Charlie Brown has one of the worst representations of Thanksgiving I have ever seen. You may argue that Charlie Brown is a cartoon, it does not need to be accurate, but the show is not even entertaining as a cartoon. If you have not watched the show, I highly recommend you watch it and form your own opinion, but I’ll give you a breakdown.
The opening scene features Lucy convincing Charlie to kick a football. She then disappears for the rest of the show, never to be mentioned or seen again. The plot of the rest of the show: Peppermint Patty invites herself over for Thanksgiving dinner, but then she calls it a date. I would not consider Thanksgiving dinner a romantic date, especially when she proceeds to call Charlie back to invite her friends over. Linus, the voice of reason, tells Charlie to stand up for himself and call her back, but he never does. Charlie proceeds to complain about his scenario, even though he put in no effort to fix it.
There is a bright spot in this episode, it features one of the best songs in all of Charlie Brown, “Little Birdie.” However, the song is ruined by the poor animation to accompany it: Snoopy plays basketball, ping pong and fights a chair, while the focus of the animation should be on Woodstock, the little birdie. Moving toward the actual Thanksgiving meal, his meal consists of buttered toast, jellybeans, popcorn and pretzel sticks. Additionally, there is no way Charlie owns that many toasters.
We watch an unusual scene where Snoopy and Woodstock play dress up, which has no further relation to the show. We reach the highlight of the episode, Peppermint Patty and her friends arrive, and Charlie daps up Franklin. Linus, the hero, finally provides some educational content by explaining the history of Thanksgiving.
However, we reach a sour point in the film. Peppermint Patty “apologizes” to Charlie through her friend Marcy. Peppermint Patty doesn’t apologize herself and Marcy never ends up apologizing either, but Charlie accepts the apology and forgives her. The show ends with the group singing an out-of-tune and out-of-sync song in the back of Charlie’s car. The final line of the show, “My grandmother lives in a condominium,” adds nothing to the plot and further confuses viewers.
The show is very overrated. The actual representation of Thanksgiving plays a minimal part in the episode, and the various acts do not play into the plot further than chaotic screen time. The Charlie Brown Christmas and Halloween episodes have set a high standard for Thanksgiving. The result of the Thanksgiving episode was more than disappointing. I encourage you to watch the Charlie Brown holiday episodes yourself and decide your own opinion.
