It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

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Lore & Background

In late October, Linus writes and sends off a letter addressed to the Great Pumpkin, to the ridicule of his peers. Sally Brown, driven by her crush on Linus, is the only one who accepts Linus's belief. On Halloween night, the Peanuts prepare their costumes for trick-or-treating. As they depart, they make a brief detour to the pumpkin patch and mock Linus, who is holding vigil for the Great Pumpkin instead of trick-or-treating. Sally breaks off from the group to stay with Linus, and he explains that the Great Pumpkin arises in the patch of the most sincere of believers. As the others trick-or-treat, they all receive a plethora of candy and other goodies except Charlie Brown who only gets rocks. Afterward, they head to Violet's Halloween party, where Violet uses Charlie Brown as a model: drawing jack-o-lantern designs on his bald head. During this time, Snoopy, dressed as a World War I flying ace, boards his doghouse, imagining it to be a Sopwith Camel fighter plane engaged in a dramatic aerial gunfight with the elusive Red Baron. Snoopy is "shot down" and forced to navigate on foot the treacherous countryside behind enemy lines, ending at the party, where he sneaks into the apple-bobbing tank as Lucy partakes. At the pumpkin patch, Sally grows skeptical until Linus hears a nearby rustling noise and spots a figure in the distance. Convinced it is the Great Pumpkin, he faints in excitement. The figure turns out to be Snoopy, and Sally berates Linus for ruining her night. At 4 a.m., Lucy, knowing Linus is waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin, goes out to the pumpkin patch to bring in a shivering Linus from the cold and tuck him into bed. The next day, Charlie Brown and Linus reflect on the night before. Charlie Brown attempts to comfort Linus by saying that he himself has done some stupid things, but a deeply offended Linus rants that the Great Pumpkin is sure to arrive next year, as Charlie Brown listens.

In Their Own Story

The pumpkin patch is quiet at dusk. The last amber light catches the tops of a few tall stalks, and the air smells of turned earth and cold. Linus sits cross-legged in the dirt, his yellow blanket folded neatly beside him, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the sky is turning the colour of weak tea. Charlie Brown stands a few feet away, arms at his sides, watching his friend with the particular patience of someone who has long since stopped arguing. A cricket chirps. A leaf detaches and spirals down, landing on Linus's knee. He does not brush it off. He is waiting. And then, far off, a sound—not quite a sound, more a shifting of the evening air—passes over the tops of the stalks, and Linus's small face lifts, and he smiles the way only a child who has been right all along can smile.

Reader's Guide

The Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz was first printed in 1950 and became popular within its first years of publication. Schulz first introduced the Great Pumpkin in 1959 by having Linus confuse the traditions of Halloween and Christmas. The Great Pumpkin was introduced through a series of strips published over eight days, which became a major event for the comic strip. A similar story appeared again in 1960, encompassing sixteen comics. Schulz continued to write Great Pumpkin stories in Peanuts each October. The television special A Charlie Brown Christmas had been written by Schulz and broadcast on CBS in December 1965. The special was highly successful, prompting the network to hire Schulz for two additional television specials. His second special, Charlie Brown's All Stars!, broadcast in the summer of 1966. While it was successful, it was not as renowned as A Charlie Brown Christmas. The network requested another holiday special after the success of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Its plot was formulated by a team of three: Schulz, director Bill Melendez, and producer Lee Mendelson. The network executive communicating with Mendelson specified that it had to be a "blockbuster", which brought considerable stress to the writers. They also gave the writers more creative freedom while they wrote the third special. The writers began with disparate scenes from the comic strip to adapt, including Snoopy as a World War I flying ace and Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Schulz's co-writers immediately took to the idea when he suggested writing a Halloween special around the Great Pumpkin. The main storyline about Linus and Sally was based on a series of strips from October and November 1962. The writing process went quickly, allowing more time for other aspects of production, such as animation. The decision to adapt Snoopy's flying ace persona from the comic strip came together with the Halloween theme after Schulz realized it resembled a Halloween costume. Schulz suggested the idea of Charlie Brown receiving a rock while trick-or-treating, but Mendelson felt that this was "too cruel". Schulz and Melendez responded by suggesting Charlie Brown should receive three rocks. Mendelson later agreed that it was the right decision after seeing the scene's popularity. The program was given a production budget of $76,000. The children in the program were voiced by child actors, including both trained child actors and children that lived in Mendelson's neighborhood. Melendez insisted on having child actors in all of the Peanuts specials, and he voiced Snoopy by recording himself saying nonsense words and then speeding it up. Steinberg's lines as Sally Brown were rushed when she developed a loose tooth, fearing that it would cause a lisp. She was taken to the studio to record all of her lines the same night and developed a severe lisp after losing her tooth the following day. Steinberg struggled with the word "restitution" while she was recording, so Mendelson had her pronounce it one syllable at a time and spliced it together afterward. The animations were drawn by a team of artists led by Melendez. Bill Littlejohn also worked on the program's animation. Unlike previous Peanuts specials, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown incorporates frequent movement of the camera. Artist Dean Spille painted the backgrounds of the French countryside during Snoopy's flying ace sequence. He drew from memory as he had previously visited similar areas in Europe, and he was given full creative freedom by Schulz and Melendez. The backgrounds in this sequence used linear perspective rather than a simple flat design. Mendelson later told The Washington Post that the sequence with Snoopy flying his doghouse was "one of the most memorable animated scenes ever." He also described It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as Bill Melendez's "animation masterpiece." The program's final runtime was 25 minutes. The music score was performed by the Vince Guaraldi Sextet, featuring Guaraldi on piano, Monty Budwig on bass, Colin Bailey on drums, John Gray on guitar, Ronald Lang on woodwinds and Emmanuel Klein on trumpet. It was orchestrated by John Scott Trotter. Recording took place on October 4, 1966, at Desilu's Gower Street Studio in Hollywood. Guaraldi had been in charge of music in both of the previous Peanuts specials, as well as the unaired 1963 documentary A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Guaraldi's theme for the special, "The Great Pumpkin Waltz", is first heard when Linus is writing the Great Pumpkin at the beginning and plays throughout. Guaraldi historian Derrick Bang commented that the music Guaraldi composed for the special "emphatically established the Peanuts 'musical personality'," adding that the version of "Linus and Lucy" featured during the cold open was "arguably the best arrangement…that Guaraldi ever laid down, thanks in great part to Ronald Lang's flute counterpoint." This version was again utilized in the 1969 feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown. The World War I songs played by Schroeder while Snoopy dances are: "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", "There's a Long, Long Trail", "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag", and "Roses of Picardy". Craft Recordings released the complete soundtrack album from the special on October 5, 2018, but faced criticism for the inclusion of sound effects. Craft Recordings reissued the soundtrack on August 26, 2022 using newly discovered original master tapes, without sound effects from the television special. The initial broadcast of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was on CBC Television in Canada on October 26, 1966. It was then broadcast on CBS October 27, 1966, preempting My Three Sons, and tied Bonanza as the No. 1 broadcast in that week's Nielsen TV ratings.

Did You Know?

• The special was watched by 49% of American television viewers in its debut broadcast.
• Charlie Brown receives three rocks while trick-or-treating, a detail Schulz and Melendez insisted on after Mendelson initially thought it was 'too cruel'.
• Sally Brown's voice actress Cathy Steinberg recorded all her lines in one night after developing a loose tooth, and lost the tooth the next day.
• The World War I songs played by Schroeder include 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary', 'There's a Long, Long Trail', 'Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag', and 'Roses of Picardy'.
• The special's production budget was $76,000.