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Category:    Home > Reviews > Animation > Children > It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Main Program: B

 

 

Halloween is a fun time of the year where kids get to have fun with monsters and many other identities while getting as much free candy as possible.  Anyone who thinks otherwise misses the point or wants to ruin it needs to get a life.  One of the best TV specials ever made about it happens to be the funny, charming 1966 special It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  Besides the “trick or treat” stuff, Linus thinks there is an entity called The Great Pumpkin (for reasons we honestly never find out about) arrives once a year to give kids goodies.

 

It is not that he is too lazy to get a costume or anything, but actually has convinced himself to spend all kinds of time in a pumpkin patch until this entity shows up.  In the meantime, the others do go out for candy, though it is not quite working out for Charlie Brown.  Of course, Snoopy has a different take as he battles The Red Baron and the show is a classic alone for how well it works.

 

Appropriate to the time period and linked by a brief moment to it is You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown from 1972, where Charlie Brown and Linus compete to run for class president.  Lucy does not run, but does try to help out Linus in the best way possible, except that she is Lucy.  Though not as strong or memorable as Pumpkin, it has some good moments and one of Woodstock’s first animated appearances.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image on both programs is just fine for DVD and their age, with good color and from clean prints for the most part.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on both are about on par with each other, making watching either pleasant.  It should be noted that Bill Melendez is the only major voice to return in 1972 as Snoopy, as the children from the first special had their voices change by then.  This DVD was originally pressed in 2000 and did not need any upgrading.  There are no extras, but the latter program is considered one.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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