Do I need the “Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection” Blu-ray booklet?
Written by Matt Long
A review of the booklet included with the Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray disc, which was released as a 75th anniversary edition (from the 1950 debut of the Peanuts comic strip). This low-effort booklet may not be worth looking for if a copy isn’t included (or if you have basic research skills).
The front cover of the booklet for the Peanuts: Ultimate TV Specials Collection Blu-ray, which was released by Warner Bros. in 2025.
Professionalism and production quality
This 28-page high quality booklet with saddle-stitch binding is made up of a gloss paper that holds up well to being handled. Images of the Peanuts gang abound throughout the booklet, and text is mostly very readable, though some of the font size, like in the table contents, could be increased to improve accessibility. There are no obvious spelling or grammar errors.
Score (out of 10): 9
Text-to-image ratio
In a booklet for something Peanuts-related, I’m not going to say that I don’t want images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy. However, the booklet features such little text that it’s difficult to think as positively of the booklet because at that point, it could have been an art-focused booklet with some unique drawings or sketches. Instead, there is far too little text (especially text of value), which didn’t work for me.
Score (out of 10): 4
Content
The front and back cover features standards Snoopy-centric Peanuts images. Upon opening the booklet, you receive a lovely welcome from Charlie Brown and the table of contents on the next page. After that, the booklet essentially toggles between two types of content. The first (for all 40 specials included) is a short description for each special, two per page, featuring:
This collection still has plenty of essential viewing, but the booklet doesn’t add much value.
· the name of the special
· the original air date
· an image representing the special
· and a brief 1–2 line description of the special… for only 21 of the 40 specials.
I would have appreciated descriptions for every special because the nature of this set is to include rare material. Wouldn’t it be helpful to provide more information to help me want to watch the special? Which got descriptions and which didn’t were not following any obvious rhyme or reason that I could understand. And worst of all, the specials are all just listed in chronological order, with no reference to which disc the special is on. Adding that detail of categorizing by disc would have at least added a crucial detail to keep me coming back. But if I want to watch “It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown,” I have no idea what it’s about or which disc is on. Not ideal, in my opinion.
There’s also a four-page section called “Meet the gang” that features the main characters faces, their names, and a brief description of who they are. Eleven characters get bios, but I’m confused about who need a brief description of Sally and Pig-Pen but wouldn’t benefit from explanations or trivia for some of the even smaller characters, like Shermy, Patty, or Rerun. I feel like this section could have used a little more detail to be valuable to the collector buying this collection.
Score (out of 20): 8
Creativity
I wouldn’t describe the work done in this booklet as “creative,” per se. I got excited about the choice of having Charlie Brown welcome the reader at the beginning of the book, which is an obvious choice. It’s only downhill from there.
Score (out of 10): 2
Final score (out of 50): 23
In what is undoubtedly my lowest score yet, by scoring below 25 points, this booklet does not achieve a passing grade. I was disappointed with this booklet as a big Peanuts fan and as a purchaser of this physical media collection. It could have at least been mildly functional by finishing the remaining 19 descriptions of shorts included along with an indication somewhere of which disc each short is on. Without those things, this booklet is doing the most basic of tasks of printing the contents available in the collection. That isn’t bad, but less resources could have been used by just printing a table of contents and it would have been almost as effective.