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Note that this is an old review of the out-of-print Paramount Home Video DVD release of It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, retained for historical purposes. This review does not describe the new, 2008 Warner Home Video release It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown Deluxe Edition DVD, which has improved video and a short behind-the-scenes documentary.

Hot on the heels of January's "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown" DVD release, on March 4, 2003 Paramount released their next Peanuts DVD, "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown." In addition to the titular springtime favorite, the DVD also includes "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown" as a "bonus episode." Unfortunately only two specials are on this DVD, instead of three as with the January release.

If you've seen the other Paramount Peanuts DVDs, you won't be surprised by the "Easter Beagle" release. It's pretty similar: generally good picture and sound quality, and zero extras. While some flaws in the source material make this DVD not quite as nice as the other Peanuts DVDs, it's still an improvement over the videotape releases.

The 1974 show "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" has three storylines: Peppermint Patty trying to teach Marcie how to color Easter eggs; Linus attempting to convince his friends that eggs will be provided by "the Easter Beagle," although the gang is suspicious, given Linus' track record; and Snoopy helping improve Woodstock's housing situation. "It's the Easter Beagle" is full of funny scenes, cute little touches, and a groovy score by Vince Guaraldi... it's one of my favorite Peanuts specials, so needless to say I'm glad to have it on DVD.

"It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown," from 1976, continues the spring theme of this DVD. In this special, Sally decides to celebrate Arbor Day (by way of researching her school assignment about it) by redoing Charlie Brown's baseball field as a garden, with the rest of the gang's help. The show starts off slowly as it lays the groundwork for the denouement, in which the Arbor Day efforts have unexpected benefits when Peppermint Patty's baseball team comes to play ball, but in the end it's a nice little special, notable also for the animated debut of Rerun Van Pelt.

The two shows are presented in a 4:3 fullscreen aspect ratio, as they were originally broadcast. The DVD's picture quality is pretty good, although I have some minor complaints. But before I continue, let me say that I may be nitpicking: probably most people wouldn't notice these problems and can just sit back and enjoy the shows, but I have a high quality display and tend to over-analyze the picture. And these are not really flaws new to the DVD, as the Paramount video releases of these shows exhibit the same problems once you know where to look for them, as Paramount once again used the same masters for the VHS and the DVDs - it's just that due to the lower quality picture of VHS, you're much less likely to notice them on the videotapes (and I hadn't originally).

"It's the Easter Beagle" is the superior presentation - it has bright and strong colors that have been a hallmark of the Peanuts DVD releases, and less flaws. "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown," on the other hand, has a somewhat subdued and drab color palette. For a special that celebrates spring and growing things, it seems odd that the backgrounds are predominantly brown, tan, and olive green. I'm not sure this is even a fault of the master, though; since the gang's shirts and skin tones appear to be the right color, it seems likely this was an artistic choice made by the animators. But nowhere are the colors in "It's Arbor Day" as eye-popping as they are in the other Peanuts DVD releases, so I do wonder a bit if it's not a combination of original intent and mastering. (The "Arbor Day" VHS release has the same subdued palette, although even more so given VHS's limited color fidelity.)

Having only two episodes on the disc means the video is minimally compressed because there was plenty of space to store it, and as a result there are no compression artifacts or color banding visible, which is nice. It also means everything is shown with crystal clarity... and this is where the problems lie, as the clarity of DVD reveals some minor flaws in the source material that were not readily apparent on the videotape. First, in a few instances, indistinct grey smudges appear to follow the characters. I presume these are the result of dirt on the cel overlays containing the character art.

And in both episodes, although more so in "It's Arbor Day," I saw a slight wobbling of the picture in what were supposed to be steady scenes, and often when there was a scene change there was a very brief flicker or jump in the picture. I don't know if these are problems from when the shows were first created (such as the shots not being quite lined up from frame to frame) or if it's a problem that was introduced when the new masters were created by Paramount back in 1992, or indeed how much effort would have been required to fix them for the DVD release, but overall I found them somewhat distracting... hopefully you will find it less so! Again, these problems were extremely brief and overall the pictures quality is good, but I felt they happened often enough that they should be mentioned.

There were no problems with the monaural audio. Like all previous Peanuts DVD releases, it's clear but presented at a low level, so you'll have to crank up the volume to appreciate Vince Guaraldi's music. And as before, extras are nonexistent - no alternate language tracks, only English subtitles, and the only "bonus feature" is the same annoying piece of advertising masquerading as a "Charlotte's Web 2" game that appeared on the "Be My Valentine" DVD.

In the past I've praised the menu design of the Peanuts DVDs for being simple and attractive. On this DVD, while the design of all the buttons being eggs hidden in the grass for the "Easter Beagle" menus is cute, the attempt to recycle the design for "Arbor Day" by turning the eggs into stylized leaves in the grass is less effective. Still, you won't have any trouble finding your way around.

The "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" DVD has a MSRP of $19.99 and should be available for about $15 in stores and on-line, making it slightly cheaper than buying the two individual videotape releases of these specials.

Overall, I recommend picking up the DVD. It's good, but I was a little disappointed that it's not quite up to the high quality of the other Peanuts DVD releases. But the improvements DVD brings to the picture quality outweigh the disadvantages of seeing the flaws in the source, and "It's the Easter Beagle" is a Peanuts special your collection shouldn't be without.

Unfortunately, Paramount says that no other Peanuts DVDs are on the schedule for 2003, so enjoy the "Easter Beagle" and "Be My Valentine" DVDs. Hopefully we won't have to wait two years before the next releases!