Why I relate to It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

by Katie Schenkel

It wouldn't be Halloween for me without a particular tradition; carving pumpkins, toasting the seeds and watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while I do it. Because I'll be out of the house tonight when ABC is broadcasting it, I pulled out my DVD to watch it again.

There’s been a little discussion in the last hour among CliqueClack staff about the Peanuts specials and opinions are divided: some think fondly of the holiday shows (and the comic strip in general) and others don’t understand the appeal of a “whiny little kid that nothing good ever happens to” (Deb‘s words). After all, why would you want to teach kids that nothing good happens?

I think the reason I’m so very pro-Peanuts is because I could relate to Charlie Brown so often as a kid. I got the proverbial football pulled from under me on a regular basis; the metaphoric rock in my candy sack. I even had my versions of Lucy in a few different forms, that “friend” who wasn’t really a very good friend.

Unlike A Charlie Brown Christmas — which is still a favorite of mine, but that’s another story for another season — things don’t end up happily for Linus. He doesn’t get to see the Great Pumpkin and he gets laughed at in the process. But you know what? He sees it as a slight setback, if that. It’s kind of nice to know that every year, Linus declares his ongoing devotion to the Great Pumpkin in the lost art of the end credits rant. Like Charlie Brown and that dang football, Sally’s love for her Sweet Baboo and Lucy’s insistence that she is a delicate flower, Linus will never give up on his Halloween icon. If they could be resilient, I could be, too. Even when I cut too many eye-holes in my costume.

Probably more than anything, I watch the special every year for Snoopy as he walks the fine line between enthusiasm and delusion as the WWII Flying Ace. Curse you, Red Baron!