There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown

"There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown" has little to do with love. You'd expect a cameo from the Little Red-Haired Girl, and consequently you'd be disappointed. The special is more about school woes and friendship awkwardnesses, topics which hit at the heart of the 'Peanuts' theme, and they're treated as well as ever here.

Unfortunately, it's not structured very thoughtfully. The first ten or fifteen minutes are simply a hodgepodge of animated comic strips about various characters: nothing bad, but not really related to the main plot once it gets to picking up. When nearly halfway in we finally do get to the igniting conflict - Charlie Brown must ace his report on the upcoming museum field trip report or fail the whole class - there has been absolutely no lead-up beyond "school is a drag for everyone."

Fortunately, the rest of the special makes up for that. Peppermint Patty was usually annoying and useless in the strips but here we see a genuine note of caring for her best friend Marcie, just enough so that when she reverts to her rude and brash self and gets her comeuppance we can sympathize with her. Marcie is good in her own right, the right mix of wise and naïve as she was in her initial appearances (later on she was less naïve) to make for a hilarious juxtaposition.

Poor Charlie Brown... what can we say? The sap desperately needs to ace his report and ends up in the wrong spot on the field trip! How will he survive? The foul-up sounds far-fetched, but it's executed so smoothly it's almost surreal. Snoopy, as always, makes the most of the situation to "Joe Cool" a hilarious interlude to his drab canine routine of a life and a good lighthearted intermission in a more serious story.

Worth watching? Absolutely. Technically, it can't compete with the greatest of the short specials due to the sloppy structure of much of the script, but at least we're far from the bland mimeography of "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown."