Having had their fun with Christmas and Halloween, the creators of the Peanuts decided to try their hand at Thanksgiving, and it worked; but not as well as the others.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving surrounds the peanut gang and their preparation for the Thanksgiving. Sort of suckered into a Thanksgiving with his friends, Charlie Brown and Snoopy do their best to have a fun Thanksgiving before their own Thanksgiving with their family. The only problem is that there isn’t turkey, dressing, mash potatoes and all the other goodies that come with the holiday. Much like the Pilgrims, Charlie Brown and company do their best to celebrate with what food they do have. Regretfully, ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough for Peppermint Patty, who throws a huge fit once dinner begins. Like any good television special, Patty realizes she was wrong and sets things right, just in time for a Thanksgiving invite from Chuck’s grandma.
Out of all the specials I think this is certainly the weakest of the bunch. Something about it seems like they tried too hard. I’m not sure what it was, but it certainly seemed a little bit flat compared to the Christmas and Halloween specials. The humor was there and the interaction between Snoopy and Woodstock certainly added some charm to it (regardless of the questionable cannibalism at the end — okay, it was just Woodstock eating turkey), but it seemed unspectacular in comparison to the others.
With that said, the Blu-ray got good when the explanation of the Pilgrims’ journey from England to the west was shown. I felt maybe that was the strongest part of this Blu-ray and one I thoroughly enjoyed. It has such strong educational value and it’s entertaining. If they had shown that and only that then I think it would have worked better. It offered up some humor just like the original television special, so there was little need for both.
Anyway, still good overall, but not as great as the other holidays.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the review, you’ll still be impressed on how well the 1973 television special cleaned up. It’s just as good as It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and the audio actually sounds a bit better in the Thanksgiving one.
Much like the feature in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, you get a nice HD featurette on how the Thanksgiving special was created. You get some info from the producers and animators involved, as well as the two voice actors behind Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty (both dudes). You also get a nice explanation, even though it was a bit short, of what they were thinking when Woodstock ate turkey. Not a big deal, but it was the first thing that went through my mind when I saw that scene. A good featurette and Blu-ray for $24.98.