It's Magic, Charlie Brown

It's Magic, Charlie Brown
Genre	Animated TV Special
Created by	Charles M. Schulz
Directed by	Phil Roman
Voices of	Sydney Penny Cindi Reilly Earl Reilly Bill Melendez Michael Mandy Shannon Cohn Brent Hauer Casey Carlson
Composers	Ed Bogas Judy Munsen
Country of origin	U.S.
Original language	English
Production
Executive producer	Lee Mendelson
Producer	Bill Melendez
Running time	24:15
Original release
Network	CBS

It's Magic, Charlie Brown is the 21st prime-time animated television special based upon the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It originally aired on April 28, 1981. The special was later released on DVD on September 2, 2008 as a bonus feature on Warner Home Video's remastered deluxe DVD of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Plot summary

Charlie Brown decides that Snoopy needs to educate himself, and gives him his library card to check out a few books. Snoopy decides to take out one book, a book about magic, which after reading, influences him to hold a Vaudeville show (under the stage name "The Great Houndini"). During the opening, Snoopy practices magic with Woodstock by his side. Charlie Brown warns both of them that the cat next door will get upset if he and Woodstock get really loud. However, Snoopy and Woodstock continue to perform more magic tricks and the cat next door angrily rips Snoopy's doghouse apart.

He recruits Marcie as one assistant and announcer, and Sally as his silent assistant. In the show, he pulls a rabbit out of his hat (actually Woodstock with rabbit ears), then does a ring trick that goes wrong. Both of these tricks raise the ire of a bully, but Snoopy shuts him up. He also does the "stick-in-the-hole" trick to Franklin, the "amputation-decapitation" trick to Peppermint Patty, cutting Linus's trademark security blanket into strips (which appears to fail), the levitation trick to Lucy van Pelt, and biggest of all, making Charlie Brown literally disappear.

File:ItsMagicCB TVGuidead.jpg

TV Guide CBS advertisement, April 1981

A sudden rainstorm ends the show early, and Charlie Brown is left invisible. Convinced he is going to remain that way for the rest of his life, he prepares to roam the world as a lost soul, and Sally begins moving her stuff into his room. Before Charlie starts roaming, he decides to feed Snoopy to show him what has happened. When Snoopy realizes he cannot yet reverse the trick, he tries a couple of different ideas to make Charlie Brown somewhat visible again, first by dousing him in soap and water, which fades immediately, then coating him in mud and using a hairdryer to solidify it but this crust soon breaks off as well. Finally Snoopy drapes a sheet over his head and gives him a necktie to fasten it, along with some oversized shoes. Charlie Brown goes inside, which scares Sally and when he looks in the mirror and sees that Snoopy made him a ghost, he faints.

A little while later, Linus tells Lucy that Sally told him that even if you look at Charlie Brown, you don't see him. Lucy frowns and says, "What's that's supposed to mean? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Despite this shortcoming, Charlie Brown realizes he has a golden opportunity to kick Lucy's infamous football without her usual prank of pulling it away at the last second. Taking advantage of his invisibility, Charlie Brown finally kicks the ball out of a bewildered Lucy's hand and then taunts her about it.

Furious over Charlie Brown succeeding in kicking the ball, Lucy (after looking in the magic book and catches sight of directions for the trick to make kids like Charlie Brown disappear) gets the magic book back. She hands it to Snoopy. She accuses Snoopy for making Charlie Brown disappear and says he better make him reappear. Then she threatens him that if he does not make Charlie Brown visible again, she is going to pound him.

After starting out by entering his doghouse lab and working with chemicals so volatile, they explode and start a chain reaction of explosions that chase him out of the house, Snoopy continues to study the book, and tests a number of counterspells on Woodstock (making his feet bigger, then head bigger, then making him disappear, but successfully reversing each spell), he goes about casting his counterspell in all directions, unsure just where Charlie Brown is.

As Snoopy wanders into a vicinity where Lucy is setting up another place-kick, Charlie Brown happens to run by where Snoopy is practicing. Just as he is about to kick the ball again, Snoopy casts the counterspell in Charlie Brown's direction, causing him to unknowingly become visible again. Lucy witnesses his reappearance and pulls the ball away for the eleventh time as Charlie Brown winds up to kick it, then promptly falls on his back.

However, Charlie Brown fails to display embarrassment and says that he finally kicked the ball, though Lucy considers this a false statement, saying no one will believe him. When Charlie Brown tells Lucy that Snoopy will believe him, she scoffs at Snoopy's magic abilities. The insulted beagle magically levitates Lucy into the sky like he levitated her during the magic show earlier, and leaves her stuck there as payback. Snoopy and Charlie Brown laugh and happily dance away to conclude a satisfying day, ignoring Lucy's pleas to get her down.

Linus eventually pulls Lucy down with his blanket during the closing credits. However, Lucy (despite being free) becomes angry and embarrassed about what happened. She gives up and stomps away.

Cast

• Michael Mandy as Charlie Brown
  • Peter Robbins as Charlie Brown screaming (archived)
• Sydney Penny as Lucy van Pelt
• Cindi Reilly as Sally Brown
• Earl Reilly as Linus van Pelt, Franklin
• Brent Hauer as Peppermint Patty
• Shannon Cohn/Casey Carlson as Marcie
• Christopher Donohone as Schroeder
• Bill Melendez as Snoopy, Woodstock

Note

• Production completed at Marvel Productions.

External links

• It's Magic, Charlie Brown at IMDb