It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is the twelfth animated television special based on the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz. It was the fourth Peanuts TV special to be based around a holiday, following A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown was first broadcast on CBS on April 9, 1974.
Plot
The special opens with Marcie arriving at Peppermint Patty's house to paint eggs for Easter. While Peppermint Patty is not looking as she is busy with mixing the paints, Marcie fries the eggs, thus making it impossible to paint them. Marcie's inability to understand how to make Easter eggs forms a running gag throughout the special. Each time the girl cooks the eggs in a different way and exasperates Peppermint Patty. On the second attempt, Marcie waffle-presses four eggs, unsuccessfully tries to toast one (which cannot fit inside a single slot), and roasts it and the remaining seven (while still in the carton) in the oven. On the third and final attempt, when she is asked to boil the eggs, she cracks them into a pot of boiling water and inadvertently makes egg soup.
Woodstock wakes up feeling cold in his nest. Snoopy gets him a birdhouse which Woodstock converts into a luxurious apartment furnished with a television, some artwork, a sunken bed, carpeting, a lounge chair, a vase, lamps, and a quartet-speaker stereo system. When Snoopy tries to look inside, he gets his snout stuck and the birdhouse breaks into pieces, requiring a return trip to the shopping mall to buy a new one.
Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Sally, Linus and Lucy meet Peppermint Patty and Marcie in the street and go to the shopping mall together. The children are shocked to see that, although it is not yet Easter, the department store is already displaying christmas decorations.
Linus insists that it is not necessary to prepare for Easter because the Easter Beagle will do it for them. None of the other children believe him, except for Sally, although she is skeptical at first because she remembers when the Great Pumpkin failed to show up on a previous Halloween.
Lucy prepares for an Easter egg hunt by hiding some painted eggs outside. She is not aware that Snoopy is following her and picking up the eggs.
On Easter morning, Snoopy arrives as the Easter Beagle. He carries a basket of painted eggs and tosses an egg to everybody. However, when he gets to Charlie Brown he finds that he has run out of eggs. Snoopy gives an embarrassed smile and hands the boy his now empty basket.
Lucy realizes that the beagle took her eggs. Ten weeks later she is still grumpy about it and goes to see Snoopy to fight him. However, Snoopy stops the fight before it can start by giving Lucy a kiss on the cheek.
Voice cast
- Todd Barbee – Charlie Brown
- Stephen Shea – Linus van Pelt
- Melanie Kohn – Lucy van Pelt
- Lynn Mortensen – Sally Brown
- Greg Felton – Schroeder
- Linda Ercoli – Peppermint Patty
- Jimmy Ahrens – Marcie
- Bill Melendez – Snoopy/Woodstock
Notes
- Charles Schulz once said in an interview that the bunnies Snoopy dances with are none other than the Bunny Wunnys from Snoopy's favorite storybooks.
- This special was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Special (as was Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown). The award went to Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus, which was directed by Bill Melendez.
- The song from the music box scene is "Minuet in G Major (BWV Anh. 116)" by Johann Sebastian Bach.
- The song in the egg distributing scene is Symphony No.7 in A Major, Op. 92 by Ludwig van Beethoven.
- This is one of a few times Snoopy speaks in a Peanuts special; he happily shouts "Hey!" when he approaches the Bunny Wunnys in his dream.
Goofs
- All of the furniture inside of the Woodstock's birdhouse disappears after the house is destroyed.
- When the Peanuts Gang goes to the shopping mall, and sees all of the Christmas decorations, Lucy says to Linus, "I told you. It's the gift-getting season." She did say this earlier in this special, but when she was talking to Schroeder, not Linus.
- After Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie were having fun dancing to the music, the music box with the angel blowing his horn on the left has disappeared.
- When Snoopy shouts "Hey!" while approaching the Bunny Wunnys in his dream, his mouth does not move.
External links
- It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown on the Internet Movie Database.
- It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown on the Big Cartoon Database.
- It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown on AllMovie.
