It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown

Hi, you're listening to Tooncast. you you Hello

and welcome to the 45th episode of Tooncast brought

to you by the Geekcast Radio Network. I am your

host, GFG1Mike, and reluctantly joining me for

this episode is once again Kevin, Professor Vazquezog,

Thompson. Hello. I should have gone under a pseudonym

for this one. We're going to be taking a break

from the Hannah Barbera spotlight. We will be

celebrating Easter with the Peanuts Gang on It's

the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. How are you,

sir? I am okay. no comment this is so sad because

I had every intention every intention of watching

this I actually have it on DVD I took it out

I put it in my computer I went to watch it I

watched the special feature I watched maybe the

first fifteen five ten fifteen minutes of the

thing And something happened, somebody called

me, I don't remember, something happened earlier

today before this recording. I don't remember

what the hell it was and I never finished watching

it. The end of the story is that that is unforgivable

and any Tooncast host that comes to the show

without fully watching the entire show should

be called out on the street and thrown rocks

at. No, I'm just kidding because I didn't finish

it either. I was going to say. Although I mine

I actually tried to as much as that sounds weird

Coming for me. I I don't have it on DVD So I

was relying on YouTube and for some reason you

can find the first two puts I would assume it's

three parts because they're in ten minute segments

Yeah, you can you can find the first two parts

in English and you can find the first two parts

in about one or two other languages but you cannot

find the third I couldn't find the third part

in English maybe I maybe it was late at night

and my eyes weren't working as well but I could

not find the third part so I have no idea how

this thing ends but I'm okay with that I honestly

don't remember either I honestly don't someone

call in the show and tell us how this ends yeah

exactly or you better watch it before next week

and we'll have a recap yeah we're gonna have

to because Yeah. Oh, I pretty much know. I don't

know how it actually ends, but I pretty much

know from watching it and just looking in the

back of the box now. So let's get into the history

lesson, shall we? All right. It's the Easter

Beagle Charlie Brown is the 12th. unfortunate

primetime animated TV special based upon the

popular comic strip Peanuts. Did I say 12th?

I meant 12th and worst. Oh, shut up. By Charles

M. Schultz. It was originally aired on the CBS

network on April 4th, 1974, so it was one of

the ones that came later. I don't know for a

fact. Do you know how many have come after it?

Well, the Valentine's one was the 13th one. Remember

when we did that? We said that they were going

to be out of order. That's right. uh... i don't

know whether the end of when they were doing

on the filming i'm assuming that i'm not sure

because i know there's a whole uh... collected

volume now of the peanuts nineteen sixties collection

in the peanuts nineteen seventies collection

where they took all of the specials and put them

on two different dvd sets like right like decades

it's uh... so i'm not exactly sure i'm gonna

have to look that up or whatever for for next

month where So anyway, general memories for this

one, for me anyway. I do remember watching this

at Easter time. Again, it was one of those things

where you always watch Charlie Brown specials

during holidays. And I do remember, you know,

a line is going on and on about the Easter Beagle,

which Snoopy is a Beagle. But you know much like

Linus went on and on about the great pumpkin

it actually even makes reference to that in this

where Sally like Sally's like I'm not sure I

should believe you after that whole pumpkin debacle

But overall it from what I remember it's it's

okay. It's not the best I wouldn't I wouldn't

say it's the worst, but it's not the best it

falls somewhere in the middle for me Um, just

to clarify, it's nowhere near the last, um...

No, I mean, it's nowhere near the last Primetime

animated specials. Yeah. A ton of them. It's

not even the last, one of the last, uh, holiday

ones, but it is kind of one of the last as far

as classic holiday ones. Yeah, yeah. But yeah,

I didn't realize how many specials they've been

putting out, but almost every couple years there's

another one, so... Yup. Oh, my general thoughts?

You want my general members and instructions

and thoughts? Um, okay. I'll get into why when

we get into the regular show but I have no memories

of this because I never watched it like I've

said many times before on Tooncast I'm not a

huge Peanuts fan nor did I watch them growing

up besides I had seen obviously the Christmas

and the Thanksgiving one once or twice You better

rephrase that because you told me before we even

met before right before we started watching or

recording the Thanksgiving thing you said the

day before we recorded that you said you had

never seen it But I think now that I had seen

it once, at least once, because it wasn't as

foreign to me as this one was, so maybe I suppressed

the memory. But I think I must have seen the

Thanksgiving and Christmas one at least once

when I was a kid. I could be wrong. But I know

I had never seen this one. Thank God. So I don't

really have any recollections, but I will say

that this is... No, obviously, I just proceeded

that by saying that I haven't seen all the peanut

specials, nor anywhere close to all of them,

but this is the worst one I've ever seen. Oh,

boy. Going into the cast and characters, you

have Todd Barbee as Charlie Brown in Schroeder.

You have Melanie Kahn as Lucy van Pelt. Steven

Shea as Linus van Pelt. Linda Ericoli as Peppermint

Patty. Lynn Mortenson is Sally Jimmy Alvins is

Marcy Wow You know what I noticed from when I

was watching this earlier from what I did watch

of it earlier this has Outside of I think it

was was it this one. I don't know. There's like

one or two of them where Snoopy has like a bigger

larger role than normal and And this was one

of those, especially with Woodstock as well.

Woodstock, I think out of the ones we've talked

about on this show, this is the second time Woodstock

has appeared for us. The first time was the Thanksgiving

special because he wasn't in the Valentine's

Day one and he wasn't in the Christmas one or

the Halloween one. So which makes it weird because

I like Snoopy so I like Snoopy I don't like peanuts

in general, but I do like Snoopy as a character

and I I know he was in this one a lot, but it

just didn't save it for me He didn't have nearly

the the he didn't have the funny Comedic sequences

that he had even in the Valentine's Day one.

They're just not present I Don't know Just just

not good I can tell this is probably going to

be a very short episode of this. Try not to be

evil. If I want to, I can rant and rave about

it a little bit longer. Going into the behind

the scenes segment. When Sally asks Linus, are

you sure? Are you certain? You can see a color

mistake is on her shoe box. Oh, okay. Well, who

cares about that? A rare instance of Snoopy talking,

he shouts, hey, before dancing with the rabbits

in his fantasy. The song that the music boxes

play, in which Paddy, Marcy, and Snoopy dance

to in the second scene in the mall, is a classical

piece written by Johan Sebastian Bach and entitled

Minuet from the Anna Mangalina note. Okay, I

don't have any idea how to say that. The rest

of the music score features funk -inspired guitarists,

departure from the usual jazz music used up to

this point by Vincerelli. When Snoopy arrives

to do his Easter Beagle gig, the music in the

background is from the first movement of Beethoven's

Seventh Symphony. This marks a rare occasion

in the Peanut Specials where Beethoven's music

is heard, but Schroder is not playing it. The

music is played immediately before Easter Beagle's

arrival, while Sally blames Linus for ruining

her Easter, is the funeral march from the second

movement of the same Beethoven symphony. In one

of the most shocking pieces of display ever,

an erogorious example of Christmas creep, the

mall, the department store had its Christmas

display up in the middle of April, including

a sign forewarning that there were only mere

246 days left until Christmas. creator Charles

Schultz likely made a point with this saying

that Christmas is too commercialized, the main

point of the first peanut special at Charlie

Brown Christmas. One of many customer complaints

is that department stores put up their decorations

too early. Oh, hang on. I do have to add some

of that because in this special feature on this

DVD, Bill Melendez, or no, not Bill Melendez.

Lee Mendelson? Yeah, Lee Mendelson. brought that

up, the fact of, you know, what they had in the

department store about the Christmas sticker.

If you think about it, even though Charlie Brown

Christmas was against commercialism of a holiday,

look at the Peanuts name. Look at Charles. He

is one of the most commercialized people ever,

him and his creations. Look how much Peanuts

stuff is out there. CDs, DVDs, T -shirts, lunch

boxes. I mean, there's so much peanut stuff out

there. Yeah. I have no problem with the message

against the commercialization of Christmas. Obviously,

I feel strongly about the true meaning of Christmas

and all that. But my problem is with people that

complain about department stores putting up their

decorations too early. And this probably just

comes because I've worked at a Target for a decade.

But they've got to realize that Chris doors are

gonna put up what sells so if you're complaining

that they're putting it up too early if you do

weren't buying it they wouldn't put it up so

early and There's nothing really else to fill

that gap after back to school you go back to

school And then you have you know yours or I

mean Halloween excuse me you go back school And

you go into Halloween decorations and after that

what are you gonna? Do there's Thanksgiving stuff

doesn't sell that much so you got to put your

Christmas stuff up right? But what it said in

the in the special though because Easter at the

time Easter happens in April. And what it says

is the fact that the mall department store had

its Christmas display up in the middle of April.

Now I can see putting Halloween and Thanksgiving

and Christmas decorations up before those holidays.

In a rare moment of continuity among the Peanuts

animated specials, Sally at one point references

an event that had occurred in a previous holiday

special, namely Linus and her fruitlessly waiting

on a pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin to appear.

This event occurred in the It's the Great Pumpkin,

Charlie Brown. This moment of continuity also

serves to further point out the plot similarities

between Great Pumpkin and Easter Beagle, namely

Lioness being derided for believing and waiting

for the arrival of an unusual holiday -themed

creature that the other characters repeatedly

explain does not exist. But once Snoopy arrives

and does his Easter Beagle gig the characters

seem to believe him after all Now I can see Like

I said before Snoopy is a Beagle that's the kind

of dog he is so I can see the whole Easter Beagle

thing But Snoopy has the great pumpkin. That's

kind of far -fetched Yeah, you know that's for

sure It was written and created by Charles M

Salts directed by Phil Roman It was produced

by Bill Melendez and the executive producer was

Lee Mendelson Okay, I guess we can get into the

actual show All right, go ahead. I'll take over

here. I can I can talk about the actual show

here the specialist set up in several connecting

I'm sorry to interrupt you before you even started

this, but why did I just hear in my head the

Joker saying, and here we go? While most of the

Venus Gang is getting ready for Easter, Linus,

certain it's all a waste of time, futilely tries

convincing everyone that the Easter Beagle will

take care of everything. but his pleas fall on

deaf ears. Only Sally believes him, though she

still has some suspicions after the Halloween

fiasco waiting for the great pumpkin. Peppermint

Patty and Marcy attempt to color eggs, but as

it's Marcy's first time, she doesn't know how

to prepare the eggs properly and apparently does

not have a brain cell in her head. Marcy's first

attempt fails as she fries the eggs on a griddle

and flips them with a spatula. In their second

attempt, Marcy tries cooking four eggs on a waffle

iron. Then she unsuccessfully tries to put one

in a toaster. We're not done. Then she tries

roasting the remaining seven eggs in the oven.

And in their final attempt, Patty tells Marcy

the eggs must be boiled. Marcy breaks the eggs

into a pot of boiling water, inadvertently making

egg soup. Each attempt ends with Peppermint Patty

doing a huge ear piercing, blood curdling, glass

shattering scream and usually with them going

back to the store to get more eggs. Woodstock

waking up shivering from a chilly spring rain

in his open -air bird's nest goes to Snoopy for

help. So Snoopy goes to the department store

and out of the kindness of his heart buys Woodstock

a birdhouse. At first Woodstock hates it. But

after Snoopy basically bashes him over the head

with it so he's inside it, he renovates the interior

into a quintessential 1970s pad, complete with

a television artwork, a sunken bed. and carpeting

and a quadrophonic stereo system, folks. You're

curious to see the inside. Snoopy accidentally

smashes the house to pieces when his snout gets

stuck in the entry hole. So he goes back to the

department store, Macy's nonetheless, a little

commercialization there for you, to buy another

house for his feathered friends. So you have

multiple times where these characters are going

back. to the mall, unfortunately. Lucy, unwaveringly

believing that Easter is the gift -getting season,

much to Schroeder's chagrin, Schroeder, by the

way, is probably the best character in Phoenix

history, decides to have her own, besides Snoopy,

decides to have her own Easter egg hunt, hiding

each egg she paints to find them all on Easter

morning. Honda melts to her, Snoopy follows behind

her and takes the eggs. That's funny. Good job,

Snoopy. And that is apparently in the last ten

minutes because I did not see that. Easter morning

arrives and so does the Easter Beagle another

part that I didn't see tossing eggs to everyone

even tossing one into Woodstock's new birdhouse

Unfortunately, he runs out of eggs by the time

he gets to Charlie Brown, of course and responds

with an embarrassed smile Doesn't take long for

Lucy to realize that the Easter Beagle gave her

one of her own eggs and ten weeks later Lucy

is still brooding about it So Linus suggests

she go and talk about it with Snoopy. She goes

out to Snoopy's doghouse to pick a fight, but

Snoopy takes the fight out of her with a disarming

kiss on the cheek. Besides that kiss part, I

will say that the last 10 minutes does sound

like it could possibly be better than the first

20 minutes. The whole Easter egg hunt with Snoopy

following and then him passing out the eggs and

not having one for Charlie Brown and then...

You know, Lucy having a fit. That actually sounds

like there's actual stuff happening, but since

we just talked about the plot before I let you

give your thoughts on the plot, my main problem

is for the first 20 minutes, all you have them

doing is going to the mall, walking around, and

then walking back, and then going back to the

mall, and then walking around, and it just seems

like they are going nowhere and nothing is happening

for the first half of their special. Yeah, but

okay, but you gotta admit though. When Marcy

was doing her ditzy brunette thing, that was

funny. That part actually drove me nuts. Really?

I don't know why, it just drove me nuts. It's

not like some of their other gags. When they

have some of their other humor things, like when

they had Snoopy and Woodstock, or Snoopy doing

the theater and he was, you know, all the people

in the theater, the ticket taker and the performance,

all that stuff. And when you've had some of the

other things, like with the food at Thanksgiving,

those things were funny to me. The fact that

this idiot, I mean this isn't just being a dumb

blonde, she tried to put an egg in a fricking

toaster. I just wanted to reach through the screen.

I felt like Peppermint Patty did. I was like,

you've got to be freaking kidding me. You're

an idiot. I don't know. I did not like it because

nobody is that dumb, are they? I don't know.

There are a lot of dumb people in this world.

Nobody says, I want to make some Easter eggs,

and then breaks the egg on purpose. Well, you

know and I'm not trying to I'm not trying to

discount your opinion But she did say that it

was her first time and she had never done it

before so But you know what the finished product

looks like it looks like an intact egg. Yeah

I don't know. I maybe I just do better. My favorite

parts of the peanut specials are when Usually

Schroeder on occasion Linus is giving an actual

Somewhat of a deep not deep necessarily, but

a good moral lesson like when Schroeder does

to Lucy most of the time. I like those moments

and I like the moments when Snoopy and sometimes

Woodstock are doing funny gags, stuff like that.

I think this was an attempt to do funny stuff

with other characters and to me it just kind

of fell flat. I mean, I understand why a lot

of people would find it funny, but it was too

stupid to me. Or it got stupid for me, and I

hate to say this. The dancing rabbits with Snoopy.

That was stupid also. I had to fast forward that

because I couldn't watch it. I just think even

the mall scene to me could have been done better.

The mall scene they could have done a lot of

stuff. Basically they had a lot of recycled footage

it seemed like and recycled backgrounds just

being used over and over again. I mean even when

they did the whole escalator thing to me the

whole mall scene just should have been better.

I hadn't seen this in a number of years. I don't

even think I watched it when I first bought the

DVD. I predicted the escalator thing as soon

as I saw they were going up and he was going

down. I knew that gag was going to happen. I

just think when you're doing something at a mall,

you have unlimited opportunities to make all

kinds of funny stuff. boring stuff to me. I don't

know. Yeah. I'm gonna have to watch the last

10 minutes I guess because it sounds like it

could have been better because it sounds like

a burning Snoopy and it gives him some funny

skits and stuff like that. Yeah. I don't know.

So going into the music segment, the music was

composed and performed by Vince Garaldi and the

music supervisor was John Scott Trotter. There

really isn't too much else we can say about Vince

Garaldi's scores because they're just really

great. uh... in most of the other ones i i don't

really i don't really have an opinion either

way about this one as far as his music but like

the the halloween one of the face like all the

major major uh... when once they did work was

very very good uh... i remember those all of

those because i just remember playing on in school

over and over again we have like a i don't know

what it was it was like a super score of all

the peanut stuff thrown together I don't know

why, but our band instructor just loved it, so

we had to play it to death. I'll always remember

the music, but it is good music. Yes. Moving

into the legacy segment. For television, the

program's rights are held by ABC Television,

where it runs annually. It ran annually on ABC

from 2000 up to April 11, 2006. In 2007, the

network, without any explanation, did not air

the program, but it returned on March 18, 2008,

as filler programming against American Idol.

Oh, God. What the hell, ABC? The TV special was

watched by 6 .32 million viewers and received

a 3 .8 out of 6 household rating and 1 .9 out

of 5 in the 18 to 49 rating in 4th place behind

Idol, NCIS, and The Biggest Loser. In 5th place

was Spanish language Univision. is counted wow

in 2009 the show improved in ratings with similar

time slot but still remained in fourth place

um but it's not very good shut up in the dvd

release department it was released to dvd twice

first on march fourth 2003 by paramount home

entertainment and again on february 15 2008 on

a remastered deluxe edition dvd for more home

video It also came out in the UK for Firefly

Entertainment in 2004 with Life is a Circus Charlie

Brown. I do need to mention that on the DVD it

does have the special features of another story

featuring the gang, it's our birthday Charlie

Brown and of course the all new feature in Full

Bloom, Peanuts at Easter. Which holiday haven't

they done? That's a question. Yeah, I don't know.

I'd have to look it up. Have they done Casimir

Pulaski day? Just curious. Oh, god. Oh, jeez.

All right. Okay, I'm gonna go first with my final

thoughts because we all know that your final

thoughts are on this one. I like it because of

the fact that it is another classic holiday Easter

or holiday peanut special I will fully admit

that it is not the best peanut special ever but

it but by no means is it the worst it does have

some good comedy bits with Snoopy and Woodstock

it does have that continuity between Great Pumpkin

in this I don't know Go ahead, bash it. I know

you will, bastard. Okay, so, uh, Easter Beagle,

it may not be the worst peanut special in history,

but it is the worst one I have ever seen. Um,

I, I don't know, I would watch all the other

peanut specials again before I would ever watch

this again. And there's like a thousand of them

out there. I would watch all one thousand of

them and I hate peanuts before I would ever watch

this again. My suggestion is, if somebody has

never seen a peanut special before, which that's

probably impossible, but if you've never seen

one, please don't start with this one. Because

if you do, you'll never watch another peanut

special and you will miss out on some good stuff.

You know the Thanksgiving one the pumpkin the

Christmas the Valentine's one They're all quality

peanut specials that you should watch, but don't

watch this one first because you may never watch

those good ones Tooncast is not responsible or

reflect the the opinions of Kevin Thompson on

this podcast But it does of optimus solo and

Professor Bob Thank you for joining us here on

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we will be resuming the Hanover Hour Spotlight.

Woo! What the hell are you going to do when we're

not talking about Hannah Barbera anymore? I'm

just glad we're done with peanuts. Shut up! With

Hong Kong Fooey. Hong Kong Fooey. Sorry. Good

lord. For now, I am DFG1Mike with Optimus Solo.

Saying my words to Optimus Prime, Transform and

Roll Out, and thank you for listening. Until

next time. I'm really sorry. Here it is Easter

morning, and we don't have any colored eggs.

I'm the one who's sorry, sir. I guess I'm not

much of a cook. I've seen this happen on holidays

before. You look forward to being real happy,

and then something happens that spoils it all.

You've done it again, haven't you? I've been

sitting here since dawn waiting for the Easter

Beagle! Where is... Where is he? I don't know

why I always listen to you. I never learn. You

said the Easter Beagle was coming. Well, where

is he? I know why they have holidays. They have

holidays so people can get together and have

fun. So why am I alone? This is going to be the

greatest Easter egg hunt ever! And I'm going

to find them all! Easter Beagle. Some Easter

Beagle.