Snoopy, Come Home

Editor’s note : a big thank you to Paramount Home Media Distribution for the promotional copy of this Blu-Ray release of this animated feature classic.

Snoopy, Come Home (Bill Melendez, 1972)

Snoopy travels to see his sick former owner and then feels obliged to return to her permanently.

From the Peanuts’ creator and writer, Charles M. Schulz, Snoopy, Come Home is another great rendition of Schulz’s unique amazing observations of life. One of the only setbacks is the fact that Vince Guaraldi was not the composer of the musical score for Snoopy, Come Home.

As many others, I grew up on watching Charlie Brown films and TV movies when they were aired at my local TV station. So I sure did saw this movie before and it was probably not my favorite one as a child because it is a sad story where Snoopy has to choose between his first and second owner. It is a sob fest of goodbyes and the premature characters of Charlie Brown are talking to the inner child of adults more than to actual child. However, the dialogue between adults and this movie is not quite well achieved and the film at 81 minutes might be too long for its story.

Some things are better in smaller doses and I think that Melendez and Schulz achieved great things with their Charlie Brown specials that are now pop culture classics that runs at twenty plus minutes. It reminds me how Rowan Atkinson’s Bean were so much better in half hour episodes more than his feature films. Back to the Melendez feature it is not a total waste of your time but it feels like a film that is looking for its niche.

The Blu-Ray copy I got for review is slick and despite the modest animation, it was 1972, it makes a decent projection on my LED TV. I don’t think that beyond 1080p Snoopy, Come Home could look better than this. It could be your definitive copy of this film if you are like me, a nostalgic of your childhood memories. When my daughter will grow older, I’ll definitely show this to her but at two years old she just wouldn’t really connect with it.