Hallmark Peanuts Wireless Band Review: Lucy Playing Flute

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Fun songs and great blending with others

Cons: I don't think Lucy would really play the flute.

The Bottom Line:

Lucy plays the flute?

Yet a good band addition

Makes Christmas merry

Lucy in the Band with Flute

Most of the choices for the Peanuts Wireless Band that Hallmark released last year make sense.  But the one that still leaves me scratching my head is Lucy.  Oh, I get why she is included – she’s a big character from the strip, and the only female member of the band.  I just don’t get the instrument choice.  Still, I do like the decoration overall.

Like the rest of this four (soon to be five) member band, Lucy is standing on a big block that holds the workings of the decoration.  The top is made to look like a hardwood floor.  That’s why Lucy is standing on.  She’s decked out in green pants and scarf with a red coat and Santa hat.  You can tell right away that this is Lucy from Peanuts, so the sculpt is great.

For the band, she’s playing a flute, and that’s my problem.  Yes, I know a flute is a stereotypical girl’s instrument.  (In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever met a man or boy who plays it.)  But it doesn’t strike me as a Lucy instrument.  I can see her playing the trombone or trumpet - something that makes lots of noise.  Heck, she’d probably be a great drum player.  However, for the purpose of this band, flute works better, so that’s what she got.

Each member of the band leads two songs.  Lucy gets “Up on the Housetop” and “O Christmas Tree.”  These are slightly in the jazz side of things, although not quite as much as some of the other songs.  Both are short – under 30 seconds, and both are fun.  While “Up on the Housetop” seems an odd choice just because it isn’t that popular a song, I do like the arrangement of it here.

When you have all four members of the band and they are all turned on, they combine instruments to make some great music.  And that’s where Lucy really shines.  Her flute harmonizes beautifully with the other instruments to create a very pleasing sound.  That’s even true on the two songs where she takes the lead.

This is designed to be a table top decoration, so the base is big and flat.  There’s no way to hang it on your tree, not that you’d really want to.

You do need 3 AAA batteries to make this work.  I’m still on my first set, although I just had it for a couple of weeks in December.  We’ll see how long they last me this year because I love playing the band.  They need to be within the same room to communicate best, although you can still spread them apart forty or fifty feet to get some need effects.

As much as I love the band and Lucy’s role in it, I still think that the flute should have gone to someone else.  (Maybe Sally?)  It sounds good, but it just doesn’t fit her personality.