Customer Reviews

It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

...if he could possibly see this movie!

I am a life-long Peanuts fan, and I I heard that a new Film does come out (I am from Germany) I just had to get it!!!

In all the years the animated Characters looked more and more similar to the Comic strip. But this film could have been done better by myself!!! The Characters dont look like themselfes. The Lip-Synch isnt given. AND the Characters are all drawn and colored on the Computer, wich doesnt fit at all to the old epidsodes. All Characters in the Film that doesnt belong to the Peanuts gang itself, look like a crossover between the Peanuts and Garfield.

The Retrospective with Mr.Schulz is just the 30Year Charlie Brown Special, with some additionalcomments. (Althoug i never seen the the DVD before I had known every word. Because I have the Special in German on Video.)

Collectors like me got it already.

But anyone else... ...please dont buy!

David Malambre, Germany

(excuse my bad english)

Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marci, Sally, Snoopy, Woodstock and all the rest of the gang, are as apart of our culture as anything else I can think of. Anybody who says they hate PEANUTS is out of their freakin' minds, I say.

All except when it comes to this particular video, IT'S THE PIED PIPER, CHARLIE BROWN. They can trash it like ISHTAR for all I care. Heck, I'd join in with 'em!

Why do I express such disgust over this short, you say? Well, for one simple reason (which other reviewers have commented on as well): Grown-ups are actually SHOWN! And they TALK! This is nothing short of blasphemy in the Charlie Brown universe!! The stories were always based on the kids' point of view, and dealt with childhood problems alone. Fully introducing adults into the picture destroys half the charm of the comics/series! Sure, adults were featured in the miniseries THIS IS AMERICA, CHARLIE BROWN, but since that was a nonfiction documentary series, that's a totally different case.

It saddens me that my 5-year old neighbor says that this is his favorite Charlie Brown video. He will clearly never fully understand and appreciate what PEANUTS is all about, what makes it so special, and why it is unique. Stick with the original classic specials from the 60s/70s, and the 80s TV series. WITH NO GROWN-UPS!!!

This is a little different from the other "Peanuts" specials, as it places Charlie Brown and the gang in the retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

It begins with Charlie Brown telling little sis Sally the story of The Pied Piper. Just like in Hamelin, their town once was overrun with mice. Charlie Brown goes to the mayor's office with a simple solution: make Snoopy the Pied Piper.

Promised a year's supply of dog food for his services, Snoopy (armed with a concertina instead of a pipe) begins to magically lure the mice out of town. But as soon as the mice are gone, the mayor goes back on his promise! So Snoopy plays his concertina once again, magically compelling the mayor and his council to dance out of town to the tune of "Snoopy, the Pied Piper." All's well that ends well.

It's good to see the gang doing something a little different for a change, but though I liked this story, I prefer original Peanuts tales rather then faerytale retellings.

As for this DVD release, there's some good and bad. The good is the bonus feature of a special 11 minute retrospective interview with Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz. The bad is that though Paramount is highly promoting their video release of "Pied Piper" with a chance to win one of 50 original cels from the making of the film, the sweepstakes will not be available with the DVD release. Ah well. Diehard fans will buy both I'm sure....

I'm thankful that I took this loser of a cartoon out of the library instead of purchasing it. This is the worst Charlie Brown film ever made and the folks involved in its creation should be ashamed. Charles Schulz would not be pleased. First of all, it features adults! Charlie Brown is supposed to be a kids-only universe, where adults are not even audible, let alone seen. The grown-up animation looks nothing like the peanuts - it's as though modern animation had been cut and pasted into the show. The story line is stupid, there is no existential angst to be found, and Charlie Brown SMILES all throughout. AAAAAGH!
If you love Peanuts, don't see this one - it'll break your heart.

This is a pretty cute story, but I'd have to agree with some of the previous reviewers that it could've been done much better.

Snoopy is the star of this story (playing an accordian instead of a flute), while most of the Peanuts gang (save Charlie and Sally Brown) are reduced to mere cameos. The music is done by David Benoit, who proves to have talent and included some of Vince Guaraldi's original standards in the soundtrack (though I still miss Guaraldi). I'll have to agree that the adults look nothing like Charles Schulz's style. At least in the This Is America Charlie Brown series, the adult characters looked like something Schulz would have drawn. They fit into the story well and didn't dominate the way the townspeople did here in Pied Piper (not to mention those mice, who are in more scenes than Snoopy).

And what's with the 8 minutes worth of advertisements at the beginning of the video?! This is, after all, only a half hour presentation.

The best thing about this video is the interview with the late Charles Schulz (which is why I gave this video 3 stars). It serves as a memory as to why we love Peanuts.

If you're a collector, you'll probably want this in your collection. If you're not a collector, save your money.

As much as I hate to admit it, I must rate the new Peanuts video as being "for collectors only". On one hand, it's interesting, (for a while, anyway), to see the gang re-interpreting a classic story, but the novelty soon wears thin. The fault lies mostly, I think, with the team of animators. Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson are once again at the helm of this production, but the animation looks nothing like the classic specials that preceded this one. Much of it has that "no frills" Saturday-morning-cartoon look that the other Peanuts specials managed to avoid. Look closely at some of the drawings, and you'll notice that the animators just did not do a good job of copying Schulz's art work; the characters just don't look like themselves. There are also far too many long stretches where nothing happens. For instance, in the opening sequence before the title credits run, Snoopy appears on top of his doghouse, playing his accordion.....and playing.....and playing.......and playing......with what looks to be the same few frames of animation used over and over. This also happens in a later scene when Schroeder is shown playing his piano........and playing......and playing......and playing........... The same idea is repeated near the end of the video when the "Mayor" and his cohorts are shown singing "barbershop quartet" style, and they keep singing........and singing......well, you get the idea. Suffice it to say, this one is not plot driven. On the "plus" side, David Benoit does a great job (as always) with Vince Guaraldi's original scores, and the 10 minute retrospective with Charles Schulz after the cartoon, makes the tape worth having. If you're like me, and a die-hard fan of anything Charles Schulz did, you'll have to own it, but you'll still find yourself wishing the entire production was just a little bit better.

This is the poorest excuse for a Charlie Brown cartoon I've ever seen. The animation is cheap, and it's packed with pointless padding designed to fill out 23 1/2 minutes. Toddlers won't care, of course, but anybody who feels affection for classic Peanuts will hate this shoddy direct-to-video program.

I'm a long time fan of Peanuts since my childhood and was very sadden with Schulz's death. I was excited with Schulz's very last video, but very disappointed as the style of his drawings are not the same. Schulz NEVER put adults in his comic strips or his videos which they appear with "honky" voices. I think Schulz probably died before he'd actually finished the drawings himself and someone else continued to finish the video by adding adults. "It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown" is such a dissappointment with adults. It's just not the same style drawings and having adults is a appalling. I would not recommend this video to others.

Very disappointed. Like a fool, I bought it because I saw the words "Peanuts Classic" on the front of the case. Had I flipped it over I would have noticed it was copyrighted in the year 2000. I had thought it was an older video that I simply missed. Snoopy and the gang are hardly in the video. If you enjoy watching mice Riverdancing and squaredancing, and like the old "corrupt Mayor" routine, then you will enjoy this video. The only thing that remotely made this worth some of the purchase was the Charles Schulz interview on the DVD. That was interesting. However, I still recommend not purchasing this at list price.

Awful! Stick to the older original cartoons. This is just terrible.