Reel Classics: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is upon us, a hol­i­day that evokes fam­i­ly mem­o­ries and gath­er­ings. Over the years (since 1973 any­way), many of those gath­er­ings includ­ed a spe­cial family—the Peanuts fam­i­ly. You know who I mean—Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, Woodstock, and the rest of the gang. Though A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was ini­tial­ly broad­cast in 1973, it was an annu­al event for most years up through 2019.

The Thanksgiving spe­cial aired on CBS and ran annu­al­ly (except for three years) through November 1989. In the 1990s, it was broad­cast on Nickelodeon until mov­ing to ABC in 2001. There it was shown every year through 2019. Apple TV acquired the rights to the “Peanuts” library and agreed to allow PBS to broad­cast the film through 2022.  It is chal­leng­ing to access on TV these days. 

For many folks, the sound­tracks to the Peanuts spe­cials are as appeal­ing as the char­ac­ters them­selves. Vince Guaraldi is the com­pos­er and plays key­board on the sound­track. In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, we also hear him sing the vocals to the song “Little Birdie.” In October 2023, an album of remas­tered orig­i­nal record­ings from the show, along with bonus tracks, was released in hon­or of the pro­gram’s 50^th anniversary.

The show’s theme is essen­tial­ly that of Thanksgiving itself—gathering with loved ones and friends, shar­ing food and drink, and express­ing grat­i­tude. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving also offers view­ers a bit of the hol­i­day’s his­to­ry. Sally com­plains about hav­ing to write an essay for school on Myles Standish, the famous pil­grim in Plymouth, and at the din­ner table, a his­to­ry of the first Thanksgiving gath­er­ing between the pil­grims and Native Americans in 1621 is pro­vid­ed. There is also a nod to anoth­er Thanksgiving tra­di­tion in this day and time—football on Thanksgiving Day. 

So, for those who have not seen the pro­gram for some time, or who may not have seen it at all, I shall pro­vide a brief summary. 

Charlie Brown and his fam­i­ly plan to trav­el to his grandmother’s for Thanksgiving din­ner. Before their depar­ture, he receives a phone call from Peppermint Patty inform­ing him that her dad is out of town and essen­tial­ly invit­ing her­self to come to Charlie Brown’s house for din­ner. She has also invit­ed their friends Marcie and Franklin. Charlie Brown doesn’t know what to do as he can’t cook any­thing except toast. Linus encour­ages Charlie Brown, and with his and Snoopy’s assis­tance, they pre­pare a meal of toast, pop­corn, pret­zels, jel­ly beans, and ice cream.   Snoopy and Woodstock help set up the chairs and ping-pong table outside.

Peppermint Patty was expect­ing turkey—it’s Thanksgiving, right?  She angri­ly com­plains to Charlie Brown, and he deject­ed­ly leaves the table.  Marcie tells Peppermint Patty that she was too hard on Charlie Brown and reminds her that she invit­ed her­self to this din­ner. Peppermint Patty acknowl­edges her inap­pro­pri­ate response and apol­o­gizes to Charlie Brown.  He then real­izes that it is get­ting late and they will be late for din­ner at his grand­moth­er’s house.  He calls his grand­moth­er to explain the sit­u­a­tion, and she invites all his friends to accom­pa­ny him. So they all climb into his parent’s car and head for grandmother’s house singing “Over The River And Through The Wood.”  After the song, Charlie Brown informs the oth­ers that there is a problem—his grand­moth­er actu­al­ly lives in a con­do­mini­um, not in a house. 

Meanwhile, Snoopy and Woodstock return to the dog­house and pre­pare their own much more tra­di­tion­al Thanksgiving dinner—including turkey and pump­kin pie.

The “Peanuts’ char­ac­ters were cre­at­ed by car­toon­ist Charles M. Schulz. He began his car­toon­ist career with a com­ic strip called “Li’l Folks” in a local news­pa­per in the 1940s.  The char­ac­ters were kids with big heads who act­ed like adults rather than chil­dren.  It evolved into Peanuts and became nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed. In 1965, the gang appeared on TV in a Christmas spe­cial called A Charlie Brown Christmas. It was an imme­di­ate suc­cess, and The New York Times report­ed that more than 15 mil­lion house­holds tuned in to watch the spe­cial. Since then, there have been over four dozen Peanuts pro­grams. Charlie Brown and his friends have become part of the hol­i­day tra­di­tion for many fam­i­lies.  Holiday spe­cials include Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and Valentine’s Day.

Many peo­ple who saw A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for the first time in 1973 (often as chil­dren) have watched it many times, shar­ing it with their own chil­dren.   I have watched it many times with my own chil­dren. I still enjoy it now. I must admit that Thanksgiving is prob­a­bly my favorite hol­i­day, main­ly because it is a time of shar­ing and giv­ing rather than get­ting. It is a time of fam­i­ly and friends gath­er­ing togeth­er and a time of express­ing grat­i­tude for what we have, ver­sus con­cern for what we don’t have.  Marcie sums it up in her apol­o­gy to Charlie Brown on behalf of Peppermint Patty:  “Thanksgiving is more than eat­ing, Chuck.  You heard what Linus was say­ing out there.  Those ear­ly Pilgrims were thank­ful for what had hap­pened to them. And we should be thank­ful too.  We should just be thank­ful for being togeth­er.  I think that’s what they mean by ‘Thanksgiving,’ Charlie Brown.”

Since A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is now on Apple TV, there are cur­rent­ly no net­work air­ings.  For those with Apple TV, you can view it; for oth­ers, you have to rely on oth­er sources. There is a copy of the DVD on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library, but I am guess­ing it will be a pop­u­lar item this time of year.

With all the uncer­tain­ty in our world at this time, gath­er­ing with friends and fam­i­ly at this time of year is a chance to be thank­ful for what we have and to con­sid­er giv­ing what we can to those in need. Something as sim­ple as a smile can make a dif­fer­ence to some­one who is strug­gling. If I were hold­ing the wish­bone as Snoopy and Woodstock are in the pic­ture below, I would wish for peace, love, under­stand­ing, and accep­tance for all.  Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia.

If you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics,” where I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film, usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon. Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed. More infor­ma­tion about the next movie is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as the WinCity Voices Facebook page.