Scarecrow-88 Review of Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975 TV Short)

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown

[8/10 · 15 February 2020]

What a nice surprise! This might have actually eclipsed the Thanksgiving special on my Peanuts Holiday Favorite's list. "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown" focuses on Chuck's desperate desire to get a Valentine from a little redheaded girl in class...or just a Valentine period. There are some sidebar pieces such as Lucy "being entertained" by a "theater performance" (complete with dumping mud and garbage on her "for effect") destroying Schroeder's piano in a fit of rage because he is too busy focusing on his pounding the keys instead of her flirtatious prodding. Linus is set on giving his single adult teacher a heart-shaped box of chocolates while Sally expects that he will be giving them to her (despite all the signs that Linus isn't any more interested in her as Schroeder is in Lucy), and Snoopy offers his mad paper scissor cutting skills in a "training session" to Lucy, who wants to learn how to form a heart shaped Valentine out of a sheet of paper...Snoopy out cuts from paper folded a complete Valentine music box, quite a thing of extraordinary craftsmanship! There is even Snoopy and Woodstock making Valentines for each other, delivering them as they only can: a bit on the nose. My favorite scene has Linus so enraged at Valentine's Day after his teacher leaves school with her boyfriend he tosses his chocolates off a bridge...right into the mouths of Snoopy and Woodstock. Mainly, though, the special focuses on poor Charlie Brown kvetching and agonizing over not getting a Valentine, a concern that many a student perhaps has had on Valentine's Day at school in the past (or present) and can relate to. The "Lucy goes to the movie" sidebar featuring a busy Snoopy tending to the drinks, popcorn, ticket booth, and show with Chuck serving as narrator is a nice little addition to the special. This doesn't feature some of the characters you know and love (no Peppermint Patty, Marcy, or Pigpen, for examples), but I think "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown" will be a nice sleeper for Peanuts fans new to it. This was my very first viewing of it and I was happily surprised (although, I don't know why I should be, Peanuts never usually lets me down) with its entirety, even with a spirited Schroeder (he also hands out the Valentines and tells Chuck, always asking if he has one, to be patient and wait) taking the girls in class to task for not giving Charlie Brown a Valentine and how only guilt and to ease their conscience did they decide to do so the next day. While mostly at his piano practicing or playing Beethoven, Schroeder was given a lot more to do in this special. I do wonder why Patty wasn't included in the special...you could just imagine how she could have tormented Chuck. There are two more specials on my Special Edition Set so I look forward to seeing if they serve as nice extensions to "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown". I think when Charlie Brown is feverishly checking the Valentines box for his card, finding nothing, eyeballing and investigating intensely for it, eventually tossing the box outside the window, many of us can understand his frustrations.