It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

That's right: I've found the video on YouTube! But first, this from Wikipedia:

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is a critically-acclaimed and very popular animated television special based on the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

The special depicts one Halloween night in which Linus Van Pelt, Charlie Brown's security blanket-toting best friend, eagerly awaits the arrival of "the Great Pumpkin", who Linus believes to travel around the world each Halloween giving toys to all the good little children (in the manner of Santa Claus each Christmas).

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was the second Peanuts special to be produced and animated by Bill Melendez. Its initial broadcast took place on October 27, 1966, on the CBS network; CBS re-aired the special annually through 2000, with ABC picking up the rights beginning in 2001.

The program was nominated for an Emmy award.

Click here for more.

Along with the Christmas special and the Thanksgiving special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown rounds out the great trilogy of Peanuts holiday shows from the 60s. I don't have a personal favorite because they're all great, with their fantastic Vince Guaraldi cool jazz soundtracks, and a modernist sensibility about the animation--it's really hard to say "this is the best." I suppose it depends on the time of year, so, for the moment, I'm into this one most. Then it'll be Thanksgiving, but not just yet. Anyway, who couldn't be emotionally affected by Linus' fatal fight with disillusionment? Who couldn't have some sympathy for Charlie Brown only getting rocks in his trick or treating bag or his badly botched ghost costume? If you don't like this, you're an inhuman monster.

Click here to watch it.





Happy Halloween!

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