It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown

When Woodstock's fancy new nest disappears one afternoon, he turns to Snoopy for help. Adopting the guise of Sherlock Holmes (complete with cloak, deerstalker cap, and bubble pipe), Snoopy and Woodstock go on the hunt for the missing nest.

Most of the places they check include:

• Charlie Brown's house, where they wake him up and give him the third degree. He naturally denies anything about taking the nest.
• Lucy and Linus' house, using an excessive amount of dust to check for fingerprints. Snoopy eventually finds a broom straw and believes this is enough evidence to make Lucy a suspect. He tries to handcuff her, but she throws Snoopy out of the house.
• Marcie's house, where Snoopy pulls out his notepad and questions her on the whereabouts of the nest. She is unable to understand Snoopy in his foreign language, so she slams the door in his face.
• Pig-Pen's house, where Snoopy immediately dismisses him as a suspect once he answers the door in his usual dusty trademark fashion entrance. As Snoopy takes off, Pig-Pen responds by telling Snoopy to come back anytime because he does not get many visitors.
• Finally, the home of Peppermint Patty, who thinks Snoopy is playing Cops and Robbers, so she dons a burglar mask and chases him through her house. Frightened, Snoopy and Woodstock escape.

Upon stopping back at Woodstock's tree, Snoopy takes more notice of a set of footprints he had seen before; they lead away from Woodstock's tree, so the two follow them straight to the elementary school. After making their way inside through an open window, they ultimately find Woodstock's nest under glass in a display case. The two grab the nest and run back to Woodstock's tree, whereupon Snoopy re-installs the domicile for his overjoyed and grateful friend.

The next day, Sally complains to Charlie Brown that her science exhibit has been stolen. When she reveals that her exhibit was a so-called "prehistoric bird's nest", Charlie Brown puts two and two together and realizes it was she who took Woodstock's nest.

Even with Charlie Brown's explanation that the nest was made by Woodstock, Sally is convinced that since she found the nest, it belongs to her. When she encounters Snoopy and Woodstock, she demands that they return her nest. The three are about to come to blows when Charlie Brown suggests that they handle the problem in a different way, so they all go to see Lucy in her psychiatric booth, which she temporarily converts to a courtroom enlisting Linus as stenographer, and she tacks two cents on to her normal five-cent fee to cover court costs and asks they pay in advance rather than after (as is with her normal booth). The two sides present their case to Judge Lucy: Snoopy (as Woodstock's counsel) with a document containing excessive legal jargon, and Sally with "Finders keepers, losers weepers". Stenographer Linus is not much help as he can only remember a few words said before the case was fully announced, but Lucy rules in favor of Woodstock, saying that since he built the nest, he should keep it.

Lucy's ruling leaves Sally without a science class exhibit, but Charlie Brown and Snoopy come up with an idea. Snoopy is willing to volunteer to be her exhibit in a re-creation of Pavlov's salivating dog experiment. Although Sally is against it at first, she decides to go along with it and ultimately gets an "A" on her science project, and all is once again right with the world. In the end credits, as Woodstock lies on his nest, the bottom falls out, sending Woodstock falling out of his tree.

• Todd Barbee as Charlie Brown
• Melanie Kohn as Lucy van Pelt
• Stephen Shea as Linus van Pelt
• Donna Forman as Peppermint Patty
• Jimmy Ahrens as Marcie
• Lynn Mortensen as Sally Brown
• Tom Muller as Pig-Pen
• Bill Melendez as Snoopy/Woodstock
  • Peter Robbins (archived) – Lucy van Pelt, Peppermint Patty (screaming only)

The music score for It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown was composed by Vince Guaraldi and conducted and arranged by John Scott Trotter.[3] The score was performed by the Vince Guaraldi Quartet on January 5, 11, 23 and 30, 1974, at Wally Heider Studios, featuring Tom Harrell (trumpet), Seward McCain (bass), Eliot Zigmund (drums, January 11) and Mike Clark (drums, all other dates).[4]

The song "Mystery Theme" was reworked in an uptempo version for It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, which was broadcast two months later.[3]

No official soundtrack for It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown was released. However, recording session master tapes for seven 1970s-era Peanuts television specials scored by Vince Guaraldi were discovered by his son, David Guaraldi, in the mid-2000s. The songs "Little Birdie" (instrumental version), "It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown" (third reprise, school version), "Cops and Robbers," "Sally's Blues" and "Joe Cool" (instrumental "whistling" version with brass) were released in 2008 on the compilation album, Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown Television Specials, Volume 2.[5] A live version of "Cops and Robbers" was also recorded by Guaraldi on February 6, 1974, for a radio performance released on Live on the Air.[6][7]

• Created and Written by: Charles M. Schulz
• Story by: Jeffrey Moss, Jon Stone, Ray Sipherd, Norman Stiles, Joseph A. Bailey, Jerry Juhl
• Directed by: Phil Roman
• Produced by: Bill Melendez
• Executive Producer: Lee Mendelson
• A Lee Mendelson-Bill Melendez Production
• Music Composed and Performed by: Vince Guaraldi
• Music Supervision: John Scott Trotter
• Graphic Blandishment: Bernard Gruver, Dean Spille, Bill Littlejohn, Frank Smith, Don Lusk, Sam Jaimes, Carole Barnes, Al Pabian, Jack Schnerk, Joe Roman, Joanne Lansing
• Edited by: Chuck McCann
• Recording:
  • Voices: Coast Recorders
  • Music: Wally Heider Recording
  • Mix: Producers' Sound Service
• Camera: Dickson/Vasu
• Titles: Evert Brown
• Production Assistant: Judy Freudberg
• In cooperation with United Feature Syndicate, Inc. and Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates
• THE END "It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown" © 1974 United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

• It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown on IMDb