I’ve written at length about A Charlie Brown Christmas in the past, but I never did devote an entire post to the criminally underrated Peanuts Thanksgiving special from 1973. The closest I came was ranting about ABC’s poor scheduling of the special last year, despite airing it twice in 2008. This year, however, things have improved: the special is airing at 8:00 PM EST on ABC this coming Thursday (November 18). Now people will actually be able to watch the damned thing instead of being passed out from too much food and drink! Let’s just hope ABC doesn’t pointlessly edit it for time like they have with their recent broadcasts of A Charlie Brown Christmas. (I guess that’s what DVDs are for, but it’s still a damned shame.)

Anyway, it’s high time I got down to brass tacks and take a look at what makes A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving so great.

The special opens with Charlie Brown being tricked into kicking a football held by Lucy. She claims it’s a Thanksgiving tradition, but as usual, she pulls it away at the last minute causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back (but not kill himself). As Charlie Brown mopes around near the mailbox, he grumbles about Thanksgiving to his sister Sally and his friend Linus. Sally’s also bitching about having to do extra classwork because the holiday, and then Linus schools ‘em both with a bit of a history lesson.

Later on, as Charlie Brown and Sally prepare to go to their grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, our hero gets a phone call from the always-annoying Peppermint Patty. She wants a Thanksgiving dinner of her own, and she manipulates Charlie Brown into providing it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she also invites Marcie and Franklin! Charlie Brown is shit outta luck, but Linus drops by and suggests that he prepare an early meal for his peers so he can still go to his grandmother’s house later in the day.

Of course, to seat a large group, you need a large table. This task falls to Charlie Brown’s faithful beagle Snoopy and his sidekick Woodstock, and they raid the garage for supplies. Snoopy has the brilliant idea of using a ping pong table for the feast, and fetches lawnchairs to seat everyone. One of the chairs has apparently gained sentience, and engages Snoopy in a vicious battle. The dog overcomes his foe, and returns to the house to help cook dinner.

See, Charlie Brown has to feed a group of kids…but he can only make cold cereal and maybe toast. Good thing Snoopy is once again up to the task, and the canine chef takes to the kitchen. While many people are apt to forget A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, they’ll often remember its unique Thanksgiving “feast.”

Instead of the usual turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, Snoopy opted for buttered toast, jelly beans, pretzel sticks, popcorn, and what looks like parfaits. Once he’s done whipping up all of this stuff, Snoopy dons Pilgrim garb along with Woodstock as the guests begin to arrive.

The gang heads to the backyard to be seated, and Linus quotes a prayer from the original Thanksgiving before Snoopy serves the food. Everyone’s shocked by the odd culinary choices, of course. Peppermint Patty loses her shit, and chews out Snoopy and Charlie Brown for their poor excuse for Thanksgiving dinner. Charlie Brown skulks back to the house in shame, but Marcie calls Peppermint Patty out for being an uppity bitch; after all, she invited herself and her friends without asking first. Peppermint Patty kinda-sorta apologizes to Charlie Brown, and all is well. Even better is the fact that everyone has been invited to dinner with Charlie Brown’s grandmother! After they all leave, Snoopy and Woodstock cook up a proper Thanksgiving feast for themselves at Snoopy’s doghouse. Humans be damned.

There’s so much to love in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. My favorite scene is Snoopy’s chair-fu fight; it’s ridiculous, but cleverly-animated and fits with the overall whimsical nature of the Peanuts holiday specials. Woodstock arguing with Snoopy over their Pilgrim costumes is great, too; even though since neither of them speak English, you can clearly tell what’s being said. (I like to think that Woodstock is cursing his little yellow head off.)

Then there’s the music. As expected, this special’s soundtrack was composed by the legendary Vince Guaraldi. In fact, it features my favorite song of his: “Little Birdie.” All people think of when asked about Peanuts music is the great but vastly overrated “Linus and Lucy,” but “Little Birdie” kicks its ass down the fucking street. How can you not love that amazing bass line? The early-1970s jazz influence permeates the rest of the soundtrack, too, with lots of flute and electric piano work.

Speaking of the early 1970s, this was a time when blaxploitation was all the rage. So when Franklin, the lone black Peanuts character arrives, he gets a dap greeting. It was fairly innocuous and simply a reflection of the times, of course, but it’s hilarious in retrospect. (I should also point out that Franklin only gets a single spoken line in the entire special.)

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving may not get the accolades heaped upon the other Peanuts holiday heavyweights — It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Christmas — but it’s full of great moments nonetheless, and definitely worth watching every year.

(Shit, I just realized I’ve never done a writeup on Great Pumpkin! Better make sure I take care of that next October…)