Plot In a Nutshell: The Peanuts gang are shown in a series of short, unrelated skits, which are peppered with songs of varying quality.
It should be noted, in fact it has to be said, that this Peanuts special is by and large a musical. It is filled with songs taken from the 1960s off-Broadway production of the same name, and as a result, what you have here is a rather atypical Peanuts product. "You're A Good Man" was NOT written by Charles Schulz, maybe the only Peanuts special not to be written by him.
Most of the reviews here are glowing, giving "You're A Good Man" either 9 or a full 10 stars; however, most of those reviewers also freely admit that they love musicals. So those reviews are heavily biased and that needs to be understood, as the reviewers are gushing about an art form they love. In other words, they are relatively unreliable.
I don't hate musicals, but I don't love them, either, so I feel I can be pretty open-minded here. There were a few songs within I did enjoy, like the title number and "Happiness." However, there were several others I thought were rather poor ("Home On the Range," Lucy's song about incorrect 'facts,' and a polyphonic headache about Peter Rabbit). Some of the reviews here claim every song is 'glorious' and that's just wildly overblown, at least to me.
There is also a song sung by the baseball team that is somewhat catchy. But there's a problem with it. They sing that the team is 'one win away from the championship'...well, anyone who knows Peanuts knows that simply can't be true. Their team rarely wins one game, let alone enough of them to be 'one win away from the
championship.' The lyrics are totally out of step with what makes Charlie the lovable loser that he is.
So I found "You're A Good Man" to be very much a mixed bag. There are a lot of songs here and very little story. It's basically a collection of skits, sometimes taken right from the Peanuts strip, but then augmented (or dominated) by the insertion of songs into each skit. If you happen to love musicals, then you'll likely enjoy this as well. If you dislike or are indifferent to them, you're likely going to be pining for something else before long, especially as there is no over-arching story to follow.
5/10. Would I watch again: (Y/N)? Not anytime soon.
