October 30th, 2021 
Michael Lyons 
The success of A Charlie Brown Christmas in December of 1965 was both a success and a challenge. The now-iconic Christmas special was a tremendous hit for CBS. Another popular special, Charlie Brown’s All-Stars, followed in the spring of 1966. The network soon approached producer Lee Mendelson and Peanuts creator Charles “Sparky” Schulz about making a third special. “When Lee went to the networks to propose a third show. The networks said to him that they could do whatever they wanted. But, they wanted another blockbuster,” said Peanuts historian Scott McGuire, in the documentary, We Need Another Blockbuster, Charlie Brown! The Making of The Great Pumpkin.
Another blockbuster?!? A Charlie Brown Christmas, seen by 45% of those watching television when it was first shown in 1965, was the second highest-rated show that week (coming in behind NBC’s immensely popular western, Bonanza). It then went on to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Program.
For this new special they were working on, what could come close to that? Mendelson and Schulz met with Bill Melendez (the noted animation director of the first two Peanuts specials) to brainstorm ideas. “Bill, the animator, said Halloween would be kind of fun because we could do all the costumes and trick or treating, and that would lend itself to animation. And then Sparky all of a sudden stood up with great excitement and said, ‘The Great Pumpkin!’,” recalled Mendelson in the documentary.
And so was born the story of It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, a TV special that’s become so ingrained in our Halloween season that it can be easily quoted verbatim by multiple generations.
This October marks the 55th anniversary of this traditional Halloween treat. The special tells the comfortably familiar tale of Linus eagerly awaiting his annual visit from The Great Pumpkin, a Santa Claus-like being who, according to Linus, if one waits in the pumpkin patch, The Great Pumpkin “…flies through the air and brings toys to all the children of the world!”
Charlie Brown’s sister, Sally, is so smitten with Linus, she elects to give up her night of trick-or-treating to wait in the pumpkin patch with him.
Charlie Brown goes trick or treating with Lucy and the other kids, and attends Violet’s Halloween party. He attempts to go as a ghost but has some “trouble with the scissors.” Instead of cutting just one eye hole, he cuts a whole series of them. While all the other kids get candy, in true Charlie Brown fashion, he gets a rock from each house.
Sadly, The Great Pumpkin never comes, and a furious Sally leaves a chilly and desperate Linus in the pumpkin patch. Undeterred, as the special ends, Linus rails about the fact that he has not given up hope and will wait for The Great Pumpkin again, next year.
There are other moments in the special that are now part of our collective memories: Linus jumping into a pile of leaves with a wet lollipop and Lucy pulling the football out from under Charlie Brown, just as he is about to kick it (a gag popular in the comic strip brought to animation for the first time here). Then there’s Snoopy’s fantasy sequence, where he portrays his idol, a World War I Flying Ace, who finds his plane/doghouse in a fierce dogfight with The Red Baron. He is shot down and makes his way across the “Countryside” (in a scene filled with moody, watercolor backgrounds) to find his way to the Halloween party.
It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown originally aired on CBS on October 27th, 1966. It was so successful, it was then broadcast after on one of the major networks each year for fifty-four years, until last year when it was exclusively shown on the Apple+ streaming service (this year, it was shown on PBS to make it available to all).
In the five and a half decades since its first broadcast, The Great Pumpkin has inspired innumerable products and merchandise, including plush toys, coffee mugs, board games, ornaments, and limited-edition artwork, just to name a few.
It’s also inspired those who have grown up with the TV special. This writer’s first glimpse into the impact of The Great Pumpkin came at a Halloween party 35 years ago when a guest showed up in a sheet cut with multiple holes and wearing a sign that read, “All I got was a rock!” Just one of the many, now indelible moments from It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, that has woven its way into the fabric of Halloween celebrations.
Fifty-five years after its debut, the beloved special is now an integral part of this time of year. When the show first begins, with the Peanuts kids trick or treating, while ghostly images float in the sky, as Vince Guaraldi’s brilliant score (infused with ethereal flute notes) plays, it all feels like a clarion call heralding the official start of Halloween.
It seems as if CBS got the blockbuster they wanted.
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