A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973)

It is a performances centric movie

A Masterpiece!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is a half-hour television special from üver 40 years ago, in which Charlie and the gang celebrate Halloween while running into the usual obstacles. Melendez and Schulz are on board as always as by 1973, there was one new Peanuts movie every year. This is the first with Phil Roman as co-director on board. He returned for many future Charlie Brown films. You may also know for his very long involvement as a producer of "The Simpsons". Anyway, this film can basically be split into two parts: Charlie's Halloween struggles and the sequences with Snoopy and Woodstock. Charlie has to prepare a Halloween meal for his friends and still make it to his Grandma's house to have Halloween with the family. Quite a challenge as we find out quickly. But there is nothing new or refreshing about this Emmy-winning short film here. Nothing that hasn't been done before. The female characters are annoying, the boys are whiny. Peppermint Patty is basically a more aggressive Lucy and I guess that's why the latter was hardly in this film except at the beginning. i wish Schulz could have come up with more differences in characters. There really aren't that many. But the worst thing is probably that they included a black Peanut for political reasons with racist tensions in the 1970s rising I guess. Of course he hardly says a word or has any other impact of the story. But he needed to be there to be politically correct these days I guess. Horrible, just horrible. I recommend to not watch this one, also because it's really never funny.

A Thanksgiving classic about Peppermint Patty inviting herself, Marcie and Franklin over for Thanksgiving, forcing Charlie Brown to recruit Linus, Snoopy and Woodstock to prepare a big holiday dinner. Tenth prime-time animated TV special based upon the popular comic strip PEANUTS. Won an Emmy Award in 1974. You can count on it to be aired every November on ABC, usually back-to-back with the first episode of THIS IS America, CHARLIE BROWN "The Mayflower Voyagers". Like a lot of childhood staples, this has sentimental value to those who grew up with it, but this segment is too brief and dated to really grip those who were introduced to it too late.**½ (out of four)

Tenth animated special based on the cartoon strips of Charles M. Schulz finally gets around to Thanksgiving, as Charlie Brown and Sally are intending to go to their Grandma's house for the holiday, but somehow Peppermint Patty invites herself and some other friends over to Charlie's house, and he must frantically cook something to serve, so with the help of Snoopy and Woodstock, makes toast, popcorn, and pretzel sticks, much to Patty's annoyance! Enjoyable tale may not have the warmth and humor of either Christmas or Halloween, but can still hold its own as one of the best of these specials, though I'm not sure little bird Woodstock should be eating turkey...?

What better way to kick off the Thanksgiving season than with Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang? So this special kicks off (literally) with Lucy once again enticing Charlie Brown to kick the football. He won't fall for it (also literally), until Lucy cites traditional values involved with kicking the pig skin, so CB runs at the ball, Lucy predictably pulls it away and Charlie falls on his back. The cheeky girl then admits tradition means very little to her. When Charlie Brown recovers, he gets back to worrying about the approaching Thanksgiving holiday, and Sally is upset because she hasn't even finished her Halloween candy yet. Wait, how did she get Halloween candy? Didn't she miss trick or treating to sit in a pumpkin patch with Linus? I guess we can count this as taking place in the following year. Anyway, it seems Charlie's family has their Thanksgiving Day plans all set, but disaster looms on the horizon. Doesn't it always? It began with a phone call out of the blue from Peppermint Patty. Now I know a lot of people assume she's a lesbian, but if that were the case, why does she have a crush on Charlie Brown? So anyway, she invites herself over for Thanksgiving at Chuck's, knowing he wouldn't mind. As if that weren't enough, Patty calls back a minute later to say her pal Marcie would be coming too. A trifecta occurs when Patty calls a third time and says Franklin, the only black kid in the entire Peanuts canon, would be coming too. Better do something quick before she invites the whole neighborhood!What a predicament Chuck's got himself into: three guests coming for dinner and he won't even be home. Fortunately he doesn't have to be at Grandma's until 4:30, so Linus suggests he have two dinners. Snoopy offers to help set up and cook, so he awakens his birdie pal Woodstock for assistance. They drag the ping pong table out of the garage and set up fold-out chairs, Snoopy constantly getting hurt in the process. Even getting into a fight with a chair that didn't like being kicked. Now that the table was all set, it's time to bring out the eats. How do you prepare a Thanksgiving dinner on short notice? Use what you've got. Improvise. So with toaster ovens a-blazing, they make a whole stack of toast, make three bowls of popcorn, jelly beans, pretzel sticks. Hey, whatever works. So Patty, Marcie and Franklin arrive promptly and they all sit out back, ready for their makeshift dinner. In lieu of a prayer, Linus tells the story of the first Thanksgiving, and then Snoopy serves up the eats. Since Peppermint Patty is more accustomed to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner (turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie), she naturally disproves of this flimsy meal and berates Charlie Brown for it. Marcie has to then remind the ungrateful brat that she invited herself and caused this whole mess in the first place. Patty realizes the error of her ways and sends Marcie in after Chuck to make the apology for her. Charlie Brown accepts her apology because he's a saint, and realizes it's now 4:00. Will he make it to Grandma's in time? He calls her to explain their predicament and Granny says, "bring'em along." So they all get in the family Truckster and head off, singing a round of "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go." Except Chuck's grandmother lives in a condominium. With the humans gone, Snoopy and Woodstock partake in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner they apparently hoarded from the others. Happy Turkey Day!I'll say this: this is one Thanksgiving special that is NOT a turkey. Though maybe not as beloved as the Peanuts Christmas and Halloween specials, this one is still pretty darn good. It really captures the spirit of this holiday: having to have a big dinner prepared for guests who invite themselves. And while Lucy may not have been a stickler for tradition, Peppermint Patty sure was, belittling Charlie Brown's dinner of toast, popcorn and jellybeans. That reminds me of the Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving special, as Pooh and friends have a dinner of honey, acorns, biscuits and ice cream, and Rabbit lectures them on what a "proper" Thanksgiving meal should be, so they spend the rest of the special tracking down such things. So anyway, this Thanksgiving, I definitely recommend this special. While this holiday may seem like a needless detour between Halloween and Christmas, there's really much more to it.