appearances (one late-60s character, Woodstock, makes a brief appearance at the beginning, before disappearing for the rest of the special).
As opposed to many of the specials over the last 20 year or so, which tended to have a rambling approach to storytelling, this one kept its focus tightly on the Linus and his blanket storyline. What asides there were, usually involving Charlie Brown's disastrous kite-flying experiences or Lucy and Sally's unrequited love for Schroeder and Linus, respectively, were generally quick and too the point.
In terms of focus, it is far better than the last hour-long special, I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown. However, the issue here is that the blanket story isn't interesting enough to really sustain the running time. Indeed, the special ended up feeling rather repetitive, with Lucy engaging in a scheme to deprive Linus of his blanket, Linus having a withdrawal meltdown, and then Linus getting his blanket back, only for the cycle to start over again. It also suffers from the problem that many of the specials adapted directly from strips suffered from--that gags that work in the daily isolation of the strip don't work nearly as well when presented back-to-back-to-back in animation. In addition, it also feels like the makers struggled to fill out the runtime. There may not be a secondary storyline, but scenes seem to be stretched out, with lots of pauses and moments with nothing is happening. If the special had to be an hour (I suspect because Warners released this on DVD first, and felt an hour--or at least 44 minute--special would justfiy the purchase price more than a 22-minute special would have), then another storyline would have been appreciated.
That said, it is a nice-looking piece of animation, with a style distinct from the prior Melendez productions. Given that it had been nearly five years since the previous special, there was an entirely new voice cast for this, with everyone sounding fine, though only Lucy voice Grace Rolek (who would be a regular voice on Steven Universe) and Patty voice Ciara Bravo (who would co-star opposite Tom Holland in the drama Cherry) going on to much success. The music was by Mark Mothersbaugh, who did his best to ape Vince Guaraldi's style, with limited success.
This would premiere on DVD in early 2011, before Fox picked it up for broadcast, first airing it on Thanksgiving night that year. Oddly, the first half of the special aired against Peanuts on ABC, which ran A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving that night (by the time Blanket started on Fox, Thanksgiving was nearly over, and the rest of the first half hour of Blanket was up against an edited episode of This is America, Charlie Brown that focused on the Mayflower). Ratings weren't great (it was down quite a bit from its lead-in, Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas), but they were good enough that Fox would re-air the special during the next two holiday seasons. Given the nature of the production, I don't know if this was included when Apple picked up the exclusive rights to most of the Peanuts specials in 2020.
Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown is a valiant attempt to breathe new life into the franchise. However, it unfortunately didn't work very well for a variety of reasons. None of the principals, except for Craig Schulz, have worked on any further Peanuts projects to date, and for a decade or so, this truly seemed to be the end of the line, at least in terms of specials. However, Peanuts was thriving, particularly by mid-decade, when The Peanuts Movie became a hit in theaters, while a new Peanuts series was made in France. Then Apple TV premiered Snoopy in Space and The Snoopy Show, followed by...well, all this is for discussion next summer.
Next week: This is it for the Summer of 2023. Next summer, for Year 4, we'll be branching out from specials, as I'll be watching all five feature films as well as some of the Peanuts documentaries that have been produced over the years. But first, I'll be watching the Apple specials, starting with the Christmas/New Year's special For Auld Lang Syne. See you next Memorial Day weekend!
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