Time to look at the next Charlie Brown special. As the title suggests, this one heads into the realm of magic as Snoopy gains supernatural abilities. He was already a dog who could defy the natural order of things and physics, but now he can take it to the next level. He decides to put on a magic show, but in the process he turns Charlie Brown invisible. The kid’s in quite the predicament now and he’ll have to think of something very quickly. Luckily Charlie is among friends..right?

Charlie and Snoopy are really the only characters with big roles this time around. Lucy appears and Charlie quickly takes advantage of his new powers to mess with her and the Football. Lucy doesn’t like this, but she can’t figure out how to stop him so she gives Snoopy some more (violent) incentive to fix what he has done. The animators definitely had fun with Charlie’s facial expressions this time around. When he turns visible again, we see just how intensely Charlie is taking the situation. He looks rather deranged and sinister, but Lucy puts him back in his place. He temporarily got to have his fun though.

As for Snoopy, he takes everything in stride as expected. The fame of being a magician certainly got to his head, but once the show was over, he just forgot about the whole thing. It simply didn’t matter all that much to him anymore. It’s part of Snoopy’s charm. Everything is always over in a flash for him, but it also means that an enemy that he was scared of 5 minutes ago will turn the other in another 5 minutes. Snoopy’s a class act and he is easily the best character in the Peanuts franchise. What would we do without him?

That being said, the friends should definitely realize the dangers of being Snoopy’s volunteers. Their lives will always be put in jeopardy, or at least their appetites from being made very dizzy. I suppose that they handled it decently well though and at the very least they can’t doubt Snoopy’s ability anymore. I was glad that it turned out to be real by the end since I was a little worried for a second there. It was cool to just see him firing the lasers all over the place. Snoopy came a long way from his original skills.

There isn’t much in the way of songs here so the soundtrack is nonexistent. The visuals hold up as well as any other Peanuts special. It may not be anything super amazing, but they’ll do. I do like the art style here and prefer it to most Flash titles and the Lego artstyle. Modern day CGI probably takes the win, but CGI from this period would likely get crushed. Hand drawn is still the way to go and it always feels like a lot of effort was put into it.

If there is anything holding this special back a little, it’s the fact that it gets off to a bit of a silent start. It was cool to see Snoopy checking out a book with his library card, but the adventure didn’t really start until Charlie turned invisible. As a result, I’d say that “She Can Skate Charlie Brown” is a better special as it got right to the point. Still, this is one of the stronger Charlie Brown specials in the end.

Overall, It’s Magic Charlie Brown is a solid special. It may not have been quite as engaging as some of the others, but I do think that Charlie being turned invisible made for a good plot point. It’s always good to see something new in the Peanuts and this made for some original scenarios. Charlie deciding to have his vengeance after so long definitely shows that he has been taking the football gag rather personally all these years so he lets out a lot of steam there. It’s also why he ends up tripping yet again so he really got his just deserts there. I recommend this to all Peanuts fans and as always, it is quite short. It’s not as if you will lose a lot of time while watching this one. Finally, just imagine Snoopy shooting laser blasts. You don’t want to miss this!

Overall 7/10