After a Great Pumpkin, jellybeans on the Thanksgiving table, and an innocent, little Christmas tree, it’s only fitting to end one year and begin a new one with Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang.
Happy New Year, Charlie Brown was one of the later TV specials inspired by Charles Schulz’ beloved characters, debuting 40 years ago on January 1, 1986, on CBS. It brings the usual Charlie Brown pessimism to the holiday, along with Schulz’ comforting philosophy.
Happy New Year, Charlie Brown begins on the last day of school before Christmas break, with Charlie Brown’s teacher assigning a book report on War and Peace.
Peppermint Patty then calls to invite “Chuck” to her New Year’s Eve party. Poor Charlie Brown doesn’t know what to do, as he has to finish reading Tolstoy’s novel and write the book report. He begins to look for a “short cut,” going to the store to search for the novel in comic book form or the book on cassette.
Also, Charlie Brown, usually too shy to talk to the Little Red-Haired Girl, musters up the courage to send her an invitation to the New Year’s Eve party.
He still hasn’t finished War and Peace, as the party starts, so he takes the book with him, thinking he can finish it there. He sneaks out to the front porch of Patty’s house to read, but falls asleep, sadly not only missing out on the celebration at midnight, but the arrival of the Little Red-Haired Girl, as well.
When Charlie Brown returns to school after Christmas break, he receives a “D-” on the book report, with the teacher adding a note that the report looks like it “was written after midnight on the last day of Christmas vacation.” Charlie Brown then learns that their next assignment is to read Crime & Punishment. Hearing this, he faints, and Linus says, “Happy New Year, Charlie Brown”, as the special ends.
Directed by Bill Melendez and Sam Jaimes, with animation from such artists as Bill Littlejohn and Dave Burgess, Happy New Year, Charlie Brown was written by Charles Schulz, and, like many of the Peanuts specials, pulls inspiration from his comic strip.
An example is The Little Red-Haired Girl. She was first referred to in the Peanuts comic strip in 1961 and made her TV Special debut in 1977’s It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown.
There’s also Rerun, the baby brother of Linus and Lucy, who makes an appearance in the special. This character first appeared in the comic strips in 1972 and appeared in several TV specials before Happy New Year, Charlie Brown.
Here, Rerun is featured in one of the special’s funniest scenes, as he assists his brother and sister in blowing up balloons for the party. When Rerun attempts to inflate his balloon, they all come out square, even after Linus tries to teach his younger brother the correct way to inflate balloons.
There is also the plotline featuring War and Peace, which appeared in several strips over the years (including one where Snoopy attempts to read it, one word a day). In Happy New Year, Charlie Brown, it’s a very Schulz-like, humorous touch to consider a grammar school student assigned to read Tolstoy’s massive novel in a little over a week.
Happy New Year, Charlie Brown is also a musical, featuring two songs written by Ed Bogas and Desireé Goyette. One is “Slow, Slow, Quick! Quick!” where Charlie Brown attends dance school, and the other is “Musical Chairs,” a catchy number Peppermint Patty sings during the game at her party.
Consider this seldom-seen corner of The Peanuts universe to celebrate the special’s 40th anniversary and kick off your New Year. While it hasn’t become as iconic as The Great Pumpkin or the initial Christmas special, Happy New Year, Charlie Brown does solid work of placing the “Peanuts stamp” on the holiday. This is evidenced by such Charlie Brown dialogue as, “You know how I always dread the whole year? Well, this time I’m only going to dread one day at a time.”
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
I was moving to another city on New Year’s Day of 1986 and therefore missed out on the special’s premiere. I recall a similar story in the Peanuts comic strip about Charlie Brown’s assignment to write a book report, only it wasn’t “War and Peace”, it was “Gulliver’s Travels”. As in the special, he put off doing it until the night before it was due, got a bad grade, and congratulated his teacher on her insight.
I’m not surprised that Charlie Brown was unable to find “War and Peace” at his neighbourhood record store. Although Prokofiev wrote a monumental four-hour opera based on Tolstoy’s novel, only the larger classical specialty shops would have carried the four- or five-LP box set recordings of it. The libretto, as with all of Prokofiev’s later operas, was a collaboration between the composer and his second wife Mira Mendelson. No relation to Lee.
At the beginning of the musical chairs scene, there’s a small black crescent that can be briefly seen moving in front of one of the chairs’ legs. It’s obviously an ink-and-paint error, but what was that crescent meant to be? Was Snoopy originally supposed to be in that scene, and they decided to cut him after his tail had been painted onto a few cels?
It’s likely some sort of debris on the cels. Maybe some paint flaked off somewhere and got stuck to the glass. Those “black crescents” don’t look like anything, and certainly not a part of Snoopy (at least to my eyes).
Is Sam Jaimes alive? Does anybody know?
Happy New Year, Charlie Brown was also the 6th and last holiday-themed Peanuts special to premiere on CBS. The next ones were merely retreads of and follow-ups to previous Peanuts holiday soecials.
I actually watched this again last night to celebrate the holiday. I always liked that Charlie Brown (or Chuck) does get a kiss on the cheek in this episode albeit not from the little red haired girl but from Marcie, who I’ve always have felt would be the best match for him anyway.
My daughter tried to read War and Peace while she was in elementary school and didn’t get too far. I actually had reading it as a New Year’s resolution one year and I don’t think I got even as far as her. The screenwriter Lester Cole claimed he wasn’t able to find time to finish it until he was sentenced to prison. They probably wouldn’t even assign it as required reading even at college level nowadays
How come Charlie Brown is the only one who has to do the assignment? It appears that Linus and possibly Schroeder may already have read the book, but what about the others? Shouldn’t there be some equal opportunity stressing going on? Why is Charlie so bent out of shape about it? Did the others ignore the assignment and take an F? It has always seemed strange to me that Charlie is so stressed out and it’s no big deal to anyone else.
This does bring up a childhood memory. During the 5th grade, my teacher assigned us to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution during the holiday break. I worked and worked and worked during that Christmas and New Year’s to get it just right, word perfect. When class resumed, the teacher and the other students had all completely forgotten all about it! I didn’t dare risk saying anything about it, because I would have looked like a show off or a geek. But at least I can still recite the Preamble whenever the occasion calls for it!
I’ve never read “War and Peace”, but I did read “Anna Karenina” two years ago; the conductor of my orchestra kept alluding to it while we were rehearsing Tchaikovsky, and my wife happened to have a copy that she had never finished. It took me four months to get through it — and it’s several hundred pages shorter than “War and Peace”! I’m glad I did it, or at least I’m not sorry, but I think I’ve had my fill of Tolstoy for one lifetime.
Of course, any elementary school teacher who assigned her class to read “War and Peace” over the Christmas holidays would probably lose her job, and rightly so, but in this case it needn’t be taken literally. Like Charlie Brown, we all have had to tackle assignments that were arduous and stressful and that greatly interfered with our enjoyment of life, and often some wise guy like Linus would chide us that it wasn’t really so bad, at least not compared to what Mrs. Tolstoy went through. A book report on “War and Peace” is an easily apprehensible metaphor for such a Sisyphean task.
If I remember correctly, in “The Peanuts Movie” Charlie Brown chooses to do a book report on “War and Peace” (rather than being assigned it) because he had heard it was the greatest book ever written (although initially he thought the book was “Leo’s Toy Store” by Warren Peace).
The “Musical Chairs” song (vocals by Kristi Baker as Peppermint Patty) was also used in the Worlds of Wonder Snoopy Book and Tape later around that same year, with additional vocals by Snoopy (Cam Clarke), Sally (Ami Foster), Charlie Brown (Sean Collins), Linus (Jeremy Miller), and Lucy (Tiffany Billings).