It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is a 1966 animated Halloween special based on the comic strip, Peanuts, by Charles M. Schultz.

Summary
Charlie Brown is excited to be invited to his first ever party, Violet's Halloween party, meanwhile Linus hoping that, finally, he will be visited by The Great Pumpkin.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The animation is amazing and is completely accurate to the designs of the comic strips. Especially with the sequence of Snoopy as a World War I Flying Ace in a battle with the Red Baron.
 * 2) Decent background music, composed by the talents of Vince Guaraldi.
 * 3) The idea of Linus trying to find a legendary pumpkin called the “Great Pumpkin” is very original, as it had been previously done before in the comic strip.
 * 4) * Also, the story of Charlie Brown going to his first Halloween Party is quite interesting.
 * 5) Well-done and good voice acting.
 * 6) The characters are still likable and interesting, especially Charlie Brown, Linus and of course, Snoopy.
 * 7) Many hilarious lines of dialogue, especially the unforgettable “I got a rock” line.
 * 8) It has a share of heartwarming and scary moments.
 * 9) There are several funny moments throughout the short film, such as when Linus jumps into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker, the ending where Linus say’s he’ll go to another pumpkin patch even though it was proven that the Great Pumpkin doesn’t exist or when Charlie’s ghost costume has too many holes in it.
 * 10) The cinematic camera angles and background paintings are a big improvement over the first two specials and it shows.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The Great Pumpkin never showed up and Linus' peculiar beliefs proved to be untrue. Justified since Charles M. Schulz wanted to retain a sense of realism in the world of Peanuts.
 * 2) Like A Charlie Brown Christmas, the Coca-Cola sponsor tags were removed in future airings, resulting in bits of animation removed at the end of the opening sequence and the audio track fading away at the end of the closing credits.

Trivia

 * 1) International Error: In Italy, the Great Pumpkin is called "il Grande Cocomero", that does mean "The Great Watermelon".