NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.
NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the special I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.
NOTE #3: If you like this special, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.
Who wants to talk about another Peanuts TV special? I do!
By the 1980s, the folks making these Charlie Brown specials probably realized that they'd run out of holidays. There was a Christmas special, a Halloween special, a Thanksgiving special, an Easter special, even an Arbor Day special. And presumably, they realized that folks would think A Charlie Brown Cinco De Mayo was a dumb idea... actually, what WOULD that special be like? Would Snoopy have some sort of stereotypical Mexican alter ego? In what way would Charlie Brown get put the wringer?
Well, anyhow, before they started recycling holidays (I personally like It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown and I Want a Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown, but I know I'm probably in the minority), the folks making these specials started whipping up specials with plotlines that probably would've worked better for episodes of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show than full-length specials. Though, to be fair, they were doing this as far back as 1974 - It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown isn't anything to write home about.
Long story short, at one point somebody asked, "What if Snoopy decided to join the circus?" and that's how we got Life is a Circus, Charlie Brown. This is one of those specials that you rarely see people talk about. Airing on CBS on October 24th, 1980, the only truly noteworthy things about it are that A) it won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program and B) it introduced a character named Fifi, who would appear again years later in The Peanuts Movie. Oh, and it was one of the first Peanuts specials to be released on VHS.
I have never seen this special before. As a rule of thumb, if it never aired on TV at any point in the 2000s, chances are it's a Peanuts special that I've never seen (unless it was included as a bonus feature on the DVD of one of the holiday specials, like It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown was). But what luck, it's on Apple TV, so I can watch it now and do a review of it. Is Life is a Circus, Charlie Brown good? Let's find out, shall we?
