Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. A mostly by-the-numbers outing with only a few nuggets of genuine warmth. The problem here, compared to the 4th special, for example, is that Charlie only mentions the little red-haired girl once and consequently his goal in the story (getting Cards) comes across as selfish/unsympathetic. Linus has a much better arc here, and the laughs only really come during the puppet show sequence where Snoopy showers audience-member Lucy with various special effects. Some of the scenes are profound and beautiful, but every time we come back to Charlie Brown the air gets sucked out of the episode, just a little. 7/10
Peanuts # 013
