YMMV / Why, Charlie Brown, Why?

• Catharsis Factor: Linus calling out his Jerkass of a sister and confronting the playground bully are both quite fulfilling in their own right.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: You’d be amazed at how many people wanted Janice to make more appearances.
• Fridge Horror:
  • Considering how fast cancer can grow, Janice was really lucky that Linus checked on her in class. They had a Sadist Teacher that showed No Sympathy for a student being sick and mocked Linus for telling Janice to go to the nurse. The nurse had to confirm that Janice really did have a fever for her to get help.
  • If you want to think of a reason why Janice doesn’t return after this, it's possible she didn't actually overcome her cancer. The ending is somewhat ambiguous about this: it may be that the reason Janice's hair has grown back isn't because her cancer is in remission, but that her and her family decided to end treatment and let the disease take its course rather than prolonging her pain.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Charles Schulz was no stranger to the topic of cancer, and after his death this special would become a tragic reminder of that. His mother died from cancer when he was in his twenties (while on his way to fight in World War II, no less) and in 2000, Schulz himself succumbed to colon cancer at the age of seventy-seven.
• Heartwarming Moments: Not only does Janice survive her cancer, but she also gets her hair back at the end of the special.
• Moment of Awesome: This special is Linus at his finest. Not only does he stand up against his sister when she criticized him for touching Janice when she believes that leukemia can be contracted like the common cold, but he also stands up for her when a bully was picking on her for her chemo-induced baldness. Not only does he stand up to the bully, he verbally destroys him, and looks ready to beat him up for his insolence. And the best part is he does this all without his blanket, which is nowhere to be seen in the special.
• Once Original, Now Common: While this special may seem a bit saccharine by today's standards, it's still the first cartoon to discuss cancer in a matter-of-fact way. While the special still remains beloved to this very day, the impact the special made led to some other shows following suit, especially due to recent improvements in cancer treatments.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: In a wider Peanuts sense. By the end of their trials and travails, Linus and Janice have become a Puppy Love couple; if not an actual "item", at the very least they should remain an incredibly important part of each others' lives, right? Unfortunately, in future Peanuts works Janice vanished; she didn't become a regular at all in the strip's final years, and she didn't even really cameo in the later Peanuts specials. This really felt weird to the 90s Peanuts fans, who figured Janice was going to become a regular on at least the level of someone like Pig Pen or Schroeder and they could add more to her character. This also had the unfortunate effect of codifying another aspect of the Very Special Episode that people find annoying: the tendency for the character in question to fall off the face of the earth after the episode is done. Janice did later reappear in updated productions of the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, but only as a non-speaking, background character; it's possible it's not even the same Janice.

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