I can't believe how many rave reviews there are of this special.
For starters, it doesn't even begin to approach the level of the Christmas and Halloween shows, although that's admittedly a high bar.
But aside from that, to me, this is simply an example of the decline of Peanuts that started in the early 1970s. Too much Snoopy, too much Woodstock (the creation of whom was one of Schulz's worst decisions, IMO), too much Peppermint Patty and Marcie. I'm sure Schulz was trying to come up with new ideas and story lines with those characters, but to me it was more a symptom of his growing creative exhaustion. And in this case, possibly his abdication of creative control over the TV specials, which were mostly cobbled together by other people. Even the music's not as good as in the 1960s shows. This is worth a one-time look as a period piece, but that's about it.
