It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown is the 36th prime-timeanimatedTV special based on the comic stripPeanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It originally aired on the CBS network on November 27, 1992. The program is composed of various storylines from the comic strip. It was the first Christmas-themed Peanuts special since the inaugural A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965, though an episode of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show featured a new Christmas vignette in 1985. This was the final "new" Peanuts animated special to air on CBS. The network cancelled all future animated specials in 1990, even though they still aired in re-runs until 2000.
Plot
It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown is composed of several Christmas-themed story lines, all taken directly from the Peanuts comic strip:
Peppermint Patty and Marcie attend a performance of Handel's Messiah. The following day at school, Peppermint Patty writes about the performance. Neither her nor Marcie know Handel's first name, so Peppermint Patty credits the piece to "Joe Handel."
Charlie Brown tries to explain the true meaning of Christmas to Sally, who is convinced that the true meaning of Christmas is getting all you can get while the getting is good when she is writing a letter to Santa, but she tunes them out. She also writes to Mrs. Claus, Mary Christmas.
Sally goes to Linus's house for the meaning of Christmas and complains to Linus about calling birds in "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Linus tells Sally about Albert Schweitzer and how he does not like Christmas presents because he hated to write thank-you notes. Sally asks who Albert Schweitzer was.
Charlie Brown sells his entire comic book collection in order to buy Peggy Jean a nice pair of gloves, only to find that she has already bought a pair.
The kids participate in a Christmas play, where Marcie plays The Virgin Mary, Franklin gets the role of Gabriel, Peppermint Patty reluctantly plays a sheep, and Sally, who has to say the line "Hark!" in the same play to summon a herald angel, inadvertently yells "Hockey stick!". Later, Harold Angel drops by to visit Charlie Brown, looking for Sally.
Rather than having a new musical score composed for It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, jazz composer Vince Guaraldi's musical scores were reused and performed by jazz pianistDavid Benoit. It was the first time Guaraldi's music had been used in a Peanuts special since It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. Benoit previously had scored an episode of This Is America, Charlie Brown.
Release
Broadcast history
It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown was first shown on CBS on November 27, 1992, and was the last Peanuts special to have its television premiere on that network. The show received a 10.0 rating and was watched by about 9.3 million households. The special no longer airs on American television as both CBS and its successor "Peanuts" broadcaster, ABC, abandoned it in favor of other specials. In Canada, YTV still airs it as a standalone special as of 2012.
Home media
A VHS release was made available at Shellgas stations a few months prior to the TV airing, which would make this the first Peanuts special released directly to video. Paramount gave it another video release in 1996, and it was later included as a bonus special on the DVD and Blu-ray of A Charlie Brown Christmas by Warner Home Video, who currently owns the rights to both specials.
