“There are three things I’ve learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.”
So says the wise-beyond-his-years Linus in the animated special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which debuted on October 27, 1966 -- 58 years ago this month -- and has lived on as a television classic that’s been broadcast nearly every autumn since.
Great Pumpkin was the third Charlie Brown special created for CBS, coming after A Charlie Brown Christmas, the previous December, and Charlie Brown’s All Stars!, about the adventures of the gang’s Little League team. And it was a surprise that the network was even interested. When Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, together with producer Lee Mendelson and director and animator Bill Melendez, made A Charlie Brown Christmas, they were convinced it would be a failure -- and the network agreed. But to their collective surprise it was instead a big success: according to Nielsen, half of all TVs in the United States tuned in. When All Stars! was a hit, too, it was clear the Peanuts creators were onto something.
And so CBS asked Schulz & Co. to come up with a new special -- but network executives insisted that the new one also be something they could rerun annually. And so, Schulz thought about holidays, thought about the Great Pumpkin character in his strip, and decided to turn that story into the next broadcast. As Mendelson later told The Washington Post, it was Schulz’s favorite: “[He] liked the Christmas show, but he really liked The Great Pumpkin.”
Truth be told, The Great Pumpkin was an unlikely contender to become a beloved classic. To today’s eyes, A Charlie Brown Christmas is an unlikely classic, too -- cynical like The Great Pumpkin. But it has a happy ending -- religious, yes, but there’s a message of hope, when Charlie Brown’s sad little Christmas tree turns into a beautiful one. But The Great Pumpkin, contrary to most holiday franchises, and certainly to most holiday franchises aimed at kids, is downright depressing.
Everything goes wrong for the kids.
In the first scene, Lucy and Linus pick out a pumpkin and take it home to carve it. Linus is suddenly bereft: “You didn’t tell me you were going to kill it!” Later, when Chuck is thrilled to be invited to a Halloween party, it turns out he only made the list by mistake. And then when he goes out trick-or-treating, while the other kids get candy and treats, at house after house Charlie Brown gets only rocks. His friend Linus, meanwhile, is convinced that if he can only find the right pumpkin patch, he’ll get to witness the mystical Great Pumpkin rise from the patch to deliver gifts to children. The program ends on the day after the unhappy Halloween, with Linus in a rage when even that blockhead Charlie Brown starts mocking him, too.
So, what endeared It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to America? Well, it contained some milestones. The Great Pumpkin is the first special in which we see Lucy pull the football away from Charlie Brown. It’s also the first time we ever see Snoopy -- whose doghouse in the strip stayed firmly planted on the ground, even when he fancied himself a flying ace -- actually take flight. (Animator Melendez took it as a personal challenge to make a convincing World War I air battle for the beagle.) Schulz would later say that viewers responded to the story because “Linus represented a special quality of hope and belief, against all odds.” The special reminded people that “we all need [a] colorful, generous, romantic hero -- even if he is only make-believe,” he said.
CBS rebroadcast the special around Halloween every year for decades. But in 2000, the rights came up for renewal, and ABC bid the most. Then, in 2018, Apple TV+ won the rights to all new Peanuts programming -- and, within a few years, took over the old shows, too. In 2020, for the first time in more than 50 years, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown wasn’t available on broadcast TV -- only on the streaming service.
But, on the other hand, now it’s always available to stream. And in the spirit of all the holiday seasons -- if not quite the version of it Charlie Brown, Linus and their friends experience each year, thankfully -- for a week or so right around Halloween, it is available to everyone to stream, for free.
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