The Most Disappointing Holiday Entertainment of All Time!

A Techtite Feature Article

I Want a Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown!

(First Aired: December 9th, 2003)

Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz passed away three years before this special aired. You would think the people behind this "sequel" would want to respect his memory. Nope; they'd rather make more money, instead. Good luck with that; the usual reaction after seeing this holiday special often ranges from "Good Grief!" to "Auuugh!"

The first problem with this one-hour story is how it's a mish-mash of stories from Peanuts' various daily comic strips. Peanuts fans might say that was a good idea. Yet the problem was: the chosen stories were too disjointed. Most peculiarly: Rerun rides on the back of mom's bicycle...in the winter. Who rides a bike in winter, with their baby son strapped to the back seat? Nice going, "mom"!

It doesn't help when this special adds a menagerie of C-grade characters to the mix, reducing all the popular characters to mere cameo appearances. Did we really want a whole story about Rerun? No, and we didn't want a story about Snoopy's brother Spike, either. We could've settled for a story about a boy getting a dog for Christmas...and we don't even get that! Rerun is such a milquetoast; by the final scene he's no longer interested in getting a dog at all. So basically viewers waste an hour of their holiday time for nothing. Rats.

For #9, we frostily request: Don't Ever Return. Ever. Goodbye.