Hello, darlings! Long time no see!
Last Halloween, I promised to cover some excellent Halloween specials, and I got extremely swamped with the day job. Fortunately, Halloween is right around the corner and what better way to celebrate the season than to curl up and enjoy an old classic? In my opinion, it’s not Halloween until I watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
Last year this celebrated holiday classic celebrated its 50th anniversary!
This cartoon is a lovely little special which is suitable for the whole family. The story focuses on two major plots: Charlie Brown is invited to Halloween party with typical disastrous results. His friend Linus, has an unwavering devotion to the Great Pumpkin, a character who flies over the earth every Halloween looking for the most sincere pumpkin patch. While the kids go trick-or-treating, Linus and Sally Brown (blinded by love) opt to wait in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin.
**SPOILER ALERT, STOP READING HERE**
Before we go any further, let’s get one thing straight. I am totally on Sally’s side here. Linus invites Sally to wait for the Great Pumpkin. Sally thinks it’s a date.
So, Sally gives up an evening of parties and trick-or-treating to sit in a cold pumpkin patch all night waiting for a flying pumpkin.
Does Sally believe in the pumpkin? Probably not, but she is willing to go along with Linus’s silly whims because he “says the cutest things.”
When the “pumpkin” arrives, Sally unleashes the “restitution monologue” one of the best monologues of a woman scorned.
If you follow my blog regularly you know, I love the Peanuts gang, but I find the lack of parenting alarming. If you think I am overreacting, watch the Thanksgiving special, I am fairly certain you will agree, there is something rotten with the adults in Peanuts Town, U.S.A. Well, things are no different in their Halloween adventure.
Have you seen the knife Lucy uses to carve a pumpkin? It’s a serial killer knife! I think Linus’s reaction is pretty much exactly how I feel watching a child wielding a butcher knife like Jason Voorhees.
But even more alarming is the fact that Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally has never even heard of trick-or-treating until Halloween.
When the kids explain it to her, she responds, “Is it legal? I wouldn’t want to be accused of taking part in a rumble.”
How old is this child? Seven?
Why does she know about rumbles and legality but absolutely nothing about Halloween, just what kind of household is the Brown household?
And from there, the neglect just gets worse and worse and worse.
Later, as the kids are preparing for Halloween, Charlie Brown must create his own ghost costume, why isn’t anyone helping him? Poor Charlie Brown, cannot even cut two holes in a sheet properly.
And it is not just the parents who are bad adults in this town when Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating, EVERY SINGLE PERSON GIVES HIM A ROCK, what kind of horrible adult gives a child a rock?
Are you alarmed yet? Should we discuss their friend “Pig Pen” will someone look at this poor child in the automotive oil streaked dusty, dirty sheet?
Does anyone notice that he dresses like the hillbilly children in Pumpkinhead?
Why is this okay?
But most shocking of all is the Van Pelt family values. No one notices Linus is sitting in the Pumpkin Patch all night, at 4 a.m. Lucy brings Linus in the house.
I ask again, WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS?
Despite all my issues with the grown-ups, I love this cartoon.
Movie geeks like me probably can boast owning a copy, if you are a xfinity customer, you can watch this on demand whenever you like, and ABC will air it on Thursday, October 19.
Ciao for now, Dearies!
Serendipitous Anachronisms 