Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

A Charlie Brown Christmas 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Holiday A(AUGH!)ngst

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 22, 2017

In a review several months ago, I questioned Warner Brothers' 4K strategy, particularly its decision to release animation UHDs where the source material didn't appear to allow for any meaningful upgrade. Having now viewed the three Peanuts specials that are being released both in single editions and collectively as the Peanuts: Holiday Collection (in fact, it's really nine specials, but we'll get to that in a moment), I can't say that my doubts have been assuaged. It's apparent, however, that Peanuts Worldwide LLC, which owns these independently produced TV presentations, has made a serious attempt to supply 4K fans with something not only improved but also new. Each of the three Holiday Collection UHDs contains content not found on the previous Blu-ray editions and, in the case of A Charlie Brown Christmas, Peanuts Worldwide has done it right. They've provided all the new content on a remastered Blu-ray accompanying the UHD disc, so that 4K fence-sitters can enjoy the new content now, while future-proofing their collection. Had the same been done with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown—both of which have only a reprint of the original Blu-rays released in 2010—all three of these Peanuts 4K sets would merit a recommendation. As things stand, only Christmas is positioned to appeal both to fans who have already upgraded their hardware to 4K and to those who are sticking with standard Blu-ray.

Kenneth Brown's engaging discussion of A Charlie Brown Christmas can be found in his review of the 2009 Blu-ray release. Ken's review also noted the inclusion of an additional full-length TV special, It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, which CBS broadcast in 1992 and which has also received a 4K upgrade. Just as on their other holiday UHD remasters, the Peanuts producers have added something new: the musical parody, It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown, which first aired on CBS in 1984. As far as I have been able to determine, this is the first time that Flashbeagle has been released in high-definition on physical media.

As the title suggests, Charles M. Schulz wrote Flashbeagle as a parody of then-popular dance movies like Flashdance and Footloose, but it could just as easily have been called Saturday Night Beagle. Its single best sequence is an extended number in which Snoopy, wearing leg warmers, takes over an illuminated disco dance floor reminiscent of the Brooklyn club where John Travolta once reigned supreme. En route to that experience, we are treated to Lucy's musical version of Simon Says ("Lucy Says"), Peppermint Patty's exercise class ("I'm in Shape"), a square dance called by Pig-Pen ("Pig-Pen Hoedown") and several other musical interludes. The songs aren't especially catchy or memorable, but they allow familiar characters to be presented from a new perspective.

All three specials are offered in a choice of two formats: "widescreen"(at 1.78:1) or "classic", which reproduces the original broadcast format for the 1.33:1 TV screens of NTSC.

A Charlie Brown Christmas 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

(Note: Screenshots accompanying this review have been captured from the remastered standard Blu-ray.)

All three of the Peanuts specials on the UHD of A Charlie Brown Christmas are based on new 4K scans of the hand-drawn animation's original camera negative. The work was performed under the auspices of Peanuts Worldwide LLC, which controls all of the Peanuts animated properties and was the motivating force behind this release, with Warner serving as distributor. For unknown reasons, the 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD of Christmas is the only 4K holiday reissue that Peanuts Worldwide has graced with a new Blu-ray disc—and the comparison is revealing. With the same 4K scan as their shared origin, the Blu-ray and the UHD exhibit equally good levels of sharpness, clarity and detail, and both masters have been expertly cleaned of any dirt, damage or age-related wear. The only real difference between them is the HDR encoding that gives the UHD's image a slightly (but only slightly) enhanced color intensity, which is especially noticeable in Christmas' seasonal theme and decor and in Flashbeagle's flamboyant disco setting. Christmastime Again shows the least difference between the two versions. HDR also provides the UHD with slightly (but only slightly) improved contrast and highlights, enhancing what little sense of depth the original animation has to offer. In short, the UHD is a minor visual upgrade over the Blu-ray, but either disc provides a fine viewing experience.

The decision to offer widescreen versions of all three specials will no doubt alarm some fans, because it exemplifies an unfortunate trend in the creation of HD presentations of material originally framed for 1.33:1 broadcast. (See, e.g., HBO's reformatting of The Wire.) Although I haven't tried to compare every scene, the 1.78:1 presentation of Peanuts appears to be a simple matter of matting the 1.33:1 image at top and bottom, cutting off slightly more above than below. In some scenes (but not consistently), a sliver of additional picture information is visible at the left and right. While it's surprising how effectively these programs translate to widescreen, an occasional shot is obviously too tight, and some scenes lose entire elements from the composition (e.g., the auditorium seats when Linus recites the Gospel from the stage; see screenshots 18 and 19). Regardless of one's attitude toward "modernizing" aspect ratios of television programs (or any other material), the producers of these discs should be commended for including the "classic" versions, which have obviously been prepared with equal care and attention. Traditionalists are free to ignore the widescreen option in favor of the "classic" versions. If you're going to translate NTSC TV into widescreen for home media, this is how it should be done.

Using the Blu-ray as a source, I have accompanied this review with comparative frames of the "widescreen" and "classic" versions of A Charlie Brown Christmas; they appear at screenshots 2 through 21. The same choice of aspect ratios is offered on all nine of the specials included in the 4K Peanuts: Holiday Collection, and these samples are intended to convey a sense of how the reframing was performed. (Screenshots 23 through 31, following the menu image at screenshot 22, are from the "classic" versions of Christmastime Again and Flashbeagle.)

[System calibrated using a Klein K10-A Colorimeter with a custom profile created with a Colorimetry Research CR250 Spectraradiometer, powered by SpectraCal CalMAN 2016 5.7, using the Samsung Reference 2016 UHD HDR Blu-ray test disc authored by Florian Friedrich from AV Top in Munich, Germany. Calibration performed by Kevin Miller of ISFTV.]

A Charlie Brown Christmas 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Peanuts Worldwide cheated with its 2009 Blu-ray of A Charlie Brown Christmas, porting over a bit-starved Dolby Digital 2.0 mix from the special's previous DVD release. Ken Brown's review was appropriately critical. A year later, when A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown were released, they received 5.1 remixes encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, and Christmas has now been given the same upgrade, with comparable results. The audio for Christmas retains its vintage quality, with a front-centered mix and voices that often betray their dubbed character (especially Charlie Brown's), although the dialogue remains clear and well-prioritized. Vince Guraldi's signature jazz score has been allowed the full dynamic range of which the recordings are capable, and its presence is expansive in the surround array. By the time we get to Flashbeagle, with its songs by Ed Bogas and Desirée Goyette (who would go on to score Garfield and Friends), the sound field is more expansive and the fidelity is refined, although the mix still reflects the character of its mono TV origins. Christmastime Again is by far the most sonically impressive of the three specials, with distinct stereo separation in Guraldi's themes (arranged and performed by David Benoit) and a robust dynamic range that feels contemporary.

A Charlie Brown Christmas 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The UHD disc has no extras. The included Blu-ray contains the same 2008 retrospective featurette about A Charlie Brown Christmas previously reviewed here.

A Charlie Brown Christmas 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm still not sure who the audience will be for these 4K Peanuts releases. Early adopters of UHD generally look for discs with a sufficient "wow!" factor to showcase the format to best advantage, and while these discs are certainly well-made, I doubt anyone will be wowed by the image. In the case of A Charlie Brown Christmas, however, at least the accompanying Blu-ray offers the same new content as the UHD, which may be enough of an incentive for devoted Peanuts fans to acquire this set, even if they haven't upgraded their hardware to 4K. The lossless audio represents a quantum leap; the video presentations are improved from the 2009 Blu-ray's image; and the additional special (Flashbeagle) and alternate framing are entirely new content. Recommended (especially at Amazon's current bargain price).