Review of Happy New Year, Charlie Brown

Peppermint Patty and Marcie are throwing a New Year's Eve party and Patty invites Charlie Brown. But Chuck has a school assignment to read "War and Peace" and he hasn't even started it. Decent Peanuts holiday special. Better than the more recent stuff but nowhere near as good as the '60s and '70s stuff. The voicework is OK although Jeremy Miller made Linus a little more annoying than he's supposed to be, I think. The music, including the songs "Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick" and the terrible musical chairs one, makes me miss Vince Guaraldi. There's one central idea here that really isn't very funny or interesting (Charlie Brown having to read "War and Peace") and everything else seems to be padding to fill time. They could have done a more amusing cartoon with more focus on the party. More Peppermint Patty is never a bad thing. As it is, the whole thing feels like one long obvious lesson to kids about procrastination. At least I think that was the point. The problem is this isn't a very funny cartoon and the central problem facing Charlie here isn't interesting. It's lacking the wit, heart, and charm that made the classic specials so endearing.