Snoopy's Reunion
Snoopy’s Reunion is a 23 minute Peanuts special that has very
little going for it. Simply put there’s no conflict, and thus the
show is un-engaging and unrewarding. Kids will see Snoopy’s
rarely featured seven brothers and sisters on the cover of this DVD and
want to meet them on screen at once.
Kids will get to see Snoopy’s littermates on screen together for
the first time, but “Snoopy’s Reunion” offers very
little beyond that. Molly, Rover, Andy, Olaf, Marbles, and Belle are a
diverse bunch of beagles, but the script gives them very little
personality and character beyond their looks, and I felt very little
attachment to them. They are almost more like props than characters.
Not even Snoopy’s brother Spike, who already established as a
memorable character in the “Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show”
was given a chance to shine.
Kids familiar with 1972’s “Snoopy Come Home” will
scratch their heads at Snoopy’s re-imagined origin, which has
been altered from “Snoopy Come Home”, in which Charlie
Brown’s parents brought Snoopy for their son after he was bullied
on the playground.
In “Snoopy’s Reunion”, Charlie Brown complains that
his life is incomplete without a dog, so he takes the bus with Linus to
the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm and buys Snoopy for just five Dollars with
change from his piggy bank. Even as a small child, this made little
sense to me, and I was disappointed in the lack of consistency with
“Snoopy Come Home”, which nearly every Peanuts loving kid
will have seen long before “Snoopy’s Reunion”.
“Snoopy’s Reunion” even contains a montage of Snoopy
antics from previous Peanuts animated features, including “Snoopy
Come Home”, so there is no way these animators weren’t
aware of “Snoopy Come Home” while writing and planning this
special.
Snoopy isn’t funny or clever like he usually is, the script of
“Snoopy’s Reunion” renders him nearly as
uninteresting as his brothers and sisters. The Snoopy clan
spends nearly all of their screen playing instrumental country songs,
one of which they perform twice in the short 23 minute running time.
The only regular characters aside from Snoopy are Charlie Brown, Linus,
and Sally, and there’s not an ounce of humor or charm to be found
amongst any of them in this outing. Snoopy’s original owner Lila
from “Snoopy Come Home” makes an appearance, but all her
presence does is siphon time that could have been spent exploring the
new dog characters, who should have been the center of attention.
“Snoopy’s Reunion” could have been fun and
interesting, but instead this “special” is anything but.
Kids will jump at the the chance to see Snoopy’s family for the
first time, but all they’ll get to see is exactly what’s on
the cover of the DVD, Snoopy and his pack-mates playing in a band.
The current "remastered deluxe edition" of the Snoopy's Reunion DVD
includes "It's Flashbeagle Charlie Brown!" as a so called "extra
feature". "Flashbeagle" is a sorely dated and uninteresting montage of
Snoopy and Franklin (why Franklin of all characters? Because he's black
and "hip"?) dancing the night away at the local club. As a child of the
late 80s and early 90s, this reference went straight over my head, and
even as a small child I was left scratching my head wondering what
purpose this half hour program served other than to sell advertising
time on the night it first aired back in 1984.
