Apple TV+'s The Snoopy Show will test your love of the iconic dog

The A.V. Club

"Charlie Brown and company may live in a cynical, melancholic world that rarely shies from presenting a wide swath of failures and disappointments to its child audience, but that world also allowed for bouts of sheer weirdness that loosened things up, often playing with the medium itself," says Kevin Johnson. "Snoopy is just the epitome of (Charles M.) Schultz’s more sillier flights of fancy–often literally, what with the beagle’s frequent aerial battles with the illusory Red Baron. But Snoopy can be too much at times, and The Snoopy Show could be a test of viewer patience with the iconic dog.... Charlie Brown still gets the brunt of bitter nonsense thrown his way, but rarely are we sitting with him through the misery and embarrassment. Instead, his issues are presented as fodder for visual gags and hilarious asides, as The Snoopy Show sets out to make Snoopy the Peanuts representative, the connective figure of the various Peanuts characters and the brand as a whole. It’s not necessarily bad thinking, but the approach is questionable. Snoopy was mostly silent in previous iterations, letting out the occasional high-pitched yelp when hurt or frustrated. The Snoopy Show has him chirping incessantly, along with his partner Woodstock, evoking the nonsensical noises of the infamous Minions. Each episode is composed of three seven-minute shorts, so nothing goes overboard or too long."

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• The Snoopy Show succeeds in appealing to both parents and kids: "Every streamer hopes to seduce us into becoming subscribers by luring us in with the fictional friends we fell in love with as kids," says Jen Chaney. "To make the strategy work, though, these shows shouldn’t feel strategic. They should feel like part of some TV circle of life. The Snoopy Show succeeds in that effort. It’s something parents will enjoy sharing with their kids while also being reminded of their own more innocent times, spent in front of living-room televisions staring at animated Snoopys from their past. It’s a new Peanuts security blanket, wrapped in a comforting and familiar Peanuts security blanket. It’s a reminder that happiness was, and still is, a warm puppy."
• Compared to other children’s series where the lesson is front and center, The Snoopy Show isn’t particularly preachy: "As Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts engage in the plot, morals are subtly discussed, ranging from learning to live with others different than you to finding happiness in the simple things," says Kristen Lopez. "For a kid’s show, it’s pretty amazing how much the series aims at teaching real-world life skills. The episode where Snoopy decides to let Woodstock move into his doghouse with him, and the issues that occur, seem oddly prescient in these times when families are trapped in the house together."
• The Snoopy Show showrunner on why Charlie Brown is still relevant: “Whereas you have a lot of kids aspiring to be superheroes, maybe not everyone wants to be Charlie Brown, but everyone has been Charlie Brown,” says Mark Evestaff, who is also showrunner of Snoopy in Space. “Yes, there’s failure — but there’s also resilience. And I think that’s a stronger thing to fight for. I think kids really recognize this stuff and hopefully they’ll latch onto that.”