It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Celebrating 50 Years Tonight!

Yes.  It has been 50 years since the Peanuts classic, “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” first aired on television. First premiering on Oct. 27, 1966,  the classic Peanuts special tells the fabled tale of the Great Pumpkin who visits the good children in the pumpkin patch on Halloween night. Linus, the blanketed boy from the gang truly believes in this Halloween version of Santa Claus. Linus insists that The Great Pumpkin will arrive, bringing gifts to all the good children of the world that believe in him.

Despite being made fun of, Sally decides to stick around the pumpkin patch with Linus instead of going out trick or treating. In the meantime, the gang goes from door to door collecting candy from the neighbors. Sadly, Charlie Brown gets no such thing as the neighborhood mercilessly plops rocks into his bag as a commentary of his poorly executed ghost costume, coining the phrase, “I got a rock.”

It was just one year before that A Charlie Brown Christmas Special premiered and instantly becomes essential holiday viewing.  The natural follow up was a special (as they were called back then) for Halloween. An innovative thought at the time, Great Pumpkin heralded the growing popularity of the spooky holiday.

If you are home, take the time.  Sit down, watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” when it airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Don’t skip through the commercials, don’t pause anything, watch it as it originally played, with commercial breaks at specific times that allow you a potty break or a snack run.  There is something special about the novelty of appointment television.  Embrace it, enjoy it. This is what Halloween is all about.