01/10/2011

Michael Berick

There’s nothing like sharing a holiday with the Peanuts gang, from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to A Charlie Brown Christmas, or animated specials celebrating Easter, New Year’s or even Arbor Day.

A Charlie Brown Valentine ***

$14.97, Warner Home Video

There’s nothing like sharing a holiday with the Peanuts gang, from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to A Charlie Brown Christmas, or animated specials celebrating Easter, New Year’s or even Arbor Day. A Charlie Brown Valentine is one of the more recent additions. Initially shown in 2002, it was first Peanuts show done following Charles Schultz’s death. It wasn’t the first Peanuts special, however, to deal with Valentine’s Day. That would be 1975’s Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

While the earlier program was a bittersweet story about Charlie Brown not getting a Valentine’s Day card, in the newer special he tries to find the courage to invite the Little Red Haired Girl to a Valentine dance. Of course, things don’t always go as Charlie Brown hopes, and the episode offers the signature Peanuts mixture of sweet humor, light heartache and Snoopy. The DVD also includes the love-themed Someday You’ll Find Her, Charlie Brown, which originally came out in the ‘80s.

Also out …

• Yo Gabba Gabba: Let’s Visit The Doctor ***, $16.99, Nickelodeon/Paramount Home Video

• Lincoln And Douglass: An American Friendship ***, $14.95, Scholastic

• Open Season 3 **, $28.95, Sony Pictures Animation