Happy Halloween!
The people in my household love watching classic Halloween specials – the Garfield cartoon from the 80s, the Paul Lynde special from the 70s, and the 1966 classic, “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
Like so many other days, the holiday didn’t turn out so great for Charlie Brown, and that led viewers to do something about it.
I hope I’m not spoiling a cartoon from six decades ago by telling you that the comics page’s number one blockhead doesn’t do any better with Halloween than he’d done the previous December, on the special “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
He gets invited to a Halloween party by mistake, bungles while making his ghost costume and the other kids use his big bald head to design their jack o’lantern.
And while the other kids are getting gum and chocolate bars and other sweets during trick or treating, Charlie Brown gets the same haul at every single house. Quote: “I got a rock.”
The cartoon world isn’t easy on the poor guy.
But our world has been a little more considerate.
Cartoonist Charles Schulz said that for years, people would watch the Halloween special, feel bad for Charlie Brown and then send packages full of candy to his studio and to the TV networks.
I guess they wanted to balance out all the rocks the “Peanuts” neighbors had given out.
In a way it was another disappointment for Charlie Brown; since he was a cartoon character, he couldn’t eat any of the real life candy.
Schulz’s daughter said people in the office brought it home to their families.
Still, it was nice that people wanted to do something nice for Chuck.
(Did these fans also place kick footballs since Charlie Brown never got to?)
By the way, Jill Schulz also said that, every once in a while, when their household was handing out candy for trick or treaters, just for fun they would remember the Great Pumpkin special and quietly give somebody a rock.
If you happen to be in Caracas, Venezuela, on this Halloween, keep an eye out for a spot known as the “Balcony of the Dolls.”
The upstairs art installation is made of columns and columns of disembodied doll heads.
It took three years to make and could take about three seconds to freak some people out.
Charlie Brown’s Halloween Miracle (Now I Know)
Creepy Doll-Filled Balcony in Caracas Looks Like the Set of a Horror Movie (Oddity Central)
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