Purely Joyful Movie!

Better Late Then Never

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I have always been a fan of the Peanuts gang, and my favorites are both Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy. With that said, "Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales" doesn't have a plot but it only contains each plot of their own in five segments; it seems to me that they took five stories that were from the comic strip, and being thrown into a Christmas special. The animation is always good as some of the other Peanuts special; it is also really nice to see some of your favorite characters to be on this special and I really do enjoy for these segments so no need to go into detail about that. Overall, its not the best Christmas special, but its still fun to watch the Peanuts gang. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is definitely the best Christmas special which I will get to that later after I talked about another good Christmas special by the Peanuts gang, and that is "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown." I give "Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales" an 8 out of 10.

This was actually lumped in with the Charlie Brown Christmas though it was way different then the other. This one had a bunch of little tales that all went with Christmas. They were all very cute no matter what though, and I had to smile at most of the small clips. These were made more like the comics where they could probably fit mostly into a 4 panel strip. My favorite part was when Sally gets Santa Clause's name wrong and when she hangs up all her socks for Santa to put presents in.The animation was actually really refreshing since it was made in 2002 but had the same feeling as the old ones though. I love how they didn't end up leaving that main feeling you get when watching them.The voices are as close as anyone could get for the characters but it lost a slight bit of the overall feeling. I don't know but they seem to of lost a little of that flare they had before with the new voices.

I have loads of trouble believing that Charles "Sparky" Schultz signed off on this let ALONE wrote it! For those of us who grew up on Peanuts characters, both the specials and the comic strip, this bears very little resemblance other than the characters look relatively the same. You need look not further than some of the quotations posted on the quotations page for this show.Lucy Van Pelt (to Schroeder): You know why I don't want you to get me anything for Christmas? Because I know you hate me.Lucy Van Pelt (to Linus): You have to give me a Christmas present. It says so in the Bible.In one scene, Sally steals a tree out of another kids yard. When he confronts her and they have words, she calls him "ugly". Then she later returns the tree, dismissing her theft as a "misunderstanding".Please do not "misunderstand" ME here. I realise this is not 1965 any longer. And no, people don't like their icons being messed with. I get that. But the original Christmas special is a classic because it addresses issues we all contend with during the holidays, from commercialism, to greed, to loneliness and disaffection, to matters of spirituality. And it does so in a way that both children and adults can understand. When someone is mean to Charlie Brown, you feel the despair he feels. There are no actual arguments, and other than the term "blockhead" (which I have never heard anyone use even in real life), no one says anything mean. Words like "hate" are never used. No one ever "steals" ANYTHING. And it certainly never perverts the Biblical message.Children (and most adults) parrot what they see on TV. Are these the values that we wish to be teaching our children? That it's okay to steal and then call people names? That, if you don't hate me then you should be buying me something to prove that you don't hate me? I know our values as a society have gone askew, but is THIS the they way we wish to teach our children to behave? Do we not have nearly enough negative images for those who are very impressionable to sink their teeth into? To this I can only say, "OH GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!!!"

I saw this last night on ABC after 1965's Charlie Brown Christmas, so it may be unfair to compare the two, but I will anyway! This special is far from the 1965 classic simply because it really doesn't stand out. The 1965 version tackled issues like commercialization and what Christmas is really all about. This special simply has different segments devoted to different characters (Lucy, Sally, etc) around Christmastime. Don't get me wrong, this special is cute, generates some good laughs (I liked Linus's infatuation with the weird girl that sits behind him), and sticks to the Peanuts formula. It's just not a groundbreaking special, and I doubt it will really ever stand out. It's worth the 30 minutes though, and if you're a Peanuts fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.My IMDb rating: 7/10