Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Aim for the football, aim for the football...

Reviewed by Randy Miller III October 15, 2025

Since 1950, Charles Schulz' Peanuts has remained a popular and enduring franchise celebrating the adventures of Charlie Brown and company. This lovable loser, perpetually clad in his trademark yellow and black shirt, has been the centerpiece of a long-running comic strip and appeared in countless animated full-length films and shorter TV specials. Typically, these animated specials were based on sequential Peanuts strips fleshed out to create 25-minute adventures but occasional double-length installments were created as well. Featuring simple yet charming animation, a rotating cast of child voice actors, and original jazz music by Vince Guaraldi (until his death in 1976, though many themes were reused posthumously), Peanuts animated specials have become a staple of American television for decades. 52 have been created in all and 40 of them are brought together for Warner Bros.' long-overdue Ultimate TV Specials Collection, which omits a handful owned by Paramount as well as seven recent specials created for Apple TV+.

Beginning with the 1965 classic A Charlie Brown Christmas and running through 2011's Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, these 40 specials are fairly consistent in tone, quality, and atmosphere, allowing die-hard fans to finally have (almost) everything in one collection and more casual fans to see dozens of deep cuts for the first time. Warner Bros. first took the chorological approach back in 2009 with the multi-disc DVD set The 1960s Collection and followed up with The 1970s Collection, Volumes 1 and 2 a few months later, but sadly discontinued the series due to presumably waning interest. I was happy to own these sets as well as other piecemeal DVD releases, as they often also contained deeper cuts, newly-created featurettes and other supplements highlighting Peanuts' cast, crew, contemporaries, and characters, yet the post-70s specials weren't in order and several of them never saw the light of day.

While this Ultimate TV Specials Collection mostly fixes the latter problem, it omits all of those vintage featurettes and a few nagging A/V issues are present as well. Luckily, seeing some of those deep cut specials for the first time in years -- if not decades -- eases the pain somewhat, but these issues keep this "Ultimate Collection" from truly earning its name. A disc-by-disc breakdown is provided below (since the packaging doesn't provide one, but more on that later), which includes each special's release year and runtime. A cursory glance suggests that they're the full-length versions, not syndicated cuts, but die-hard fans are welcome to check them against previous releases just to be sure.

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DISC ONE starts strongly with two of "the big three" (A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown), but other highlights include the off-kilter He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown (Charlie Brown sends Snoopy back to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm for a much-needed refresher in discipline, but he ends up at Peppermint Patty's instead), girls take on the boys at camp in It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown (seen above), the politically-charged nail-biter You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown (Linus is actually running), and There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown (featuring the debut of Peppermint Patty's pal Marcy, plus Joe Cool's shift at the supermarket).

NOTE: Although "You're in Love, Charlie Brown" appears to run in full unlike most earlier slightly trimmed versions, Charlie Brown's closing remark "Good grief! How will I live until September?" is still missing.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965, 25:31)
Charlie Brown's All Stars! (1966, 25:09)
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966, 25:18)
You're in Love, Charlie Brown (1967 25:24)
He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown (1968, 25:10)
It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown (1969, 25:32)
Play It Again, Charlie Brown (1971, 25:15)
You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown (1972, 25:21)
There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown (1973, 25:04)

DISC TWO finishes up the 1970s shorts beginning with the perennial fall favorite A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, It's a Mystery gives Snoopy and Woodstock more face time (above), there's an arguably better holiday special in It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, more holiday fun with Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown and It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown (which features the last original score by Vince Guaraldi, who died only hours after finishing it), the sports-themed adventures You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown and You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown , the sweet It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, and one of the stranger Peanuts specials in What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown, where Snoopy dreams of a hellish existence as part of the Iditarod sled race after eating way too much pizza.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973, 25:26)
It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown (1974, 25:19)
It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown (1974, 25:17)
Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975, 25:18)
You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown (1975, 25:19)
It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown (1976, 25:15)
It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown (1977, 24:27)
What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown (1978, 24:28)
You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown (1979, 24:32)

DISC THREE and beyond is where lots of new-to-Blu specials can be found and, for casual fans, will be a treasure trove of deep cuts since most were only on DVD as random extras. She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown is unique in that it prominently features Peppermint Patty and Marcy as well as actual adult voices. The Emmy-winning Life Is a Circus is another highlight, as are two double-length specials, A Charlie Brown Celebration and It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown, which both feature a handful of short character-themed vignettes. Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? is another winner, teasing the possible departure of two prominent members of the Peanuts gang. (On the A/V side of things, however, there are a few real signs of trouble here due to source material issues -- see below for more details.)

She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown (1980, 24:28)
Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown (1980, 24:17)
It's Magic, Charlie Brown (1981, 24:24)
Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown (1981, 24:20)
A Charlie Brown Celebration (1982, 48:17)
Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? (1982, 24:23)
It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown (1983, 47:43)

DISC FOUR keeps the deep cuts coming, although it sadly omits the late 1980s specials Snoopy: The Musical as well as the obscure odd live-action/animated hybrid It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown, which is still stuck in VHS purgatory. Nonetheless, there's some solid stuff here including the road trip What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?, late-night disco action in It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (a nostalgic favorite), Snoopy almost getting hitched, more holiday escapades during Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! (above) and It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, the Emmy-nominated tear-jerker Why, Charlie Brown, Why?, and a boatload of beagle relatives in Snoopy's Reunion.

What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? (1983, 23:59)
It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984, 24:24)
Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown (1985, 24:28)
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1985, 48:13)
Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! (1986, 24:25)
Why, Charlie Brown, Why? (1990, 23:47)
Snoopy's Reunion (1991, 23:19)
It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown (1992, 23:04)

DISC FIVE is easily the roughest of the bunch for a number of reasons. Three specials are omitted due to rights issues, the majority of those that remain are upscaled from rough SD sources which are poorly encoded, and most of them were created during that awkward period between the transition of analog to digital. That's not even factoring in the lesser quality of most of the actual specials themselves, which were largely produced after the death of Charles Schulz in 2002. Even so, A Charlie Brown Valentine is pretty fun, the short-form stories of Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales have a few highlights, I Want a Dog for Christmas features another welcome return for Snoopy's brother Spike, and He's a Bully, Charlie Brown somehow keeps the sport of marbles alive in 2006. As for the widescreen Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown (the 45th and final network special before the franchise's movie to Apple+), Kenneth Brown already did a full write-up for that one in his 2011 Blu-ray review over a decade ago.

It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown (1996, 23:07)
A Charlie Brown Valentine (2002, 25:09)
Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales (2002, 17:49)
Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown (2003, 25:33)
I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (2003, 41:16)
He's a Bully, Charlie Brown (2006, 21:40)
Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown (2011, 45:44)

Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: As implied by this review's number of screenshots, there's one for each of these 40 specials.

In a somewhat expected turn of events given Charlie Brown's perpetual string of bad luck, this Ultimate TV Specials Collection turns out to be a somewhat frustrating mixed bag of visual presentations. The good news, though, is that not only are all of these specials presented in their original aspect ratios (all 1.33:1 and 1.37:1, except for the widescreen-produced Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, which looks to be ported from WB's Blu-ray), but the majority of them -- 34 out of 40 -- look good to very good. The best of the bunch retain a visible layer of light film grain, while a few slightly less impressive shorts are noticeably smoother and have obviously been grain-managed and perhaps even contrast-boosted to a certain degree. This majority also exhibits fairly accurate color representation and good to very good encoding, with no major issues that couldn't be chalked up to source material limitations, so for most fans this will translate to a perfectly satisfactory presentation... or at least close enough to earn a pass.

Had the story stopped there, the Ultimate TV Specials Collection would probably be looking at an easy 3.5/5 for visuals or perhaps even earned a courtesy bump into four-star territory. Unfortunately, a few later specials aren't even close to that level, either due to less-than-ideal source material or encoding issues that don't play nice with various standard-def elements. A Charlie Brown Celebration (screenshot 23) and It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown (screenshot 25) -- both found on Disc Three -- are clearly taken from badly faded 16mm elements with visible dirt and debris, washed out colors, and even ringing due to what very much looks like edge enhancement. (These issues are even more confusing given that a much better-looking version of A Charlie Brown Celebration is apparently available on AppleTV+, although I haven't seen it for myself... and apparently there's enough of a backlash that several forum members in this titles official thread have already contacted Warner Home Video requesting a potential replacement disc.)

Disc Five has the worst track record, though, with four of its seven specials upscaled from SD video sources and exhibiting totally different but perhaps worse visual anomalies. It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown (screenshot 34) suffers from heavy aliasing and a jerky framerate that make it borderline unwatchable. Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales (screenshot 36) exhibits the same aliasing as well as ugly interlacing that, for long-time home video enthusiasts, hasn't been seen since the DVD days. Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown (screenshot 37) shows signs of sporadic combing; it's very brief and almost random, sometimes occurring during fades. Finally, I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (screenshot 38) suffers from sporadic combing as well as obvious vertical stretching.

I'm confident that the more careful touch of WB's boutique label Warner Archive would have been able to get around most of these problems, or at the very least been a lot more diligent in the hunt for best-available source materials, because you can bet this same mixed-bag result won't plague WAC's forthcoming release of Tom and Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology. And while this Ultimate TV Specials Collection is far from a total loss, it by no means earns its name in the visual department... and as much as I hate to admit it, the bad news doesn't end there.

Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There's less to say here... not because there aren't any problems, mind you, but because 39 of these 40 DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio tracks (not Dolby Digital, as the packaging says) are relatively pointless remixes of the original mono and stereo. (The lone exception, Happiness is a Warm Blanket, was made with 5.1 in mind.) I've generally disliked these tracks since they were first created for Blu-ray beginning with "the big three", but a shred of good news arrives with the fact that they're not all bad from start to finish. They're just needlessly echoey in spots and the original music, as warm and inviting as it often is, doesn't really need reinforcement and even occasionally tends to slightly overpower some of the dialogue. A few adjustments to your receiver might yield results fairly close to the original experiences, but there's no way that WB's careless efforts in this department should earn anything more than a 3/5 in my book.

Of course, those six compromised specials listed above fare equally as poorly in the audio department as they do in visuals, with the two 16mm-sourced outings (A Charlie Brown Celebration and It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown, both on Disc Three) sounding especially bad with a watery distortion that, like the other upscaled specials, may be inherent to the source material. (The other four are thin with a similarly weak dynamic range, but at least they don't suffer from noticeable distortion.) Long story short: as much as we don't usually expect out of vintage Peanuts specials in the audio department, somehow this Ultimate TV Specials Collection delivers even less than expected.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during all 40 shorts.

Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This five-disc release ships in a multi-hinged keepcase with character-themed artwork and a matching slipcover. A 28-page booklet is also tucked inside the slipcover and actually fits in the case, but it's kind of useless in that a total list of specials is included rather than a disc-by-disc breakdown. (See above for that.) Also featured are quick character bios for the Peanuts gang and very brief descriptions of random specials, but that's it. Not much of an effort.

As for the bonus features? Well, I've got more bad news for you: there are none. There's no new stuff, and no legacy content either. This means that all of those featurettes created for previous Warner Bros. DVD releases are gone, from the mid-length Vince Guaraldi tribute "The Maestro of Menlo Park" to short featurettes highlighting the holiday specials, retrospective friends-and-family interviews, a voice cast reunion, a couple of fun character-based pieces, and other bits and baubles that all helped to celebrate Peanuts' long history. Even the handful of extras created for WB's 2011 Blu-ray edition of Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown are nowhere to be found. Good grief!

Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Warner Bros.' belated Ultimate TV Specials Collection aims to finish what the studio started on DVD 16 years ago, presenting all 40 of the studio-owned specials in one package. With plenty of deep cuts and other adventures making their HD debut, it's a decent effort but nowhere near an "Ultimate" one: not only are a handful of specials sourced from lower-quality upscaled elements and others suffer from sporadic encoding issues, all of them are presented in remixed 5.1 surround rather than original mono and stereo, and all the extras created for previous home video releases have all been left in the past. While it's worth picking up for the new-to-Blu specials (and finally having everything in order), this isn't the 75th Anniversary celebration that Charlie Brown and company deserved. I got a rock.