A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown have had their yearly holiday specials canceled for the first time since the 1960s. The adored children’s cartoon specials have been an annual tradition for every major holiday for decades but the times are a changing.
AppleTV+ recently started consolidating the rights to the Peanuts cartoons under their new streaming service. Last year, they released the somewhat middling new mini-series Snoopy in Space which celebrated NASA and the American space program by showing Snoopy’s adventure to trying to become an astronaut. The consolidation is part of an effort to create a slate of new Peanuts cartoons with all of the previous specials being given a home under the same roof.
Thankfully the specials will be available, at least initially, to viewers for free for certain windows of time. As Apple revealed in their public statement:
“The Halloween special will begin streaming globally on Apple TV+ on October 19, and will be available for free from October 30 until November 1 as a special treat on Apple TV+. .Just in time for Thanksgiving, Apple TV+ will launch “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” on November 18, and the special will be available for free from November 25 until November 27. The Peanuts gang will also deck the halls with the premiere of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” streaming exclusively on Apple TV+ on December 4. The holiday special will be available to enjoy for free from December 11 until December 13.”
It’s unclear if this promotion will extend beyond 2020 into further holiday seasons.
Regardless, now is as good a time as ever to reinforce the reality that physical media is always better than digital media and television because litigious corporations can’t hide your favorite movies and shows behind paywalls and copyright disagreements. No amount of woke mobbing can remove my DVD copy of Gone With the Wind from my collection unlike HBO Max where it was forcefully removed because of public pressure.
If you’re a Peanuts fan, do yourself a favor and go pick up the Blu-ray set at Best Buy and don’t give Apple TV+ you’re money unless you REALLY want to support new Peanuts cartoons.
Cultural Revue 