It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

The Peanuts holy trinity of holiday specials goes, chronologically: A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Speaking in terms of quality, it's probably accurate to say that conventional wisdom would leave the order unaltered. While I won't disagree, I emphatically state that the gap between first and second seems to shrink every time I watch this Halloween standard.

Both are fresh takes on hoary traditions, suffused with imitable animation, quotable lines, and homey soundtracks that settle sweetly into that nook in the brain that houses the memories of how damn tasty a cup of cocoa is in the winter, and how goddamn good an accompanying dish of piping-hot apple crisp is too.

Two factors help swell the Great Pumpkin's thumb:

1. The titular blockhead is utterly outshone by his needy pal, Linus. It is Linus who conjures up this "Great Pumpkin", thus setting himself and his faith up for brutal peer admonition.

2. This special creates an icon. The "Great Pumpkin" concept--while clearly borrowing from Santa Claus--was a beautifully delineated absurdity that has stuck in our pop culture, referenced from squeaky-clean soccer moms to foul-mouthed parodists. It added to the lexicon, and that can never be ignored.

AIRDATE: 10/27/66

STORY: Linus is skipping "tricks or treats" to reside over a "most sincere" pumpkin patch. His mission: prove worthy of the "Great Pumpkin", a fantastic fruit god who blesses the faithful with goodies. The other kids, gearing up for a night of free candy and unsupervised partying, are far from open-minded. The single exception is Sally, as much a sucker as any treat passed out that night. She can't resist the urge to stay by Linus, her unrequited crush. Big mistake. When the Pumpkin pulls a George Jones, Sally goes apoplectic trying to reconcile the reality of having spent the night in a pumpkin patch waiting for some apparent benevolent wonder of the world that she only just found out about while her friends gorged and had a general blast. 10

Also, Snoopy takes flight.

MUSIC: Cozy, autumnal cues coat the action like caramel on a stuck apple. Classy to the point of wearing a monocle, the pinnacle actually comes at the start. Linus and Lucy trot out to grab a pumpkin as their namesake tune bubbles beneath. What makes it so outstanding is the addition of a path-skipping flute to the familiar track, popping up at the conclusion of each piano "riff". One rarely goes wrong with flutes, friends. Big fat 10.

ANIMATION: Vastly improved from the debut, though still flawed, perfect use is made of color, namely in the depictions of trees, leaves and skies. Whether watercolor or painstakingly precise pencil work I do not know--masterful rendering of fall hues, regardless. 10

VOICES: Peter Robbins and Christoper Shea reprise their Christmas gigs, to the tune of 10. Each boy even expands on their respective niches, with Charlie Brown now showing emotions other than raw despair and Linus revealing another side too. The boy who can conjure phantom spotlights as he delivers a pitch-perfect Scripture recitation now comes to our screen immediately as a feckless young boy, who picks up a fallen apple from the ground, takes one hearty bite, and then tosses the tempting fruit in a nearby trash can. That's just disgusting. He also shows disregard for leaves, shown once kicking a pile and then taking a running leap into a carefully-raked pile, scattering the poor castaways every which way once more. Which is why I'm not really buying his horror over the dead pumpkin.

Lucy and Sally are 10's as well. (And how mildly dear that Lucy's voice is done by Sally Dyer.) Lucy is punchy and bitchy, yet somehow still inviting, but Kathy Steinberg's Sally is a riotous joy. From innocent devotion in the face of her myth-spouting beau, to her ambivalence over dressing up ("I wouldn't want to be accused of taking part in a rumble"), to losing her shit when she realizes the unavoidable no-win situation that arises when a young girl places her trust in a boy whose fabrication of a pre-Christmas gift-lord is the only thing keeping him from setting fires, this is the best Sally you will ever hear. Fergie can suck it. There are so many words stretched out to the snapping point, so many sentences rife with the pauses of prepubescent development, that rooting for this little lady is like rooting for Brett Favre's knees to give out.

Gail and Lisa DeFaria do Pigpen and Patty (7.5 and 8) while two kids do double duty: Glenn Mendelson for Schroeder and Shermy (a 7; how's that for alliteration?) and Ann Altieri for Violet and Frieda. She gets an 8 solely off delivering a laugh of halting malice when teasing Linus in the patch. It's like someone you shared a cell with has just come back from a week of nonstop torture and deprivation, and now they're overjoyed to know that you'll get yours too.

I GOT A POPCORN BALL

--"Notarize your documents" is the new, "Diversify your bonds".

--Charlie Brown, still getting no love. Pigskin denied, head used as a jack o' lantern model, "I got a rock". Whoever doesn't get that last reference whenever it is properly evoked, they're not stupid. They're just unfortunate, and must be enlightened. Chuck's lament, echoed throughout the journey from door to door, works for any situation in which one's expectation of something grand instead turns out to be something wretchedly undesirable.

--Today, the pumpkin...tomorrow, the delicate flesh between Schroeder's shoulder blades.



--Snoopy as the World War One Flying Ace.

It starts off as his costume, an eye-popping ensemble when one considers the sad little conformity of the others. It explodes into violent imagination and imaginary violence with a battle against the Red Baron. Atop his doghouse/plane, Snoopy loops and whirls, plummets and ascends, as his craft is strafed with merciless enemy fire and the skies behind him (and then he himself) shift snaring colors: yellow to clouded blue to orange to purple to blue to red. Snoopy is the doomed hero immaculately, from his resigned salute to his unceremonious ejection into a dog dish.

(I can't get enough Snoopy saluting; he goes especially fuckin' nuts with it in the Thanksgiving special. To appropriate a quote from Tami during Real World LA: "It wasn't not funny!")

The ensuing scenes with Snoopy in furtive exploration of "France" are just awesome (love the steam whistle in the background too)--



Just one thing. We are transferred to Snoopy's literal flight of fantasy to illustrate Charlie Brown's replying to Lucy as to the beagle's whereabouts. Why, then, does blockhead continue to narrate the action? "Here's the World War One Flying Ace in the French countryside." He clearly can't be telling that to Lucy, as she is not watching the action to need its context--so he is telling us. Awkward, but understandable for the kiddies.

The Ace's tale continues to the party (yeah, I know there's no way he could have slipped unnoticed into that tub of water. He did anyway. He's fucking Snoopy, not Mickey Mouse). The greatest laughs come when he breaks out into a space-conscious dance routine to Schroeder's jaunty "Long Way to Tipperary" (peep the pearlys on the upbeats)...and then collapses from dejection as the music switches to the solemn "There's a Long, Long Trail A-Windin'".





Concluding with the scene that inspired figurines and shirts, the moment that features a slide whistle effect so perfect that I want to say screw this screen capture, how could it dare to boast it is the butter on your breakfast toast. But here it is. Here it is!



Linus, you freakin' licorice-head.

--Charles Schulz went from intense identification with Christianity to secular humanism. The passion of Linus towards a "greater entity" that will honor "the most sincere" is a loving portrait of a wise, searching little boy ("We are obviously separated by denominational differences") whose hopes are put in a touchstone uniquely his own and also a jab at anything that would cause a little boy to sacrifice what should be a due night of junky treats and boisterous interaction with friends just to freeze his loyal ass off.

--Get meta, it pays.



I GOT A ROCK

--When Sally reads Linus the 23rd chapter of the Riot Act in the patch post the great non-attendance, she bemoans missing out on "apples and gum and cookies and money and all sorts of things!" Did kids actually once upon a glorious time get money when they tricked and/or treated? Was it in fact I who was gypped on all those Halloweens?

--This program did not win an Emmy; the only of the main holiday specials to go statueless. Unthinkable! This gets the Trapper Jenn score of 9.5, classic status by any standard. If you don't have it, get it. If you don't get it, have at it.


Peanuts Snoopy Great Pumpkin