Snoopy Come Home (1972)

No Dogs Allowed

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Snoopy Come Home on DVD

This 80-minute feature film was released theatrically in 1972. I'm pretty sure I saw it in the theater, but it must have been a few years later, during a revival. (There's no way I would have remembered it otherwise.) Some of the songs -- specifically Snoopy playing the mouth harp -- have stuck with me all my life, and I still remember the sense of overwhelming sadness when Snoopy decides to leave his well-established life with Charlie Brown to live with his former mistress, the hospitalized Lila. Snoopy Come Home is mostly a road movie with Snoopy and his new pal Woodstock (created, obviously, just after the famous 1969 concert) journeying to the city. It occasionally cuts back to Charlie Brown mooning over his lost dog. Though the animation is mainly rudimentary, director Bill Melendez (who helmed all the famous TV specials) takes time out here and there for a deliberately lovely "art shot," i.e. a wide shot with unusual lighting effects. Snoopy Come Home was mostly a nostalgia trip for me, so I can't say how well it will play to new audiences, but I enjoyed looking at it again. Charles Schultz scripted.

DVD Details:Paramount's disc comes with no extras -- not even subtitles.

Starring: (voices) Chad Webber, Robin Kohn, Stephen Shea, David Carey, Johanna Baer, Hilary Momberger, Chris De Faria, Linda Ercoli, Lynda Mendelson, Bill Melendez
Written by: Charles M. Schulz
Directed by: Bill Melendez
MPAA Rating: G
Running Time: 80 minutes
Date: April 11, 2006