Michael Dockery

Your favorite Peanuts stories come to life in this animated television series. With short sketches featuring these classic and much-loved characters, it's easy to, as the opening song suggests, “have a party with Charlie Brown and Snoopy.”

Linus has to break devastating news, his father has a new job and has to relocate his family. Charlie Brown and the gang make their goodbyes and prepare for Linus and Lucy's departure.

This hour-long anthology presents six animated shorts. "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz appears on camera to introduce these adaptations of some of his favorite strips, which include Charlie Brown spending two unexpectedly pleasant weeks at summer camp; Peppermint Patty and Marcie taking jobs as golf caddies, with disastrous results; and Lucy trying to cure Linus' dependence on his security blanket.

The Peanuts gang perform the classic Broadway musical. In addition to the classic songs, we see Charlie Brown and his friends perform the various comedy sketches of the play.

As they begin their journey home from their student exchange term, Charlie Brown and the gang find themselves sidetracked. They have severe car trouble and more importantly, they pass by various monuments to World Wars I & II. With Linus guiding them through these memorials, they learn about the events of the wars and the sacrifices required of the troops who fought them.

It's Three Strikes, Charlie Brown is from the later phases of the Peanuts TV-special saga. Instead of concentrating on a single story (a la A Charlie Brown Christmas), this half-hour animated effort offers eight separate anecdotes. All are derived from continuities originally presented in Charles Schultz' Peanuts comic strip, and all were first telecast on the Saturday morning TV series The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show. And, re the blanket title, all are unified by a central "baseball" theme. The best sequence in It's Three Strikes, Charlie Brown finds the canine Snoopy assuming a managerial post on the opposing team.