Publication Date: 10-06-2026

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) review

Dir. Bill Melendez

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★★

My father hates everything, but he maintains a soft-spot for the Peanuts, so much so that he’d actually turn off hockey or football in late October and put on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown at least a couple Halloweens during my childhood. During a horror movie marathon last Saturday evening, my girlfriend, Catherine, admitted she never saw the famous 1966 television special and wanted to immediately rectify it. Thankfully, we had an Apple TV+, for the short no longer airs on basic cable every year like it has since its debut until 2020. Unfortunate acquisitions like this make me grateful Bill Watterson was so stingy with the licensing rights for Calvin & Hobbes.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is still as beautiful as it ever was. The follow-up to A Charlie Brown Christmas, which aired on CBS less than a year prior, in 1965, Charles M. Schultz’s masterwork is often considered the first Halloween special. Without it, there’s reason to wonder if we got all those classic Treehouse of Horror episodes. With the rise in adult animation and children’s shows which function more as rambunctious noise garbage, there’s a wholesome genius to Schultz’s lovely little masterpiece, which isn’t so much spooky as it is insightful.

There’s no need to rehash, so I won’t waste much time. The 25-minute short essentially is a series of vignettes, set in late October, where Linus (Christopher Shea) is determined to witness the mythical Great Pumpkin on Halloween night. He writes letters to the figure as if he’s Santa, and plots to wait patiently in a pumpkin patch all night in hopes of catching a glimpse of the legend, who delivers toys to believing children. You might recall that Schultz himself demanded that Linus read from the Bible in A Charlie Brown Christmas, so the character’s belief in the Great Pumpkin can be seen as an extension of his Christian faith. During the production of this short? I suspect Schultz faced considerably less, if any, opposition.

Meanwhile, Linus’ sister, Lucy (Sally Dryer), might accost her brother for his blind faith, but she no less brings an extra bag on Halloween night to collect candy for him, showing her compassion. Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins) only receives rocks when trick-or-treating, and Snoopy (Bill Melendez) gets dressed up as a World War I flying ace and lets his imagine take the metaphorical wheel.

Lively music from Vince Guaraldi and a graceful, glacial pace that focuses on the camaraderie of the children give It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown a grounded base on which to foster all those aforementioned memorable moments. On this rewatch, I was taken by Charlie’s sister, Sally (Cathy Steinberg), and her crush on Linus. She dutifully waits with him in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin, and even her contempt for his absence by 4am on the first of November isn’t enough to compel her to stomp off in a huff. It’s probably been a minute since you watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Unless you’ve already seen it this season, you’re due to watch it again.

NOTE: As of this writing, the First Presbyterian Church in Naples, FL has uploaded It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to their Vimeo channel, and it’s free to watch as a result.

Voiced by: Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Cathy Steinberg, Sally Dryer, Bill Melendez, Gai DeFaria, Glenn Mendelson, Ann Altieri, and Lisa DeFaria. Directed by: Bill Melendez.