Es ist doch der Osterbeagle
It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is a TV special based upon the popular comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. It was originally aired on the CBS network in 1974. It was released to DVD on March 4, 2003 by Paramount Home Entertaiment.
The Peanuts gang prepare for Easter, especially Peppermint Patty and Marcie who make three attempts at coloring Easter Eggs, but each time they fail due to Marcie's inexperience. The first time Marcie asks Patty, "Sir, how do we color the eggs after we fry them?"
Woodstock, waking up shivering from an early spring rain in his open air bird's nest, summons Snoopy for help. So Snoopy goes to the department store and buys Woodstock a bird house. At first Woodstock hates it.
On the way to the store, Patty and Marcie meet up with Linus who says coloring eggs is all a waste of time, and that the "Easter Beagle" will take care of everything. But Patty blows the idea off, and instead buys more eggs, which Marcie promptly puts in a waffle iron, toaster (to no avail since the egg does not fit), and oven.
Meanwhile, Woodstock turns the birdhouse into a quintessential 70s "pad", complete with a television, artwork, carpeting and even a quadrophonic stereo system. But Snoopy accidentally smashes the house to pieces when his nose gets stuck in the entry hole, so he goes back to the department store to buy his friend another house.
After spending the last of her money on still more eggs, Patty tells Marcie they need to be boiled, so Marcie makes egg soup by putting in the eggs...without their shells!
Meanwhile, Lucy makes plans to have her own private Easter egg hunt, hiding eggs so she can find them on Easter morning, but after Lucy hides each egg, Snoopy snatches it up into his own basket. Then on Easter morning, as the Easter Beagle, Snoopy passes the eggs out to all the kids: Linus, Sally, Lucy, and even Marcie and Patty (he runs out of eggs by the time he gets to Charlie Brown). It doesn't take long for Lucy to realize that the Easter Beagle gave her her own egg, and ten weeks later she's still brooding about it, so she goes out to Snoopy's doghouse to settle it with a fight, but Snoopy counters Lucy with a disarming kiss on the cheek.
Notable Quotes
Schroeder (to Lucy): What's the matter with you? All you think about is "gimme, gimme, gimme; get, get, get"!
Lucy Van Pelt (to Schroeder): That's called survival, baby.
Peppermint Patty: (walks to the pot) That's funny. (sniffs) It smells like soup. (When she gets there, she looks at the inside of the pot) Aargh! Marcie, you made egg soup! AUGHH!!
Sally Brown: You see, Linus was right! There really is an Easter Beagle.
Lucy Van Pelt: Some Easter Beagle! He gave me my own egg!
Marcie: What do we do with Easter eggs, now that we have them, sir?
Peppermint Patty: We eat them. We put a little salt on them, and we eat them.
Marcie: (takes a salt shaker out of her pocket, shakes the salt on her egg, bites into it, shell and all, then she swallows it) Tastes terrible, sir!
Peppermint Patty: Hey look, It's ol' Snoop.
Lucy Van Pelt (lovingly, after Snoopy kisses her): Ahh, the Easter Beagle.
Peppermint Patty: (whistles while mixing up the colors to paint the eggs with)
Marcie: (goes to a waffle iron, places 4 eggs into it, and closes it, holding onto it. It turns out to be messy. So she goes to the toaster, puts an egg on top and pulls the lever. No avail since the egg does not fit. So she goes to the oven, opens it, puts the whole carton of eggs in, closes the oven and turns it on.)
Peppermint Patty: AAAAAH!
Television
The program most recently aired on ABC Television, from 2000 up to April 11, 2006 [1]. In 2007, the network, without any explanation, did not air the program. It will, however, return on March 18, 2008, as filler programming against American Idol.
Trivia
When Sally asks Linus, "Are you sure? Are you certain?", you can see that a color mistake is on her shoe box.
The song that the music boxes play (and which Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Snoopy dance to) in the second scene in the mall is a classical piece written by Johann Sebastian Bach and entitled "Menuet from the Anna Magdalena Notebook (BWV Anh. 116.)." The song was also used in "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown".
When Snoopy arrives to do his Easter Beagle gig, the music in the background is from the first movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. This marks a rare occasion in the Peanuts specials where Beethoven's music is heard but Schroeder is not playing it.
In one of the most shocking pieces of display ever, the mall department store had its Christmas display up in the middle of April. Creator Charles Schulz likely made a point with this saying that Christmas is too commercialized. One of the many complaints of department stores is that they put up their decorations too early.
One scene was cut from the DVD release and was exclusive to the VHS verson, After Snoopy buys the birdhouse he puts it into a shopping cart and takes off, two adults stare at him and crash into each other and shout at Snoopy, this also happened the second time he brought a replacement for Woodstock.
The program was recorded at San Francisco's Coast Recorders in late 1973-early 1974.
In a rare moment of continuity among the Peanuts animated specials, Sally at one point references an event that had occurred in a previous holiday special, namely Linus and her fruitlessly waiting in a pumpkin patch for The Great Pumpkin to appear. This event occurred in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. This moment of continuity also serves to further point out the plot similarities between ...Great Pumpkin... and ...Easter Beagle..., namely Linus being derided for believing in and waiting for the arrival of an unusual holiday-themed creature that the other characters repeatedly exclaim does not exist (but once Snoopy arrives and does his Easter Beagle gig, the characters seem to believe him after all).