Talkback 10/28 -It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown 8/7c on ABC

C

crouchingtiger

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Every year ABC does this, and barely advertises it, and it bugs me. If you're at home, watch as Linus attempts to showcase his sincerity in his beliefs against the entire Peanuts crew. Worth it for the looping psychedelic WWI flying ace scenes.
 
I came in at the tail end of the show (as usual!) just as Sally was chewing Linus out for making her wait all night for the Great Pumpkin to show up and missing all the Halloween fun.

Guess I'll rent the DVD too. Ditto You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown.
 
At least I wasn't the only one who missed it so I don't have to feel as bad if I was. I so should have all of the Peanuts holiday specials on DVD by now. Maybe I'll be lucky and be able to rent it if they don't replay it on TV again. I'll definitely have to do that with the Thanksgiving special too.
 
I've seen this special tons of times and always enjoy every time I watch it. You have to feel sorry for Charlie Brown though for getting a rock on trick or treat I mean so he's a ghost whats wrong with that?
 
Recently I've started buying Peanuts cartoons on DVD. So far I've got this one, the Christmas and Easter ones and A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Next, I hope to get the Valentine DVD, since it has three specials instead of just two, and Snoopy Come Home. I probably won't bother with the Thanksgiving one, since I don't recall it being a favourite of mine, and because the bonus special is just an episode of "This is America, Charlie Brown," which I'm not interested in seeing.

Anyway, more directly related to the topic... when I rewatched this special, two things in particular made me laugh out loud-- the classic "I got a rock" scenes, even though I was expecting them, and the fact that when Charlie Brown gets the invitation, he spontaneously breaks out into a jig, twice.

Another thing I love about this special is the "Great Pumpkin Waltz" music. It's really nice.
 
I got to see it for once, first time in a couple years, and I remembered why I loved this movie as a kid. WHY DOES LUCY HAVE A COUNTRY ACCENT! I don't remember that...
 
I caught it but missed the first few minutes and I still love it! Are people really that mean to where they give kids rocks? Poor Charlie Brown. And Linus. They both had a sad halloween.
 
That always bothered me too. Maybe the rock dispensers knew that was Charlie by dint of his butchered ghost costume- but that's still no excuse. Maybe they were the parents of his long-suffering teammates.:confused: For the last decade or so that CBS had the rights to PEANUTS animation, the "I got a rock" scenes were deleted- possibly due to implications of child abuse.

Even though I've watched GREAT PUMPKIN virtually every year since 1966, I always find new things, possibly because it's only aired once a year. As with most the early specials, the low budgets and adherence to Schulz's drawing style results in poor-to-mediocre character animation of the kids. And except for the voice actors of Charlie Brown and Lucy, the liabilities of using inexperienced child performers for the typically precocious dialogue is very apparent. Cathy Steinberg seems to have particular difficulty with Sally's dialogue, although her rants at Linus ("If you try to hold my hand, I'll slug you!"; "You owe me restitution!") and her quick mood transitions ("Just you wait- the Great Pumpkin will be here! Linus knows what he's doing! [the gang leaves] All right, where is he?!") are quite good.

But these shortcomings are tempered by, among other things, the marvelous WWI-inspired backgrounds and Guaraldi's accompanying 'adventure' score, which is every bit as effective as his more-celebrated jazz pieces. As with the strip, the mid-sixties Snoopy steals every scene he's in. Even when he's not the center of attention, it's fun to watch his facial expressions: after sucker-licking Linus ruins the pile of leaves laboriously raked by C.B., both he and Snoopy sport identical angry, teeth-gritting visages.

The beagle's performance during Schroeder's piano upbeat/downbeat segues is a classic of timing and personality animation. His mortified expression instantly after he submits to his species' instinct and lets out a mournful howl is absolutely priceless.:D Even though I'm not a fan of Bill Melendez' sped-up gutteral portryal of Snoopy, it fits perfectly here.

Someone else in this thread asked if anything was cut from YOU'RE NOT ELECTED. I believe there was a scene at the beginning whereby Sally 'brings' her brother to class for Show & Tell. Despite having not seen the special in many years, I recall it depicted in its 'novelization'; all PEANUTS specials had them.
 
The reason Charlie Brown gets rocks for halloween is because he is an amazingly, impossiblt unlucky person. The dispensers themselves aren't even a factor.
 
I recently got the DVD 3 Pack of the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Specials. I got it for $12.99 at Target. I'm pretty sure that was a misprice because usually they are at least that much seperately, but it was marked that way on the shelf and that is how much it rang up as.
 
Yes, every Peanuts special was converted into a picture book, before there was such a thing as getting 'em on video. Kids usually bought them from Scholastic Book Club. I have the Thanksgiving one, and I recently recovered the Easter one after I was certain it was gone forever.

For some reason I like Peanuts specials with bad warbly 70's background music, so I've made sure to catch the "You're Not Elected" special ever since they've begun running it.
 
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