Un grandissimo compleanno, Charlie Brown!

Watching this became a chore. The rollerblading scenes go on WAY too long and felt like padding. There's two party scenes that looked identical and were confusing. The plot is tissue-thin and there's nothing deeper about it. At their best, the Peanuts specials were ABOUT something more but this isn't about anything at all. Linus is smitten with a girl who's improbably brilliant and talented, invites her to his birthday party, and suddenly spends an inordinate amount of time fretting that she won't come. I came away from this feeling that those who made it had grown tired of the material and that their hearts weren't in it anymore.

Pay no attention to the one who gushes about how wonderful this is...I have no issue with them liking it but to insult the people who don't shows a serious lack of class and manners.

I agree with the other reviewers. This was an extremely bad Peanuts special.

The first seven minutes was taken up entirely with an entirely wordless montage of Linus roller blading, and then Linus at a party. We then see Sally and Charlie Brown have a brief discussion and then another few wordless minutes of Linus skating and exploring a garden. By now about half the special is over.

It is very boring, there are almost no jokes, and the characterization is not well done.

Stick with the specials done up until the early 80s.

As a lifelong "Peanuts" fan, I'd like to honestly say every "Peanuts" special is an animated classic. Unfortunately, "It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown!" proves I can't. Without being too repetitive of the other reviews, the production quality is poor, the plot is extremely thin, and the music pales in comparison to most other "Peanuts" specials. That it was a straight-to-video release is no surprise. The first third of the program is probably the weakest part, as it does essentially nothing to advance the plot and is actually rather difficult to follow. On a positive note, the voice work is solid, especially the singing, and the gags with Snoopy and Woodstock are amusing. If you're a "Peanuts" completist like me you'll still want to watch it, and fortunately as of this writing you can find "It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown!" on YouTube.

I really did not like this video. The music was corny and the characters did not act like themselves. The sole redeeming feature was that they got a child who could actually sing, to do the bit with the singing. By the way, in case you're wondering (I was), I went and looked it up and the name of that song is "O Mio Babbino Caro" -- it's by Puccini.

You know a special is thoroughly uninteresting when the main premise of Linus waiting for someone special to come to his birthday party doesn't show up until the last few minutes. As off putting as the digital ink & paint look, I can give the crew a pass as this was the first Peanuts special to be handled in that technique. That said, less forgiving is how poorly structured this entire special's story is, and they under utilize the character of Mimi so badly that I wish she appeared in at least half of the special's run time. Too many scenes are spent on birthday nonsense or the characters doing their things.

Mimi's actual singing voice is pretty phenomenal and David Benoit's modern compositions are a lot of fun to jam to, but that's about it. Considering this was one of the very first Peanuts specials to be released straight to home media instead of television, it was probably for the best that we were spared this embarrassment being broadcast to the world.