Have you ever written your letter to the Great Pumpkin? Linus Van Pelt will likely be eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Great Pumpkin — and the presents he’s positive he’ll carry — when It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown airs Oct. 24 on PBS. However when viewers tune in to look at the vacation traditional, it gained’t look precisely the identical as the one which first aired in 1966. The unique Peanuts Halloween particular featured a temporary scene highlighting the 25-minute cartoon’s two sponsors.
In 1965, Coca-Cola sponsored the first-ever Peanuts animated particular, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Its surprising success prompted CBS to rapidly order a follow-up particular focusing on one other vacation: Halloween. As with the Christmas particular, Coke was a sponsor of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Coca-Cola by way of Internet Archive), together with snack cake firm Dolly Madison.
Each sponsors’ names had been seen in a temporary, now-deleted second at the starting of the particular. At the finish of the title sequence, a number of children in costume run throughout a pumpkin patch, darting behind a scarecrow carrying a shirt that reads: “Brought to you by the people in your town who bottle…” The scarecrow holds a signal displaying the Coca-Cola brand. Subsequent, we see one other scarecrow, this one with a shirt that claims, “…And the folks who bake…” It’s perched above a signal with the Dolly Madison brand. (You can see the authentic intro on YouTube.)
Charlie Brown acquired rocks in the Peanuts Halloween particular, however Charles Schulz’s children acquired loads of candy treats
When Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, he will get rocks as an alternative of sweet in his deal with bag. Some viewers felt so unhealthy for the character that they really mailed sweet to CBS, which broadcast the authentic particular, and to the dwelling of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz.
However there was no scarcity of candy stuff in the Schulz home, the cartoonist’s daughter Jill Schulz instructed The Wrap in 2018. A few of it got here courtesy of the sponsors of the Peanuts specials.
“My parents were from Minnesota, so there was always plenty of ice cream, Hostess cupcakes, Dolly Madison — one of the first sponsors of the Peanuts specials,” she mentioned.
The freebies made fairly an impression on her as a little one, she added.
“Even to this day, I still drink Coke if I am going to drink soda,” she mentioned.
The Peanuts characters appeared in a number of Dolly Madison adverts over the years
Dolly Madison didn’t simply sponsor. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The corporate additionally used Peanuts characters on its packaging and in its adverts for a few years.
In a single business (by way of YouTube), Charlie Brown chats with Lucy at her psychiatry/detective sales space, explaining that each time he tries to eat a Zinger, it’s stolen by the Zinger Zapper (Snoopy, carrying a trench coat and masks as a disguise). In one other, Lucy tells Charlie Brown and the different children that she’s going to catch the Zinger Zapper red-handed (by way of YouTube).
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown airs on PBS and PBS Children on Sunday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. ET. (Test native listings.) Additionally it is accessible to stream on AppleTV+.
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