“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” one of based on Charles Schultz’s comic strip “Peanuts,” follows the story of Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang as they celebrate Halloween in their own individual and unique ways. With its warm palette of reds and oranges, hand-drawn animation, watercolor backgrounds, jazzy score by Vince Guaraldi and cast of brilliant child voice actors, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” was fated to be a fall classic from the moment it first appeared on-screen in 1966.
Although it is certainly both visually beautiful and warmly amusing, the appeal of this special pushes beyond just the need for Halloween-themed entertainment and speaks to the child in all of us as it presents the themes of both childhood isolation and hopefulness through the characters of Charlie Brown and Linus van Pelt. Although there are several storylines involved in the special, its central plotline is Charlie Brown’s negative experiences and Linus’ belief and defense of the existence of the Great Pumpkin.
In Schultz’s comic strip and various holiday specials, Charlie Brown is known for his signature bad luck, and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” is no different in that regard. Throughout this special, Charlie Brown has nothing but bad luck. He falls and hurts himself when trying to kick a football, cuts too many eye holes in his ghost costume, is constantly ridiculed by his friends, has his head used as a model for a jack-o-lantern at a Halloween party and comes out of trick-or-treating with nothing but a paper bag full of rocks.
Just like Charlie Brown, we can sometimes feel like the entire world is against us, and Charlie Brown’s bad luck and feeling of isolation from his friends is something that everyone can identify with. There is something about feeling left out and abandoned that is so characteristic of childhood, but these feelings don’t just disappear once we reach adulthood.
Charles Schultz himself, speaking about Charlie Brown’s penchant for bad luck, once , “Humor doesn’t come from a happy situation. Happy is not funny. Funny is when something happens to someone else, and you identify with it and laugh at the luckless one at the same time. Disasters afflict Charlie Brown that come to all of us sometime; but to Charlie, everything bad happens all the time. He never gets anything right. But a nice kid. I like Charlie Brown.”
Some of Charlie Brown’s difficulties, such as every adult in a neighborhood synchronizing to give him rocks in his trick-or-treating bag, are over-the-top and unlikely, but that’s what makes them funny. Through these trials we can identify and sympathize with Charlie Brown, who, as Schultz said, is a “nice kid.”
Likewise, just as Charlie Brown’s isolation can be validating, Linus’ faith in the Great Pumpkin can be reflective of aspects of childhood that can diminish in adulthood. Linus believes in the Great Pumpkin and fervently tells all of his friends about him despite their disbelief. According to Linus, the Great Pumpkin is a Santa Claus-like figure who “rises from his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys for all the children” on Halloween night. Even though he is mocked and ridiculed by his friends and his sister, Linus is convinced of the Great Pumpkin’s existence and is sure that the Great Pumpkin will visit his pumpkin patch and bring him presents because it is the “most sincere.”
Linus proves his fidelity to the Great Pumpkin by spending all of Halloween waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin’s arrival, persevering despite his friend’s mocking, his own fleeting doubts and the cold October night. Although we may never have believed in a fantastical pumpkin that delivers toys to children, Linus’ childlike devotion to the Great Pumpkin is something that we can all understand. There is something endearing and charming about Linus’ earnest and dedicated belief in something bigger than himself and it is a reminder that faith is something that can come more easily in the innocence of youth. This sense of hopefulness is a reanimating interruption of the cynicism and distrust that inevitably creeps in with adult life.
Throughout the special, the viewer can see themself in Linus and Charlie Brown’s struggles and triumphs, demonstrating that “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” has accomplished the weighty task of compressing both the anxieties and beauties of childhood to a 25-minute animated Halloween special that has become a hallmark of the fall season.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 老司机传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 老司机传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.