The last installment of the "classic" Peanuts holiday trilogy (and second to win an Emmy), A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving dutifully follows several established patterns while still appealingly tweaking that same formula.
Against the preceding specials, Thanksgiving is a perpetual eternal 3rd place in the opinion of this writer. While enjoyable, several revisited plot twists (Linus the sage, Snoopy the fantastical goofball, Charlie Brown the hapless blunderkind) were done more memorably in their previous incarnations. The program is still magnificently done, but perhaps not as memorable as Great Pumpkin and the sublime A Charlie Brown Christmas. Its strongest trait is the introduction of Peppermint Patty and Marcie as fleshed-out characters, rendering poor Lucy irrelevant save for a football-yank in the introduction.
AIRDATE: November 20, 1973
STORY: Charlie Brown and Sally are all set for a delicious feast at their grandmothers house. There are only hours to kill while waiting for the adults to come out of the crawl space they hide in for most of the year. Peppermint Patty calls to invite herself over for a Thanksgiving meal at the Brown residence. Chuck is unable to get out a complete sentence, and the problem of Peppermint Patty showing up to an empty house is compounded when she rings back not once but twice, inviting her friends Marcie and Franklin.
After a brainstorm with Linus, Charlie Brown decides on a Thanksgiving lunch for his peers. Once assured that the crawl space is still locked, the kids act as sous chefs to Snoopy's Rocco DiSpirito. When the results of a meal planned and executed by a dog somehow fall short of Patty's expectations, her anger leads to hurt feelings for the zig-zagged lunch host. Marcie mediates a truce. The story takes an oddly un-Peanuts turn for the positive when Charlie Brown receives a call from his grandmother. After explaining what has transpired with lunch, she invites everyone who is not an animal to her house for a real Thanksgiving dinner, meat and all. Once the kids are on their jolly way, Snoopy and Woodstock unveil a magnificently dressed bird of gratitude and a sumptuous pumpkin pie that appears to weigh eight pounds. Despite not hitting all the marks as spectacularly as the other holiday programs, this is still a 10.
MUSIC: Standard wonderful Guaraldi fare, with one outstanding exception--"Little Birdie", a rare Peanuts vocal turn that plays over the rib-cracking-funny "Snoopy Sets Up" sequence. And who is that singing? None other than Dr. Funk himself, the Mustachioed Melody Master, Sir Twinklefingers, the one the only...Vince Guaraldi! He has the easy, aware vocal tilt of a born instrumentalist taking his turn at the microphone. 9.5
ANIMATION: The drawings of Thanksgiving match the music insofar as chameleonic quality, leading the viewers eyes and ears more toward the action and character expositions more than any fancy sleight of hand. Even Snoopy's one break with reality is (fairly) subdued.
Fall is the season of oranges, browns, and gentle greys, a time of year defined not by glaring brights or intense darks, but the comfort (stasis?) of mid-value. So it goes in this show, gentle means lending greater weight to the scripts ends, with a very thoughtful exception.
Peppermint Patty's introduction into the Peanuts strips jolted the Schulz universe. Her tomboyish appearance, mannerisms and speech were anathema to the subdued neighborhood inhabited by existential sadsacks Charlie Brown and Linus. She was a girl with a freckled face who wore sandals and (gasp) shorts, certainly a jarring contrast to the clear round visages and simple dresses worn by Lucy and Sally. Not only does she approach baseball with vigor, she excels at it. If all the other Peanuts kids are bringing old standbys to the picnic (chicken, potato salad), Patty shows up with truffles and Chilean sea bass.
The animation of Patty's home decor is all contrasting colors, saturated carpets and rugs. Her friends wear bright orange shirts, glasses that conceal their eyes, and clown pants. You wonder how much exposure into that world sensitive Charlie could ever stand. 9.5
VOICES: Time necessitated that Chris Shea and Peter Robbins, the two kids who gave exemplary voice readings as Linus and Charlie Brown for the first specials, are replaced. Todd Barbee and Stephen Shea (yes, that would be little brother) keep the fine tradition alive, with sweetly resigned recitations of the imitable Schulz dialogue. Later children would futz up their duties (kid who did Charlie Brown in Arbor Day, I am sooooo implicating you), but these youngsters stepped up nicely. 10's to both.
Hilary Momberger gets a 9 for her sparse role as Sally, who pauses her way through yet another timely indignation, that of writing an essay on "Stanley Miles". Robin Kohn gets a 7 for Lucy, through no fault of her own. Simply, Lucy drops off after the very start of the show, and whatever range Kohn could have brought is unrealized.
Likewise to Robin Reed as Franklin.
Peppermint Patty and Marcie are amusingly voiced by boys (Christoper DeFaria and James Aherns). Marcie delivers reason in a scratchy, thoughtful tone (8) while her brash best bud knows not of the "indoor voice" of which you implore her (10). She gets mad in a very genuine way, with all the innate ego and sense of entitlement nestled deep inside an average grade-schooler.
HAPPINESS IS A WARM TURKEY
Snoopy drives purists mad with the scripts dependence on his wacky, far-from-canine ways. While he doesn't don his trusty pilot attire, World War II is still clear in his mind.
This is a dog ready for battle. If not with the Red Baron, then with the chaise lounge in the Brown family garage.
Nothing has endured, though, like the infamous Thanksgiving lunch. It is the reason that this special gets out of bed in the morning. It has inspired folk here in the real world to mimic the inspired menu, to see just how the hell a Thanksgiving dinner of toast, jelly beans, pretzel sticks, popcorn and sundaes would taste (pretty damn skippy, if you ask me). Whether this unorthodox food selection is a passive-aggressive reaction to Patty forcing herself and her friends on Chuck's Thanksgiving or simply what two kids and a dog think makes a passable "on-the-fly" meal is up to the viewer to decide.
What relationship doesn't have at least one moment like this?
In a show not exactly reeking with memorable quotes, two stick out.
--Charlie Brown, lamenting his lack of culinary wiz: "All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast." MAYBE toast? Holy crap. I mean, I know I once burned water on the stove, but toast isn't that hard, Chuck. Stick it in the toaster and put it on the proper setting. Jesus, where are the adults? This kid learns to make toast and maybe--just maybe!--he can get the confidence needed to approach that Little Red-Haired Girl and win her heart. Can it be that the deflated soul of this little boy could be leavened by just learning how a toaster works?
--Charlie Brown has left the ping pong dinner table after his dressing down at the hands of the girl who is better than him at sports (another dagger). Once Peppermint Patty realizes what she's done, her contrition still doesn't translate into courage; thus, she enlists Marcie to deliver the apology.
Linus: "This is not unlike another famous Thanksgiving episode. Do you remember the story of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins and Captain Miles Standish?"
Peppermint Patty: "This isn't like that at all."
(The determined dimwittedness of Patty's tone make it what it is.)
I BURIED PAUL
If I'm going to indulge my inner Snoopy Groupie by praising his silly behavior throughout the special, I have to call a shovel a hoe when I admit: the extended Snoopy frivolity is known in the TV industry as "padding", time-filling segments to distract the viewer from shortcomings in the story (latter-day eps of The Simpsons has made this an art). It's true to the character, no doubt, but you have to call out lazy writing when you see it--even if it does make you laugh out loud every time.
Seriously, what is the deal with these kids from across town bumrushing the Chuck Biz household and then complaining about the food?
Nice reaction time, P. Pat! I don't know how you could look at this meal and be anything but awed. Look at that friggin' toast! It practically covers the entire plate! And how colorful the plate is, so much livelier and festive than the gravy blah of standard turkey day servings! Just goes to show that even though Patty may live around blare and glare, and indeed make it her personal philosophy, she still has a stubborn old-fashioned streak embedded deep in her mental. For shame, Patricia.
"Snoopy--please pack your knives and go."
I leave you, dear reader, with these images to ponder.
You're a devious cracker, Charlie Brown.
Snoopy charlie Brown Thanksgiving Peanuts Charlie Brown
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