A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Gobble Gobble, You Blockhead!

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, except in the case of A Charlie Brown Christmas, not available on Blu-ray. Whether that content is enough to spur fence-sitters to jump on the 4K bandwagon is a separate question. As for the quality of the 4K presentations, please read on.

Kenneth Brown's lively discussion of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving can be found in his review of the 2010 Blu-ray release, a copy of which is included with the 4K disc. Ken's review also covers an additional full-length TV special, Mayflower Voyagers, which was first broadcast in 1988 as the initial episode of an eight-part series presenting the Peanuts rendition of American history; Mayflower was included on the 2010 disc, and it too has received a 4K upgrade. The Peanuts producers have also added something new for this UHD release: a special entitled Play It Again, Charlie Brown, which aired on CBS in 1971. As far as I have been able to determine, this is the first time that Play It Again has been released in high-definition on physical media.

Play It Again is an amusing diversion that doesn't rise to the classic status of Thanksgiving, but it has the novelty appeal of focusing on Schroeder, Peanuts' piano-playing devotee of Beethoven. Indeed, despite the title, Charlie Brown is mostly absent from the episode. The main focus is Schroeder's increasingly frustrated attempts to concentrate on practicing in the face of Lucy's romantic onslaught, assisted by Peppermint Patty. An invitation for Schroeder to play at the upcoming PTA concert is Lucy's weightiest bargaining chip, but her machinations backfire when she learns that the PTA wants a rock concert instead of Beethoven. Despite her best efforts, the object of her affection recedes ever further from her grasp. The special is a clever variation on a recurrent plot from Charles M. Schulz's comic strip, but the notion is too sleight to sustain an entire half hour effectively.

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 Thanksgiving 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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

All three of the Peanuts specials on the UHD of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving 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. Evaluating the 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD in this package presents a familiar challenge when the only source for comparison is a dated Blu-ray. Thanksgiving's Blu-ray version is an older, inferior master encoded with VC-1; a newly remastered Blu-ray derived from the 4K scan would provide a better basis for comparing and contrasting. That being said, there's no question that the UHD offers superior clarity over the earlier Blu-ray. Lines are cleaner, densities are improved, and the film's grain pattern is more finely resolved. The colors aren't necessarily brighter or more intense, but they're more refined, and the improvements in black levels and highlights give the UHD a vibrancy that the Blu-ray lacks. Advances in cleanup software appear to have removed a thin layer of grime that was evident on the Blu-ray, but without compromising image detail, thus allowing the virtues of HDR to shine through. (Thanksgiving, which is the oldest of the three specials, benefits the most.) Again, I can't be certain that a Blu-ray remastered from the same new scan wouldn't display some, or even all, of these same virtues.

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. 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.

(For comparative examples of the Peanuts specials' widescreen reformatting, please see A Charlie Brown Christmas 4K, which is the sole release in the 4K Peanuts: Holiday Collection to receive a Blu-ray remaster.)

[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 Thanksgiving 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Thanksgiving and Mayflower arrive on UHD with the same lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track previously reviewed. Play It Again has also received a lossless 5.1 upgrade, and its sonic character and quality are much the same as Thanksgiving.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving 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 Thanksgiving previously reviewed here.

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

I'm 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. Devoted Peanuts fans may be tempted by the dual aspect ratios and the availability of yet another special (Play It Again, Charlie Brown) in a new and improved version, but I doubt those elements alone will be the tipping point at which they are persuaded to upgrade their systems. (The temptation might be greater if the standard Blu-ray had been remastered, offering many of the UHD disc's advantages to those who haven't taken the 4K leap.) At the moment, these discs strike me as little more than a novelty item. Perhaps their time lies in some future era in which the UHD format has been widely adopted. Until then, buyer's choice.