It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown on ABC  

By Ally Matteodo

The loveable Peanuts Gang was back on ABC, in this Best TV Show of the Week Easter special.  Airing at 8:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, April 7^th, It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown follow Charlie Brown and company as they make preparations for Easter.  Linus refuses to involve himself in the Easter activities since he’s positive the Easter Beagle will be visiting and bring all the necessary accoutrements, but the others are skeptical.  After all, in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Linus convinced Sally to wait with him in the pumpkin patch for “The Great Pumpkin,” another unorthodox holiday figure, only to face disappointment when no one came.  Other subplots include Peppermint Patty and Marcie’s repeated (and disastrous) attempts to color eggs, Snoopy’s campaign to buy Woodstock a better bird house, and Lucy’s Easter egg hunt.  Unbeknownst to Lucy, Snoopy collects her eggs after she deposits them, and on Easter morning he appears and gives everyone an egg…except, of course, for poor Charlie Brown.

There is a lot of delightful humor in this special. During Peppermint Patty’s and Marcie’s futile struggle to make Easter eggs, Marcie fries the eggs and flips them with a spatula.  On her second try, she cooks four eggs with a waffle iron and tries to put them in a toaster.  The last seven she places in the oven.  In her third and final attempt, Patty explicitly directs Marcie to boil them in a pot on the stove.  Marcie breaks the egg into the pot of boiling water, making egg soup. But in addition to providing holiday-based humor, the Peanuts Gang can be very insightful at times.  At one point Peppermint Patty reflects on holidays, and how many times one ends up feeling depressed on what should be a joyous occasion because expectations have been dashed by a small glitch that ruins everything.  The prescription for this is taking stock of what you have, being grateful, and staying flexible.  Charlie Brown ruminates on why we have holidays in the first place, and his answer is that it’s primarily to unite friends and family.  The irony is that Charlie Brown may feel alone in his cartoon, but his winning character and self-deprecating modesty have won him friends the world over.