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Peanuts evolved into a worldwide sensation during its fifty years of publication, and that popularity has only grown since its tenure drew to a close in 2000. To this day, children continue to be enraptured by Charlie Brown and his colorful cast of friends, and this appeal is due in large part to Charles Schulz reflecting their youthful mentalities in his writing.

In statements delivered by Charles Schulz at the 1994 National Cartoonists Society convention and shared by Hogan's Alley, he discussed how he believes there is always a place for innocence in storytelling, and this idea permeates through his Peanuts work. Schulz said the following on this subject:

I have never done anything that I consider the least bit offensive. There are not fire hydrants in my strip, no toilet bowls. There is a market for innocence. I told this to Lee Mendelson way back when we first started doing television shows.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving benefits from a comparative lack of competition when it comes to holiday specials. There simply aren't as many beloved Thanksgiving specials as there are for Halloween and Christmas. While the classic Peanuts specials of those holidays have to stand out amid a series of rivals, the Thanksgiving version has a much less crowded field. That helped it finalize a rump trilogy of Peanuts holiday classics, while adding the 10th of what became a whopping 51 TV specials featuring Charles M. Schultz's beloved characters.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving also carries a singular distinction: it was the first Peanuts special written for the screen, without being based on any of Schultz's earlier comic strips. It was a step outside the franchise's comfort zone, though it didn't stray too far, as Schultz still wrote the screenplay. All the same, it acknowledged for the first time that Charlie Brown and...

Peanuts captures childhood nostalgia with summer-themed comic strips showcasing traditional summer moments and adventures. The comic strips strike a perfect balance of nostalgia and humor, featuring iconic characters in relatable pastimes. From pool battles to failed summer job attempts, Peanuts delivers funny and heartwarming snapshots of summer childhood.

Peanuts is no stranger to capturing childhood nostalgia, with summer breaks being represented by the iconic comic strip. Capturing the joy of summer that happens during childhood when there's no school and freedom is in grasp, Peanuts provides snapshots of those nostalgic moments that many can relate to and find the humor in.

With traditional summer moments like going to the beach, swimming in the pool, looking for a job (usually unsuccessfully), and taking vacations, Peanuts featured its characters in notable childhood pastimes of summer. Whether it be Lucy and Snoopy battling out for her pool or Charlie Brown trying to educate...

“Happiness is a Warm Gun” isn’t the only connection between The Beatles and Peanuts. Both groups exemplified the optimism of the 1960s era. Charles M. Schulz’s Charlie Brown was so assured of positive outcomes he repeatedly tried to kick a field-goal-placed football held by the town’s resident five-cents-a-session psychiatrist, Lucy, in spite of the knowledge she would pull it out from under him at the last moment. He faced defeat and realized “the world didn’t come to an end.”

When Schulz’s comic strip moved into animated TV specials, much of that expectant wonder was expressed through the music. Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi joined the Peanuts’ creative gang in 1964, when he was hired to score a TV documentary about Schulz, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. The documentary never aired, but jazz label Fantasy Records released the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack, Jazz Impressions of A Boy...

With the holidays upon us, movie lovers will likely return to a few Christmas classics, like Home Alone or Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. There's nothing quite like curling up with some hot chocolate or other favorite holiday-themed beverage and enjoying the ambiance created by these timeless favorites. Some have been spreading holiday cheer for the better part of a century, while others made their mark only recently.

Over the years, the influence of these films has stretched further than television screens. Some of the songs written specifically for these Christmas movies have begun to stand on their own, becoming just as much a staple for holiday radio stations as they were for their films. From "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to "Where Are You Christmas," several iconic songs were first heard in a movie and have since become holiday favorites.

"Christmas Time Is Here" - A Charlie Brown Christmas...

With James Gunn's new Christmas special Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special having just released on November 25th, it's that time of year again when friends and family gather around the tube to honor annual Christmas viewing traditions, like watching It's a Wonderful Life, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and A Charlie Brown Christmas.

A rite of passage for most American Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers, the Peanuts perennial holiday classic is one of a scarce few Christmas intergenerational hand-me-downs that have stood the test of time. Most fans can recite the special line for line, but there are a number of interesting unknown facts about Charlie Brown's most famous existential yuletide crisis.

It Used To Incorporate Advertisements For Coca-Cola

The 1960s broadcasts of A Charlie Brown Christmas included brief animated sections at the top and bottom of the show, which included the Coca-Cola slogan or logo. In the opening sequence,...

Halloween has a soundtrack. It’s the shrieks, howls, and moans of a spooky sounds cassette. It’s the novelty songs from the era of late, late shows mingling with more straight-faced pop that dips a toe into the macabre and the supernatural. It’s the instrumentals that set the tone for the hauntings, possessions, and/or slashings of a favorite horror movie.

Yet, for decades, this seasonal backdrop was incomplete. The Halloween canon lacked one of its most vital recordings, its esprit de fall confined to annual television airings, home video releases, and one hard to find read-along storybook and record. You couldn’t add it to a costume party mixtape, couldn’t load it onto a playlist for a drive to the pumpkin patch. Which is a shame, because unlike so many of the pop hits retroactively adopted as Halloween standards, jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi’s score for...

The 1966 animated television special It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown has become a perennial Halloween standard. Starring the Peanuts gang created by Charles M. Schulz, it is not, however, a horror classic. “It’s not even on the scale,” says film analyst and Peanuts historian Derrick Bang. “It’s too sweet and gentle. The only thing mildly spooky is the title credit sequence.” What the special lacked in fear it made up for in wonder. Much of that magic came from the music.

While Lucy, Linus, and even Snoopy come home with sacks of candy, Charlie Brown’s trick or treat bag is filled with rocks. That’s not how Halloween is supposed to roll. Lee Mendelson, co-creator of the Peanuts animated specials, brought in someone who could make it swing.

San Francisco Bay area jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi had been part of the Peanuts’ creative gang for two...

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” is a holiday tradition. That tradition will continue this year…in a slightly different way.

In October, Apple TV+ acquired the rights to all of the Peanuts holiday specials including “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” It’s understandable why Apple would want to nab exclusive rights to a beloved IP, but the acquisition also raised some concerns about classic children’s programming going behind corporate paywalls and becoming unavailable to the public at large.

Thankfully, it would appear that Apple heard those concerns and registered them. In November, the company announced that “A Charlie Brown Christmas” will be receiving special broadcast airings on PBS in addition to its Apple TV+ premiere. Here is everything you need to know about when and where you can find “A Charlie Brown Christmas” this holiday season.

Those who want to watch the special on traditional, terrestrial TV, like the TV gods intended,...

2020 has been a brutal and depressing year, with a raging pandemic affecting every corner of the globe and massive civil unrest arising in righteous response to long-ignored systemic inequities stateside. It makes sense, then, that film fans have opted to prioritize comedy in their home video streaming, away from the tragedy that is real life.

Per Owen Harris at JustWatch, it appears that comedy has been, by far, the most popular genre across the globe. Based on data gathered for 60 countries collated from July through September, comedy films and TV shows rank at the top in popularity among 28 countries — especially in Europe and North America.

Action films rank second in genre popularity, topping streams across 17 countries tracked. Romance and Animation are the preferred genres in Southeast Asian countries for the same time period.

(Graph courtesy of JustWatch)

Based on this information, I asked Owen if he might mind doing a bit more digging for me.

Many TV legends and contributors were included for the “In Memoriam” segment on Sunday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony for ABC. But producers are always forced to omit some of the 100+ insiders who died since the last ceremony. Who was left out of the group that was honored?

With dozens of television veterans having died since last year’s mid-September ceremony, people certainly included were these six TV Academy Hall of Fame members:

Diahann Carroll

Leonard Goldberg (executive at 20th Century Fox and ABC; producer of “Charlie’s Angels” and more)

Jim Lehrer (anchor/reporter of “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour)

Regis Philbin

Carl Reiner

Fred Silverman

SEECelebrity Deaths 2020: In Memoriam Gallery

Even though he wasn’t known for his TV work, blockbuster film actor Chadwick Boseman was featured in the final slot. NBA Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant was not mentioned, even though the event was being held in the Staples Center.

For Sunday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony on ABC, producers will have the always difficult task of assembling a memoriam segment. Even though the event hosted by Jimmy Kimmel will be virtual, it’s a certainty they will include the popular “In Memoriam” on the show.

With over 100 television veterans having died since last year’s mid-September ceremony, those expected to be honored would include such TV legends and TV Academy Hall of Fame members:

Diahann Carroll

Leonard Goldberg (executive at 20th Century Fox and ABC; producer of “Charlie’s Angels” and more)

Jim Lehrer (anchor/reporter of “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour)

Regis Philbin

Carl Reiner

Fred Silverman

SEECelebrity Deaths 2020: In Memoriam Gallery

Even though they weren’t known for their TV work, it’s very likely NBA Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant and blockbuster film actor Chadwick Boseman will be honored. Also among the dozens most likely included since they...

Good grief! The legendary Peanuts comic strip turns 70 and to celebrate the occasion, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release a gorgeous, collectible Blu-ray&#8482 giftset comprised of three iconic animated holiday specials packaged in a limited edition Snoopy doghouse giftset! Titled Peanuts 70th Anniversary Holiday Collection Limited Edition, this collection will be released on October 1, 2019 and will include It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and A Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as six additional Peanuts specials that are re-mastered/restored, plus brand-new special features. All nine specials will be released on Blu-ray&#8482 with a digital copy. This must-own box set comes with two additional, keepsake collectibles, including an exclusive Snoopy figurine and a Charlie Brown holiday book. This is a numbered, limited edition set with only 25,000 total sets available. It's the perfect idea for seasonal gift-giving! Peanuts 70th Anniversary Holiday Collection Limited Edition will retail for $99.99 Srp...

The Thanksgiving holiday will soon be here, and nothing says Thanksgiving like tradition.

Among my favorite holiday traditions?

Watching the Macy's Day Parade on NBC and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

I feel blessed to have grown up during the time of the very best of children's programming.

Networks were outdoing themselves year after year trying to one-up the competition, but only the classics have persevered.

Related: Harry Potter the TV Series: Is It Time to Make the Leap?

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving premiered in 1973 and has aired on television every November since.

It's something you can count on just as much as your family and the turkey on the table.

It was the third Peanuts special, arriving after A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and didn't arrive without some controversy.

One of the producers had a little bit of difficulty with Woodstock's, ummm, cannibalistic nature.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither were the Peanuts animated shows, inspired by Charles M. Schulz’s long-running comic strip.

But when it came to outlining the entire concept for “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” which first aired in 1966, it was all hashed out by lunchtime, save a few scenes that were added after Schulz, director-producer Bill Melendez (also the voice of Snoopy) and executive producer Lee Mendelson finished their sandwiches.

“The reason we were able to do it in one day is that the main theme of the show had been in the comic strips for years,” Mendelson said during an interview with TheWrap in 2016.

Also Read: Ken Bone Inspires Sexy Halloween Costume That May Inspire Sexual Confusion (Photo)

Indeed, Schulz had already featured Linus in the pumpkin patch with Sally in his newspaper strip. “We just added a Halloween party, a trick-or-treat passage...

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither were the Peanuts animated shows, inspired by Charles M. Schulz’s long-running comic strip. But when it came to outlining the entire concept for “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” which first aired 50 years ago, it was all hashed out by lunchtime, save a few scenes that were added after Schulz, director-producer Bill Melendez (also the voice of Snoopy) and executive producer Lee Mendelson finished their sandwiches. “The reason we were able to do it in one day is that the main theme of the show had been in the comic strips for.

For those that don't know, Lee Mendelson has been with the crew of Peanuts/Charlie Brown since the 1960s when he executive produced the very first Charlie Brown TV short, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown hit earlier this week, which afforded me the opportunity to quiz Mendelson and find out how he got involved with not only the animated Peanuts specials, but also Garfield, which many of us grew up watching.  Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown has been remastered and released on DVD for the first time ever and was written by Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz. Q: Many of us grew up reading and watching Charlie Brown and Garfield, especially when Christmas and Halloween rolled around each year. Were you a Peanuts fan and how did you get involved with those two properties? A: I was always a fan of Charlie brown in the comics.

DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon 2 took Best Animated Feature top honors at the 42nd Annual Annie Awards held Saturday, January 31 at UCLA's Royce Hall. The Best Animated Special Production was awarded to Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey (Voyager Pictures LLC); Best Animated Short Subject Feast (Walt Disney Animation Studios); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Commercial Flight of the Stories (Aardman Animations); Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children Tumble Leaf (Amazon Studios); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Children's Audience Gravity Falls (Disney Television Animation); Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production The Simpsons (Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox Television); Best Animated Video Game Valiant Hearts: The Great War (Ubisoft); and Best Student Film My Big Brother (Savannah College of Art and Design, Jason Rayner).

The Annie Awards honor overall excellence as well as individual achievement in a total of 36 categories from best feature,...

How To Train Your Dragon 2 was the big winner at the annual Annie Awards, which are held to celebrate achievement in animated media.

The DreamWorks Animation project picked up six awards, including Best Animated Feature and Best Director for its writer/director Dean DeBlois. It also won awards for character animation, editing, music and storyboarding.

The Lego Movie, which notably failed to secure an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film, picked up the Best Writing award for writers and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

The Boxtrolls won two awards, for production design and for voice acting for Ben Kingsley's character Archibald Snatcher.

Disney's Big Hero 6 picked up the award for animated effects while five-minute film Feast, which was created to precede Big Hero 6's theatrical screenings, won Best Animated Short Subject.

The Book of Life was rewarded for character design, while Dawn of the Planet of the Apes...

DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon 2 took Best Animated Feature top honors at the 42nd Annual Annie Awards held Saturday, January 31 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

The film, produced by Bonnie Arnold, also won Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Feature Production – Fabio Lignini, Outstanding Achievement, Directing – Dean DeBlois, Outstanding Achievement, Music in an Animated Feature – John Powell, Jónsi, Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding – Truong “Tron” Son Mai, Outstanding Achievement, Editorial in an Animated Feature Film – John K. Carr.

Read my interview with John Powell Here.

The Best Animated Special Production was awarded to ‘Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey’ (Voyager Pictures LLC); Best Animated Short Subject Feast (Walt Disney Animation Studios); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Commercial ‘Flight of the Stories’ (Aardman Animations); Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children ‘Tumble Leaf’ (Amazon Studios); Best Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Children’s Audience ‘Gravity Falls’ (Disney Television Animation...

The 42nd Annual Annie Awards were handed out on a busy Saturday night in the awards world and "How To Train Your Dragon 2" was the big winner. The DreamWorks Animation blockbuster (it's true) took home six Annies including Best Animated Feature and Directing (Dean DeBlois). While the entire Academy votes on the Best Animated Feature category, this endorsement from the animation community can't hurt in a very competitive year. Other big winners included "The Simpsons," Amazon's "Tumble Leaf" and Oscar frontrunner "Feast" for the Best Animated Short Subject honor. "The Boxtrolls'" Sir Ben Kingsley took home the award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production and Phil Lord and Christoper Miller won for Writing in an Animated Feature for "The Lego Movie." A complete list of this year's honorees is as follows: Best Animated Feature "How to Train Your Dragon 2," DreamWorks Animation Directing in an Animated Feature Production Dean DeBlois,...

The International Animated Film Society, Asifa-Hollywood, announced nominations today for its 42nd Annual Annie Award recognizing the year’s best in the field of animation.

Best Animated Features nominations include: Big Hero 6 (Walt Disney Animation Studios), Cheatin’ (Plymptoons Studio), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (DreamWorks Animation Skg), Song of the Sea (Gkids/Cartoon Saloon), The Book of Life (Reel FX), The Boxtrolls (Focus Features/Laika), The Lego Movie (Warner Bros. Pictures), and The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (Gkids/Studio Ghibli).

The Annie Awards cover 36 categories and include Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Special Production, Commercials, Short Subjects and Outstanding Individual Achievements. The winners will be announced at a black tie ceremony on Saturday, January 31, 2015 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

“We had a steady increase in submissions this year and I am excited to say it’s going to be a great awards ceremony,” remarked Asifa-Hollywood Executive Director,...

Monday morning, the International Animated Film Society, Asifa-Hollywood, announced nominations today for its 42nd Annual Annie Awards, recognizing the year’s best in the field of animation. Leading the pack with 13 nominations, including a nod for Best Animated Feature, is Laika Animation's "The Boxtrolls." Dreamworks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon 2" followed with 10 nominations, joining "Boxtrolls" in the Character Animation, Animation Effects, and Best Feature categories. Rounding out the organization's big prize are "Big Hero 6" (seven nominations), "Cheatin'" (three), "Song of the Sea" (seven), "The Book of Life" (five), "The Lego Movie" (six), and "The Tale of Kaguya" (three). The Annie Awards also announced nominations in TV, video game and short subject categories. “We had a steady increase in submissions this year and I am excited to say it’s going to be a great awards ceremony,” remarked Asifa-Hollywood Executive Director, Frank Gladstone. “We added a new category...

Oct. 27 marks the 48th anniversary of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the third Peanuts special. And people are still sitting in their pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to deem them the most sincere: In 2013, seven million viewers tuned in to watch Lucy, Linus, Charlie Brown and of course, Snoopy. This year, Peanuts devotees can watch it along with a beautiful new hardcover edition of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic, out now from HarperCollins. The book is filled with anecdotes and details about the cartoon's production, the full shooting script from the show,...

There’s going to be more Charlie Brown on ABC for the next few years. The network announced today that its finalized an an additional 5-year agreement with Peanuts Worldwide LLC and Lee Mendelson Film Productions to continue showing the Charles M. Schulz holiday specials until 2020. First aired in 1965, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas have been on ABC since December 2001. The Emmy Award-winning specials by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz are produced and animated by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez. No details of the agreement were made available. However, even while down from last year this year, the specials certainly have been a return on investment for the network. Airing on December 3, this year’s A Charlie Brown Christmas was down 34% from its November 28 airing in 2012 but still beat Fox’s new Almost Human among Adults 18-49. Last year’s...

The Peanuts gang will stay on ABC for many more years. The net just inked an extension with Peanuts Worldwide LLC and Lee Mendelson Film Productions to keep the Emmy-winning specials like “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” through 2020.

The specials were created by Charles M. Schulz and produced and animated by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez. They began airing on ABC in 2001. “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” which first aired on TV in 1965, will celebrate its 50th anniversary in the coming year.

Mendelson and Melendez’s association with Schulz harkens back to 1965 with “A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Christmas time is here...and so is the 45th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Filled with humor, heart and a universal message of goodwill toward men, the tale of Chuck's search for the meaning of Christmas, Snoopy's prize-winning decorations and the saddest little tree ever never fails to make the season bright. So we rang up executive producer Lee Mendelson to talk about the special's lasting legacy, how it came to be, and Mariah Carey's take on its iconic theme as performed on her "Merry Christmas to You" special Monday night (9/8c, ABC).

Read More >...

Growing up Jewish, I didn’t have a lot of Christmas specials lying around the house. But Growing up American, I saw an awful lot of them on TV. A Charlie Brown Christmas was one of the few that didn’t make me feel weird and queasy and somehow excluded from a giant party. That could be because it’s not a hard sell on the total perfection of Christmas (see: almost every Christmas special since) but rather a quiet, reflective movie. It could also just be because I loved Peanuts.

My favorite Peanuts special of all, though, was It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and I was pretty excited to dig into this collection. This box set contains both aforementioned films and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, with all three coming both on Blu-ray and DVD. I had remembered the simple animation and the soft-but-not-quite-smooth jazz, but I hadn...

When Charles Schulz created Peanuts sixty years ago, he never imagined that Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s beagle, would steal the spotlight and overshadow the strip in future years. Much as Snoopy overran the comic strip and merchandising, so did he loom large in many of the animated specials which ran for decades on CBS. Warner Home Entertainment has collected two of those dog-centric specials in the just released He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown.

The disc contains not only the title special, which first aired on February 14, 1968, and was last collected in 2009’s Peanuts 1960s Collection, but also Life is a Circus, Charlie Brown, a 1980 special that has not been remastered before. The latter was the 20th special and is making its DVD debut here, and it was clear the energy and creative spark was long since gone.

The first story focuses on Snoopy being terribly disobedient and a general pain...

We have three clips in from ABC's "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" which airs on Thursday, November 26, 2009 (8:00-9:00 p.m. Et). Starring are Todd Barbee as Charlie Brown, Robin Kohn as Lucy, Stephen Shea as Linus, Hilary Momberger as Sally, Kip DeFaria as Peppermint Patty, Jimmy Ahrens as Marcie and Robin Reed as Franklin. Created and written by Charles M. Schulz, the show is produced by Bill Melendez and executive produced by Lee Mendelson. Starring an unlikely round-headed hero and a unique cast of young characters wiser and wittier than their years, Charles Schulz's Peanuts is not just the best-known, most-loved comic strip ever created, but a true global phenomenon. The Peanuts characters are featured in 2200 newspapers, in classic television specials and on re-mastered DVDs, on stage, in hundreds of books and across the Internet. They have inspired every kind of consumer product from T-shirts to toothbrushes. And while translated into 25 languages,...

DVD Review

Peanuts 1960’s Collection

Cast: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Woodstock

Running Time: 2 hr. 30 mins

Rating: Not Rated

Due Out: July 7, 2009

Plot: The first six animated Peanuts TV specials that aired between 1965 and 1969 are in this collection. Two of the specials, “He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown” and “It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown” make their DVD debut. All six specials have been re-mastered for picture and sound quality.

Who’s It For? Parents will love the oodles of nostalgia that will run over them when they sit down with their kids to watch all of these, with Christmas and the Great Pumpkin standing out.

Specials

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965) – Charlie Brown is upset by how commercial the Christmas holiday has become. To coax him out of his holiday blues, Lucy suggests he direct the school’s Christmas pageant and decorate a glorious tree. Charlie Brown concedes.

I’ll be honest and tell you that I am in the minority who felt that Peanuts stopped being funny after 1972 and should have been retired long before Charles M. Schulz’s death. All its charm and whimsy had been drained out of it as witnessed by the 1970s material that has been reprinted since his passing. The world had changed and their innocent worldview ceased to feel at all relevant. But once Schulz found his characters and voice, the strip was brilliant for quite some time.

By 1965, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts had grown to become one of the most popular comic strips launched since the end of World War II if not the 20th Century. It made perfect sense that the characters would eventually find their way onto television. They were first licensed for use as pitchmen for Ford in 1961 and appeared in black and white commercials animated by Bill Meléndez.

Release Date: Sept. 2

Director: Bill Melendez

Writer: Charles M. Schulz

Starring: Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Sally Dryer

Studio/Run Time: Warner Home Video, 25 mins.

It’s the best Halloween cartoon ever, Charlie Brown!

CBS demanded another blockbuster Peanuts cartoon following the success of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965, so Charles M. Schulz, director Bill Melendez and executive producer Lee Mendelson came up with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, in which Linus and Sally spend Halloween waiting for the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown gets nothing but rocks while trick-or-treating, and Snoopy’s Wwi flying ace is shot down behind enemy lines. Even four decades after its original airing, Great Pumpkin feels as ageless as the Peanuts kids, thanks to Melendez’s inventive art work, Vince Guaraldi’s evocative score, the use of child actors to voice the characters, and some surprisingly sophisticated punchlines: When Linus defends the Great Pumpkin,...