In the early teens, it looked like that the Peanuts TV franchise that had been producing specials and series since 1965, was done. Charles Schultz and Bill Melendez were dead, Lee Mendelson was retired, and ABC was content with just trotting out the classic holiday specials year after year, having last commissioned a new special in 2006. An attempt to restart the franchise with a new creative team, Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown in 2011, fizzled both creatively and commercially. But, as anyone with even a passing interest in media culture of the teens and 20s can attest, you can't keep a good IP down.
In 2014, a team of French writers and animators started work on what would become Peanuts by Schulz, a new animated series. Like the earlier The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, each episode would contain several shorts adapting a storyline from the strip. This proved more successful than the 80s series, as ultimately there were 104 7-minute shorts created, compiled into 37 episodes. The show would be picked up by Cartoon Network, which would produce an English-language track and begin airing the show in 2016, a year after Peanuts returned to theaters for the first time since 1980.
The Peanuts Movie, produced by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox, opened in November 2015 and was a critical and commercial hit, grossing $130 million in North America and another $116 million overseas. In 2019, Canadian animation company WildBrain premiered another new series, Snoopy in Space, in which Snoopy and Woodstock became NASA astronauts (the show was produced in cooperation with the agency), and was one of the first shows available at the launch of the brand-new Apple TV+. Apparently, Apple was so pleased that a year later, they bought the rights to most of the classic specials, including the holiday specials that had been running on ABC for the previous two decades. The realization that these specials were now locked behind a paywall (though Apple did allow non-subscribers to stream them a few days before the titular holiday) led to such an outcry that Apple arranged for them to be shown on PBS for a few years.
Somewhat lost in the hubbub was the promise of brand new specials, alongside the returning Snoopy in Space and another new series, later revealed as The Snoopy Show. And what better way to ring in the new deal was by starting with a new Christmas/New Year's special (even though there were already four Christmas specials and a New Year's special), an act that ensured that I'm Reviewing All Your Specials, Charlie Brown, which was supposed to be a three-year project, would extend into Year 4, upon the December 2021 debut of For Auld Lang Syne.
It's December, and two characters are excitedly anticipating the arrival of relatives. On the 15th, Snoopy eagerly greets his siblings, who have come for an extended stay (his family this time around only consists of the ones who appeared at some point in the strip: Spike, Belle, Andy, Marbles, and Olaf. Rover and Emily, who only appeared in 1991's Snoopy's Reunion, have now apparently been retconned out of existence). Meanwhile, Lucy is excitedly expecting the Christmas Eve arrival of her grandmother, a visit that Linus is less than happy about this, as this is the blanket-hating grandma whose arrival caused Linus so much anxiety in Happiness is a Warm Blanket. However, Lucy is crushed when, on Christmas Eve morning, her grandmother calls to let her know she won't be making it. Convinced, for some reason, that Grandma wasn't coming because of her (we never do find out why she didn't come), Lucy resolves to ensure that everyone does love her by throwing a big, fancy, and elegant New Year's Eve party, complete with renting a ballroom in an old theater, having tasteful decorations and food, and after Schroder flat-out refuses, hiring Snoopy's family band to play at the soiree.
Meanwhile, Spike is eager to get a new photo of him and his siblings together, but something keeps messing up his attempts, from having the too-small Woodstock try to operate the heavy camera to the siblings breaking out in a snowball fight when he's trying to get them to pose. In another subplot, Charlie Brown is desperately trying to fulfill at least one of his New Year's resolutions from the previous year before time runs out, which explains how he, along with Linus, get caught up in the planning and decorating of Lucy's party.
Naturally, things spiral out of control, even before Lucy inexpiably makes Linus dress up in an outfit that seems to come from Elton John's closet. Some of the issues are beyond Lucy's control, but a lot of them are because Lucy is being her usual bossy self, so blinded by what she thinks she wants that she doesn't stop to consider anyone else's needs or desires. This is an effective take on Lucy, who is considerably less cruel and mean as she sometimes comes across, but still acts selfishly as she becomes blinded by her own ambitions.
One interesting thing is that the animation style is quite different from any previous Peanuts project, including the two Apple+ series. It is likely computer animated, but it retains the old hand-drawn look, though with considerably more texture and shadow than the specials of old (Snoopy in Space and The Snoopy Show have a much more flat look). The director, Clay Kaytis, is a veteran Disney animator who left the studio to direct The Angry Birds Movie. He would direct another of the Apple specials and consult on a third, but would also move into live-action directing, apparently specializing in streaming Christmas movies, having helmed The Christmas Chronicles for Netflix and A Christmas Story Christmas for Max.
Apple and WildBrain seems to have recruited a regular cast of juvenile actors to play the major roles across Snoopy in Space, The Snoopy Show, and the new specials. Interestingly enough, the role of Charlie Brown seems to be the one most in flux, as the role is performed by Etienne Kellici in this, some episodes of Snoopy Show, and a few of the upcoming specials, and by Tyler James Nathan in Snoopy in Space, other episodes of Snoopy Show, and the rest of the specials, including our next one. Linus is performed here and elsewhere by Wyatt White and Lucy by Isabella Leo. The specials break away from the tradition of using archival footage of Bill Melendez for Snoopy's various whelps and whines, instead employing veteran voice actor Terry McGurrin, who assumed the role at the beginning of Snoopy in Space. The Schulz family remains involved with Charles's son Craig listed as executive producer, along with Craig's son Bryan (the pair are part of the writing team of the upcoming Apple TV+ movie, which will be the sixth Peanuts film). The production team appears to be a mix of WildBrain employees who came on board the franchise when the production house came on board and longtime Schulz employees who also worked behind the scenes on pre-Apple projects.
Since the special revolves around a well-attended party, the special does a rather deep dive into characters. We not only see formerly prominent characters that were eventually phased out of the strip, like Violet, Original Patty, and Shermy, but even exceedingly minor characters like Tapioca Pudding and Jose pop up and get dialogue. Oddly, one character who does not appear or even get mentioned is Rerun, who, like Snoopy's extraneous siblings, appears to have been retconned away again (he does not seem to make any appearances in any of the Apple specials, though he does show up in The Snoopy Show). In addition, it is not clear exactly when the special takes place, but it clearly isn't the modern day. No one has a cell phone or a tablet, no laptop or desktop is in sight, no one mentions the Internet, Charlie Brown watched TV on an old CRT model, the Van Pelts have a landline, and Spike's camera is a Polaroid. The most modern technology seen is a boombox. This continues the general vibe of the specials after Schulz's death, as the Peanuts gang does not move forward into the 21st century (we probably have to go back to Linus rollerblading in 1997's It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown to see a special using relatively then-current technology).
One aspect I haven't mentioned yet is the new specials' apparent commitment to focus on secondary characters. Obviously, Lucy isn't secondary by any measure, but amazingly enough, she has never been the primary protagonist in any previous special. That commitment to focusing on other characters besides Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Linus might be a reason that most of the new specials avoid the traditional "Declarative Statement, Charlie Brown" title format. Speaking of titles, while most of the promotional material for the special (including its Wikipedia and IMDB listings) list the title as Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne, the actual onscreen title omits the "Snoopy Presents" part.
I wasn't sure what to expect from For Auld Lang Syne coming in, having been quite disappointed by the last reboot special a decade prior. However, I found this to be charming, funny, and heartwarming. It's not a perfect special by any means (I think the payoff at the end is a bit too pat), but it shows that, heading into the third decade of the 21st century, the franchise appears to be in good hands.
Next week: It's Sally's turn in the spotlight, as the gang learns a lesson about the environment in It's the Small Things, Charlie Brown.
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