With the holidays approaching, it is now time to view holiday programming we only see on TV once a year. All the famous holiday shows, programs and movies will be back in their annual place soon enough. Thanksgiving kicks off it’s TV viewing traditions right before all the famous Christmas movies and specials return. Though Thanksgiving has less TV traditions by comparison to Christmas, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is still a traditional favorite.
Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will air at its new home on ABC. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is aired for the 36th year in a row, after premiering on CBS in 1973.
Instead of searching for the Great Pumpkin or a weak little Christmas tree, Charlie Brown and friends try to find the perfect Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Charlie Brown doesn’t quite have the traditional Thanksgiving feast prepared as Peppermint Patty prepares to come over.
In the annuals of Peanuts history, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is the middle child of the famed Peanuts animated specials. Airing after It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and before A Charlie Brown Christmas, it is a special that is perhaps less remembered than the others.
The Halloween special has the Great Pumpkin, the Halloween costumes by the Peanuts gang, and Snoopy’s night time adventures. The Christmas special has the famous dancing music, anti-commercialism message, and Linus’s Bible quotes. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving doesn’t quite have that pop culture impact, but it is still a famous, beloved special.
With the famed Thanksgiving “feast,” yet another football gag involving Lucy and Charlie Brown, a final singalong, and Snoopy’s usual antics, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving has delighted Peanuts followers for over three decades.
CBS held broadcasting rights to A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving until 2000, when ABC bought it. Instead of airing the special on Thanksgiving night, ABC now airs A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving before the big day. This year, it airs two days before Thanksgiving itself.
This airing of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving comes a month after it was released on DVD by Warner Home Video.
This year, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving has to share the TV spotlight tonight with more adult fare, however. Opposite the special, FOX airs an extended episode of House in which House and his staff are taken hostage by a desperate patient. Critics are also hyping up the final episode of The Shield, airing on FX tonight at 10.
With those dark specials on TV, the innocence of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is even more of a gentle antidote.
Sources
Baby and Toddler Examiner- “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving airs tonight on ABC” www.examiner.com/x-764-Baby-and-Toddler-Examiner~y2008m11d25-A-Charlie-Brown-Thanksgiving-airs-tonight-on-ABC
Wikipedia- “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Charlie_Brown_Thanksgiving
