It's been 47 years since It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown first aired on CBS. Now the charming animated treasure airs on ABC and will again Halloween night.
Different network, same special.
And, you know what? After all these years, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown still holds up and takes me back to that 4-year-old boy I was when the show premiered way back in 1966.
Here are five reasons why...
1. Vince Guaraldi: Even if you don't like cartoons, you had to love Guaraldi's jazzy score. His memorable rendition of Linus and Lucy plays for nearly two minutes during the show's pre-credits teaser. Guaraldi is probably a big reason why I love jazz so much now.
2. Linus' unshakable belief in the Great Pumpkin: He's laughed at by his friends. Told he's wasting his time and that he's crazy. Still, every Halloween, there's Linus, the blanket-carrying dreamer, waiting in the frigid fall night for the Great Pumpkin to rise up with his bag of toys for all the good children. He never does, of course. But deep down, you still believe that one year, he just might.
3. Snoopy's Halloween exploits: No dog has a more vivid imagination than Charlie Brown's pet beagle. Just watch Snoopy pretend to be a World War I Flying Ace who gets shot down crossing wartime France. Charlie Brown may be the heart of Peanuts, but Snoopy is its soul -- and a very funny one.
4. Lucy pulling the football . . . again: Is this the year that Charlie Brown finally gets to kick that danged football? Lucy has a "signed document" saying it is. Alas, it's not.
5. Four words - "I got a rock." Like Rodney Dangerfield, Charlie Brown never gets any respect. While his fellow trick-or-treaters walked home with gum, candy and popcorn balls, "blockhead" Charlie wound up with a bag of rocks. But that bit of misfortune only makes us love him even more. Who doesn't, after all, love an underdog?
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