Snoopy Come Home (G)
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This is the second feature film based on the "Peanuts" comic strip. It came out in 1972 (three years before I was born), but I'm pretty sure I never saw it until 2022. It was a critical success but an economic failure. Honestly, I'm not sure whether I liked it slightly more, slightly less, or about the same as the previous movie, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown", but I've rated it the same, anyway. It's got a lot of songs, written by the Sherman Brothers, which is cool (because they did a lot of songs for Disney movies), but I mostly find the songs in this movie unmemorable and bland. Except for one, the song that was sung by the girl who captures Snoopy and Woodstock at one point. I did not like her, but I enjoyed her song. Also the line "No Dogs Allowed" is sung repeatedly throughout the movie by Thurl Ravenscroft (best known to me for "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas), so that's really neat. And incidentally, I wanted to mention that when I was a kid, I remember there being a "Snoopy Come Home" board game at my grandparents' house, though I don't remember anything about it and I have no idea if it was anything like the movie or not.

So, various characters get frustrated by Snoopy. Then he receives a letter from a girl named Lila, who is sick in the hospital, and wants Snoopy to visit her. So he and Woodstock set off on a journey together. Meanwhile, Charlie Brown wonders who this Lila is, and gets increasingly distraught by Snoopy's absence. He and a few of the other kids each blame themselves for him leaving. On his journey, Snoopy runs into various obstacles, often having to do with "no dogs allowed" signs. And at one point he and Woodstock get caught by a little girl who wants to keep them as pets. But they eventually escape and continue toward the hospital... where there's another "no dogs allowed" sign. But he sneaks in anyway. Lila is happy to see him, and hopes he'll stay with her forever when she gets released from the hospital. Meanwhile, Linus does some investigating and learns that Lila was Snoopy's previous owner, before Charlie Brown. So, who will Snoopy end up staying with? I think we all know the answer to that, but before the end, it seems in doubt. And there's an irony in the reason he makes his final choice.

It's not a bad movie, but it's also not one I could get very excited about.