I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown is the 43rd prime-time animated television special based upon the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

[3] After unfair treatment by his older siblings Linus and Lucy and getting in trouble at school, Rerun thinks that having a pet dog will cheer him up.

He writes a letter to Santa Claus asking for a dog, but is later discouraged by the expensive costs of owning a pet and his mother's objections.

Noticing that Rerun is upset over Spike leaving, Lucy signs him up for a Christmas play, in which he forgets his line.

[5] Anita Gates of The New York Times gave mixed opinions, who wrote that the special "feels like a hodgepodge of four-frame strips strung together in an unsuccessful attempt to create a unified story," understanding that Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson had made a commitment to create new specials working from material only from the strip.

She wrote that the "one-two-three-punch-line" structure of the strips poorly translated into animation, but otherwise felt the special kept "the bittersweet charm" of Charles Schulz's work.