Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"It's Magic, Charlie Brown" is another Peanuts cartoon that runs for 24 minutes as they usually do and was made almost 35 years ago. As almost always, this one was nominated for an Emmy and director Phil Roman and writer Charles M. Schulz, who made many Peanuts films, will not have been too sad that they lost the Emmy for this one here as another Peanuts film took home the award. This little short film here is about magic as the title already implies. The first half is basically a magic show, in which Snoopy does everything wrong that he could have done wrong. A girl gets split into 3 parts, Linus' favorite blanket gets cut into little pieces and Charlie Brown becomes invisible. The latter is also the core of the second half of the movie. Charlie plays some pranks in his new state while Snoopy tries his best to make Charlie visible again. The final football scene was a highlight this time. Pretty funny. They did well in going full comedy with this one and not really including emotional aspects with which they have failed occasionally in the past for other Peanuts films. All in all, this is one of the better installments of the series and I recommend it.
Angels_Review
It starts out when Charlie Brown pretty much tells Snoopy to go learn something useful and Snoopy checks out a book on how to perform magic. It makes me laugh a bit that he was able to do some of the harder magic tricks perfectly, and yet the simple ones have problems. All the time, he is looking threw his book in the backstage. Then suddenly, Charlie Brown turns invisible. It makes things interesting since we get to see the scenery pretty nicely. Charlie also gets to actually kick the football though! There are a couple of interesting things that he gets to do that he doesn't normally get to because of the others around him.The title of the book sometimes changes a bit but most everything else is pretty standard fair when it comes to the animation. Beautiful watercolor backgrounds against rather clean characters. Even how they do they show how Charlie Brown is invisible is pretty cool.Voices again seem to be the same as all the other ones. They gave them the right voices to work for the characters.
Shawn Watson
Annoyed at Snoopy for just sleeping all day Charlie Brown gives him a library card and tells him to go educate himself. The book he comes home with is full of magic tricks which he practises live in front a bunch of Chuck's friends. Some of the tricks work, others don't. But once the show is over Chuck is turned invisible as some kind of weird side-effect. Now with the powers of invisibility Chuck's only desire is to kick a football without Lucy yanking it out of the way at the last minute, as she so often does.I think a lot more could have been done with this story. As soon as Charlie Brown goes invisible he orders Snoopy to fix him. Why not have more fun playing jokes on people? There was a lot of potential here but it's mainly wasted. Fun though.
krzykra
A magic show can only mean disaster for poor Charlie Brown and his friends, especially when Snoopy is the magician. This charming special is an exceptionally good one in the long line of Peanuts specials, containing the basic ingredients that make up the Peanuts strips- humor, simplicity, and innocence.Snoopy puts on a magic show for the neighborhood kids, and when he makes Charlie Brown disappear (for real!) he can't figure out how to get him back. But rest assured, Snoopy always finds a way in the end, doesn't he? This show gives us some surprising twists to the ordinary world of Peanuts, including a glimpse (for the first and only time, as far as I know) inside Snoopy's doghouse, Charlie Brown's victory at kicking the football (maybe), and a rare moment of Lucy getting (in my opinion) her well-deserved comeuppance when Snoopy performs a feat of levitation on her and leaves her in a very interesting situation.Great fun is always had with Charlie Brown and the gang. This is definitely one to add to the collection.
AD
