My husband and I rented It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown from our local library. On the “B” side of that DVD was a Peanuts special we’d never seen before – It’s Magic, Charlie Brown. Though the wiki article doesn’t mention it, I can’t help but wonder if Doug Henning’s magic shows were an inspiration, since he had some televised TV specials at the time. Charles Schulz was nothing if not a pop culture “sponge,” after all…

Canadian magician/illusionist Doug Henning, who died in 2000.

The basic gist of the plot is Snoopy – using the very awesome stage name “The Great Houndini” –  puts on a magic show for all of the Peanuts gang – with Marcie and Sally serving as his assistants. After having seen a good majority of his magic acts wind up falling flat or otherwise being disappointing, the kids kind of start to get a little rowdy and demand their money back.

Snoopy pulls a “rabbit” – aka Woodstock – out of a hat.

That is, until Snoopy unveils his denouement – causing a volunteer to disappear. Lucy (after having been roughed up by one of Snoopy’s past levitating magic acts) says that Charlie Brown should volunteer for this one, so he does…

And wouldn’t you know it? [WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD] The trick actually works! Snoopy manages to make Charlie Brown disappear. And then it starts to rain, so the show’s over, and the audience scatters.

And poor old Charlie Brown’s life is turned upside-down! He can’t see his own feet, so he stumbles on the stairs. But – life goes on, and he has to feed his dog. It’s kind of cute seeing the dog bowl with food floating around in the air! But Charlie Brown doesn’t just want to feed Snoopy – he demands that he make him visible again! Which Snoopy tries to do, without success – at least at first. He tries covering him with mud and soap bubbles, and ultimately, a silly ghost outfit.

Snoopy puts a ghost costume on Charlie Brown in one of his first attempts to make him visible – which scares his little sister Sally!

There is one way Charlie Brown has a bit of fun being invisible, or as he puts it – walking the Earth as a “lost soul.” And that is the old place-kicking football game with Lucy. While invisible, he manages to kick the football (yes you read that right). This taunts poor Lucy, who can hear Charlie Brown, but can’t see him. She is determined to get to the bottom of this! Her brother Linus tells her that nobody has seen Charlie Brown since Snoopy made him invisible in the magic show.

So Lucy does what Lucy does best – tells Snoopy to make Charlie Brown visible again – or she’ll “pound him.” She gives him the magic book to help him out.

Snoopy puts on his wizard hat, and adjourns to his basement. Does anyone else think it’s totally awesome how big his dog house is on the inside? He actually has a full laboratory  down there, and he starts to work…

This laboratory is in Snoopy’s dog house.

Snoopy thinks he’s come up with the right potion to reverse the spell, so he goes out to find Charlie Brown, whom is still torturing Lucy by kicking the football (oh the humanity)…And he uses some kind of hand motions accompanied by weird pulsating sounds to work his magicks on Charlie Brown.

Snoopy reversing the invisibility spell on Charlie Brown

Charlie Brown is made visible again – right when he’s in mid-kick, so Lucy manages to see him coming, and (wait for it…) pull the football away like the self-righteous bitch that she is. Charlie Brown tells her that he’s managed to kick the ball many, many times – but she says she doesn’t believe him – and nobody else will, either. Later on, Snoopy casts a final spell that kind of teaches Lucy a bit of a lesson, but you’ll have to watch this to see how THIS shakes out!

In conclusion, this was really, really cute! It would be great to watch with kids, and adults will probably like it, too. THIS adult enjoyed it! Try to track this one down!

One additional note…it just didn’t seem the same watching an old Peanuts special without being coerced into buying a Dolly Madison treat! The pies were SO good – and those “zinger” things (nostalgic drool). Sadly, this line of tasty goodies was liquidated by Hostess in 2012 – but for us Gen-X and Baby Boomers, Dolly Madison will live forever in our hearts and minds because of its association with the old Peanuts specials. Here’s a little food porn for ya, and also a link to one of the old TV ads…