It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

For many, this is THE Halloween Special. Indeed, it's still aired pretty much every year. That's quite an accomplishment. When I look at the clip above, I can practically taste the pumpkin-shaped candy corn bits that I used to use in gingerbread haunted houses.

Surely, this is the Halloween special that has had the most dramatic effect on popular culture (a title it can probably never lose, though there's always a chance that The Worst Witch will catch on as a midnight movie with audience participation and gradually take over). It pre-dates the others on this site by a solid decade, and doesn't go for any of the three basic plotlines of Halloween specials (the spooky old lady who is actually nice, the person who doesn't love Halloween, and the disco party). It exists in a wonderful world of its own.

This was the second Peanuts special produced, following the groundbreaking "A Charlie Brown Christmas," and holds onto the distinctive, jazzy style of its predecessor, including music by Vince Guaraldi (something that most later Peanuts specials distinctly lacked), all against an autumnal backdrop. While some of the Halloween customs portrayed here come off as a bit dated nowadays, this still defines the Halloween spirit as much as anything else.

And consider the phrases that have entered the lexicon because of it:

"All I got was a rock!"
"Clearly, we are separated by denominational differences."
"You didn't tell me you were going to kill it!"
And, my favorite, Sally's line about trick or treating: "Are you sure it's legal? I wouldn't want to be accused of taking part in a rumble."

And one absolutely can NOT have a pumpkin patch anymore without trying to make it "sincere."

Some might complain that the Flying Ace sequence goes on a bit too long, and they have a point - I'm more interested in the Great Pumpkin, the party, and the trick-or-treating than in the Snoopy subplot, which isn't all that Halloweeny. But this is small potatoes. Any show that looks like this one and features the gorgeous "Great Pumpkin Waltz" by Vince Guaraldi gets a free pass on such minor complaints. As good as it is, it's a wonder that it would be a decade before Halloween specials started to come into their own as a genre.