Special Event: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

October 29, 2022 2:20 PM

The Peanuts gang celebrates Halloween while Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin.

One of the greatest holiday specials of all time, including a perfectly spooky trip by the downed WWI flying ace across no man's land at night, the worst Halloween candy haul ever, and nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see. A yearly re-watch.

posted by praemunire (11 comments total)

It's streaming on Apple TV.
posted by ShooBoo at 3:18 PM on October 29, 2022

I got a rock.
posted by td2x10e3 at 4:00 PM on October 29, 2022 [5 favorites]

You owe me restitution!!!
posted by wabbittwax at 4:38 PM on October 29, 2022 [4 favorites]

A classic. This year I noticed for the first time that Lucy, in one scene, is reading a TV Guide and she is on the cover! That opens up some real fun questions.

But the Snoopy WWI subplot I could do without, honestly.
posted by hijinx at 4:45 PM on October 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

I love it. It comes out of left field, but provides a little real eerieness to the show.

And of course the part where Lucy wakes up, gets out of bed, and retrieves Linus from the pumpkin patch. Classic older sister moment.
posted by praemunire at 5:06 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

A classic watch, the reason for the season, etc. I love every minute of this beautiful thing and have owned it in at least three formats, maybe four. It's the Great Pumpkin!
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:21 AM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

This year I noticed for the first time that Lucy, in one scene, is reading a TV Guide and she is on the cover!

I noticed that too, also for the first time! I wonder if it was simply less legible back in the pre-HD analog days.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:24 PM on October 31, 2022

My seven-year-old literally laughed and said “TV Guide!” in a mocking voice like What kind of dumb book name is that…
posted by Etrigan at 6:50 PM on October 31, 2022

My wife and I just watched this after our six year old was finally put to bed. It’s something of a nostalgia trip for us old folks, but when we showed it to the little one last year, she was bored stiff. The jokes didn’t land for her, the pacing is glacial, she doesn’t have any context for WWI, and even though she has a pretty impressive vocabulary for a six year old, whenever they spoke like adults, it wasn’t funny to her - she just didn’t know what they were talking about.

I think we’re the audience for these things now. I don’t think the kids are excited about Charlie Brown specials at all.

(Though scrolling through Apple+ I see that someone has never given up on making more of them. Tons that weren’t around when I was a kid. Every holiday you can imagine. Honestly, I thought “It’s Louis Riel Day, Charlie Brown” was a bit of a stretch.)
posted by Naberius at 7:59 PM on October 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

That's interesting, Naberius. Do you think she might have been more receptive if she'd watched it when she was, say, four? I ask because I have a friend with a 6 year-old who—when she was four—became obsessed with watching classic episodes of Mister Rogers's Neighborhood on DVD. It was her nightly ritual for an entire year. But now that she's a couple years older, I doubt she'd have the patience for the decidedly leisurely pace of those old shows.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:58 AM on November 1, 2022

7yo also bounced off it... last year? Year before? Whenever the first Halloween was after Apple bought all the Peanuts specials. But this year, she was captivated. We're already planning out when to show her the others.
posted by Etrigan at 6:55 AM on November 4, 2022