After A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the first and third Peanuts special, respectively, Charles Schultz and company focused on specials that did not revolve around a particular holiday. That changed in 1973, when A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving became the first holiday-based special for the franchise since Great Pumpkin. And like Christmas and Great Pumpkin, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving would become an annual staple, though unlike the prior specials, which aired every year on either CBS or ABC through 2019, Thanksgiving would spend most of the 90s being broadcast on cable during the season.
After a cold open, which marks the only appearance of Lucy in the special, we find Charlie Brown filled once again with angst about an approaching holiday. That proves prophetic, as Peppermint Patty promptly invites herself, Marcie, and Franklin over for dinner on the big day, even though, as Charlie Brown repeatedly and unsuccessfully tries to point out, the Browns won't even be home for Thanksgiving, as they're going to his grandmother's. There's also the slight issue that Charlie Brown has no idea how to cook anything, much less an entire Thanksgiving meal.
The meal that Charlie Brown, Linus, and Snoopy do eventually come up with has become iconic in its own right, though it was clearly supposed to be played for laughs, as they prepare toast, popcorn, jellybeans, and pretzels to serve everyone (which includes Linus and Sally). It's Peppermint Patty who has to learn the true meaning of Thanksgiving, as her annoyance with the meal led to an outburst, which led to Marcie reminding her that she invited the three of them over, so what did she expect? Of course, there's a happy ending, when everyone (except for Snoopy and Woodstock, who, as it turned out, had an entire turkey ready for themselves) gets invited to Grandma's condo.
This special introduced Vince Guaraldi's second vocal song for the franchise, "Little Birdie", played over the sequence in which Snoopy and Woodstock are setting up the table and chairs. It's a nice song, and a better one than "Joe Cool" from You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, but again, it's Guaraldi's instrumentals that continue to make the bigger impact.
This would be the final special for much of the voice cast, who were outgrowing their roles. That includes Peppermint Patty's voice, Christopher DeFaria (yes, a boy), who would largely leave acting behind after this, but would grow up to become a highly successful producer and executive, which included executive producing films such as Gravity and Mad Max: Fury Road, and running DreamWorks Animation. Also, after directing the first nine Peanuts specials and first two feature films solo, Bill Melendez co-directed this one with Phil Roman, who would direct several of the upcoming specials by himself, as Melendez took a step back from the franchise for a few years to work on other projects (he would still be credited as a producer). Roman is about as important a name as Melendez's in television animation, as he would go on to direct the Garfield specials of the 1980s, and his animation studio would produce, among other shows, The Simpsons and King of the Hill.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is the weakest of the Peanuts's big three holiday specials, but it's still a solid outing, a significant improvement over There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown. For fans of the franchise, it would be a short wait for the next special, which would arrive not even three months later in early February.
Next week: Snoopy plays Sherlock Holmes as he attempts to figure out who stole Woodstock's nest, in It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown.
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