It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

1966. The story opens with Linus and Lucy going out into a nearby pumpkin patch to find a pumpkin. After a couple of smaller choices by Linus, Lucy points to the biggest pumpkin in the bunch, which Linus clumsily rolls back home. When they get home, Lucy takes a big knife and slices into the pumpkin to gut it, at which point a mortified Linus says “Ohhhh, you didn’t tell me you were going to kill it!”, and starts wailing.

With autumn already in full swing, Charlie Brown is busy raking leaves with Snoopy’s help. Linus sees the pile and jumps right in the middle of it, forgetting he had a wet sucker in his possession. Moments later Lucy comes with a football for Charlie Brown to kick, but he initially refuses. Lucy shows him a letter, but for the first time she pulls it away when Charlie Brown is about to kick the ball, which sends him landing flat on his back, like always.

Later, Linus writes a letter to The Great Pumpkin, to Charlie Brown’s disbelief, Snoopy’s laughter, Patty’s assurance that the Great Pumpkin is a fake, and even to Lucy’s violent threat to make Linus stop (“You better cut it out right now or I’ll pound you!”). Linus laments in the letter that “more people believe in Santa Claus than in you (The Great Pumpkin), but let’s face it; Santa Claus has had more publicity. But being number two, perhaps you try harder” (a tongue-in-cheek jab at Avis Rent-A-Car’s popular slogan of the day).

After Linus mails his letter to the Great Pumpkin (using his blanket to open the mailbox after Lucy refuses to help him open it), Charlie Brown dances when he receives through the mail an invitation to go to Violet’s Halloween party, but his bubble is quickly burst by Lucy who mentions there were two lists, people to invite and people not to invite; Lucy is certain Charlie Brown’s name was on wrong list.

On Halloween night, the gang gets their costumes ready. Lucy dresses as a witch (blindly contradicting her statement that “A person should always choose a costume which is in direct contrast to her own personality”), while most of the other kids (possibly Frieda and Schroeder) dress up as ghosts, using old bed sheets with eyeholes cut out as well as a coonskin cap and a goblin mask. Pig-Pen is a ghostly ball of dust (everyone recognizes him as he walks in), and Charlie Brown has eyeholes cut out all over his sheet, matter-of-factly stating he had a little trouble with the scissors.

Enjoy!

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Part 1 of 3

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Part 2 of 3

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Part 3 of 3

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