It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

After A Charlie Brown Christmas, this one came along the next fall. While it is not quite the first one, it has some good moments. Of course when this was made, Halloween was more of a trick or treat holiday as this one was originally sponsored by Dolly Madison, the maker of cup cakes. This high point of this one is Lucy talking about wearing a costume to match your personality.

Snoopy has his first major World War 1 Flying Ace segment here and it is effectively woven into the story. As a Halloween Special, Linus is always waiting for the Great Pumpkin & it is consistent with Linus that he makes a negative remarks about Santa believers. After all, in the previous Christmas Special, Santa is not mentioned in his speech of what Christmas is all about.

The Halloween party, which is a bigger staple today than ever is here though if this were to be updated, Snoopy could decorate his dog house with Halloween Lights, like he did with Christmas lights in the other special. While it is not Christmas, it did help build Charles Schultz resume so that he would do lots more television & movies with the Peanuts gang.