How many specials have there been? Over 30? So many good ones to talk about. A couple of my favorites are "You're not Elected, Charlie Brown" and "Charlie Brown's All-Stars"

I find it hard to enjoy the newer ones. I like my Charlie Brown specials with some grain and poor sound quality. Not to say they aren't any good. They just don't feel as much like Charlie Brown as the  60's/70's specials.

I still haven't seen "Happiness is a Warm Blanket" yet.

I think there's more than 30.  I tried to count.  There was apparently a regular TV show in 1985, and there was the "This is America" series.  Not counting those, I came up with 45.

I agree the newer ones feel "off".  They don't seem to have cohesive plots.  They use the comics as the script, but they don't add anything.  It's a poor and slavish transition of formats.  If that makes sense.

The most recent special I have seen is the one where Rerun wants a dog for Christmas.

My three all time favorites...

Until fairly recently, I thought those were the only ones.

There was a special I didn't know about until a few years ago where Linus has a friend with leukemia.

There was on about the Superbowl. I like She's a Great Skate. 

The specials from the 60s and 70s were classics. But it kind of started to jump the shark after "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown". The main problem with the special is not the fact that Charlie Brown gets chewed out for not kicking the ball properly, but the fact that Chuck got his kiss from the little red haired girl. Even Schultz himself hated it as she was supposed to represent the beautiful girl he used to go after as a kid. Someone who was very desirable, but very unattainable, which is exactly what the little red haired girl (named Heather in the special) is supposed to represent. IYFKCB went completely against Schultz's wishes for the character as Chuck was never supposed to have gotten a date with her, let alone a kiss. Now that it did happen, then what's left for the story now?

After that, most of the Peanuts specials that went on through the eighties were a bunch of sell-out crap. Some of them use nonsensical and unrealistic plots like "It's Magic, Charlie Brown" and others are horribly dated. "It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown" is a prime example of one of those dated specials, as the whole thing used a bunch of pop-culture references and fads used at the time. A complete farcry from the timeless comics that the Peanuts were designed for. Don't even get me started on pointless characters, such as Rerun.

blueluigi wrote :

The specials from the 60s and 70s were classics. But it kind of started to jump the shark after "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown". The main problem with the special is not the fact that Charlie Brown gets chewed out for not kicking the ball properly, but the fact that Chuck got his kiss from the little red haired girl. Even Schultz himself hated it as she was supposed to represent the beautiful girl he used to go after as a kid. Someone who was very desirable, but very unattainable, which is exactly what the little red haired girl (named Heather in the special) is supposed to represent. IYFKCB went completely against Schultz's wishes for the character as Chuck was never supposed to have gotten a date with her, let alone a kiss. Now that it did happen, then what's left for the story now?

After that, most of the Peanuts specials that went on through the eighties were a bunch of sell-out crap. Some of them use nonsensical and unrealistic plots like "It's Magic, Charlie Brown" and others are horribly dated. "It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown" is a prime example of one of those dated specials, as the whole thing used a bunch of pop-culture references and fads used at the time. A complete farcry from the timeless comics that the Peanuts were designed for. Don't even get me started on pointless characters, such as Rerun.
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Lucy irritated me the most in "It's Your First Kiss". She makes Charlie miss the kick in a crucial game and he becomes the scapegoat, while Lucy acts innocent. Watching it was unbearable.