Merry Christmas Snoopy On Ice

When I was growing up, one of the many holiday staples was watching that blockhead, his thumb sucking best friend and his «cool» beagle bumble and stumble through another Thanksgiving and Christmas. Knotts takes the Peanuts gang, puts them on ice with some talented skaters and makes America’s favorite beagle the star of the show.
Charles Schutz started writing and drawing the lovable loser Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang in 1950. For 50 years, the comic strip graced newspapers across the country and around the world. Even though Schultz stopped writing the strip in 2000, it is still syndicated in almost every newspaper in the United States. The comic strip lead to 5 featured films, 46 television specials, 28 documentaries, a Saturday morning show, a mini-​series, 4 ice shows, 2 musicals, a motion comic series and 23 video games.
The first thing you need to know about seeing this production (
) is the line. The show we saw started at 5:30 pm, but the line started forming at 4:00 pm. We arrived about 4:15 pm and was near the front of the line and started waiting … and waiting … and waiting. About 4:50 pm, staff members started leading us up the ramp to the theatre and then you guessed it … more waiting.
Rohlinism: The list of things synonymous with the holidays will always include long lines!
This is where things get real annoying regarding the organization of the line. The staff decided to make one line into two lines, which meant that people who were lined up after us actually cut to the front of the second line and made it into the theatre before us. Even more annoying was seeing people already in the theatre (once they opened at 5:15 pm) and the only explanation is people who lined up after us were let into the theatre on the other side of the theatre before us. We still found good seats for the production (
), but it is the principle of waiting in line for over an hour only to find out we could have shown up much later and would have found better seating. The people working the lines for the show make the cast members who work parking at Disneyland look like geniuses. After my adventures getting into the park, the line shenanigans for this show just further proved Knotts needs to be more proactive in the training of their employees.
The show starts out with a narrative (
) by Charlie Brown and Linus. After the narrative, there are several skating routines synchronized to several of your favorite holiday carols:
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The best part of the show was a very well done routine to I’ll Be Home for Christmas that starts out with a woman waiting on a bench for her significant other to come home from World War II. The scene goes to black and white (almost like watching an old film) I believe to symbolize a dream she is having. At the end of the routine the train arrives, the scene goes back to full color, her significant other exits the train and they embrace.
Several of the routines included the namesake star and all I could think of was it must be very difficult skating in that Snoopy suit. The skating was entertaining and some of the elements were more complex than I would have expected at an amusement park show including some backflips, difficult lifts and throws. The show had a good rhythm to it and the dead time was minimal considering the constant changing of costumes. The show is about 30 minutes long so there should be little chance of getting squirmy in your seat or having your ADD kick in before the production is completed!
If you are in the park during the holidays, this should be one of your stops. Just be prepared for the lines and the possibility of not getting the best seat even you are at the front of the line.

Merry Christmas Snoopy on Ice is a fun and enjoyable ½ hour ice skating show, inside the Charles Schultz Theatre, as part of Knott’s Merry Farm holiday celebrations.
Be forewarned, this is the most popular show at Knott’s and you will have a bit of a wait in line. If your want up close and terrific seats you better get in line even earlier!
With the footsies/​tootsies tired, it was nice to sit and even better to sit in cushy chairs. Seating is in sections and is stadium style.
The Show: Snoopy and all the Peanuts gang is on hand, and Snoopy even skates! Quite the feat for a beagle :). I shot the Unilocal short video of this but you can’t post a link of a video in a review, but it’s there. Snow is also there, coming down in the ice rink and into the first few rows. Good skating routines, good costumes, fun Christmas music and even a bit of sauciness with some young skaters and a beautiful «old school» skate routine from the 40’s to I’ll Be Home For Christmas.
I’d have given 5 stars, it was that enjoyable, but the long line and then they don’t let you In to the theatre until 15 minutes before show time, so you are standing for over 1 hour.
Special thanks to Jef H., friend and elite Unilocaler for the reminder to not leave my Unilocal review count by end of year at 666!