Watching “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is almost as synonymous with Thanksgiving itself. And while you might have it on DVD or be able to stream the show, there’s nothing like watching it on TV simultaneously with the rest of the world. So if you don’t have a handy dandy TV Guide available, you’re probably wondering when “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” will come on.
This year, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” will air right before Thanksgiving, on Wednesday, November 27. As always, it’s on ABC, and show time starts at 8:00 p.m. EST. It’s usually followed up with the episode “Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers.”
When I was in elementary school, it was the thing to watch “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (or really, any of the Charlie Brown specials) when they came on TV. Why? Well, they aired later in the evening, (at 8:00 p.m., to be precise) so getting to stay up a little later on a school night was a BIG deal. My friends and I would all excitedly ask each other who was going to watch it that night, and the next day at school, we would rehash all the details of the show. Seriously, it was that big of a deal.
And maybe because it wasn’t just any ordinary program (it came on once a year, after all), that made it even more special. Remember, it was a one-and-done deal. If you missed it, that was it. You wouldn’t get to see it again until (gasp) next year. Plus, there was no pausing for pee breaks—when the commercial breaks would come on, you had to do a dash to the bathroom or snag some snacks in the kitchen before Snoopy started whipping up the Thanksgiving feast.
Which brings us to the food. Seriously, could a kid ask for a better Thanksgiving meal than the one on “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”? There was buttered toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks, jelly beans, and sundaes. For a 5 year-old, that beats turkey and turnips any day.
And maybe it was the fact that Charlie Brown got to celebrate such a special holiday with his friends that was even cooler. Come to think of it, it might actually be the first time we saw a real Friendsgiving on TV.
So join Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, Sally, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang when “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” airs on November 27 at 8:00 p.m. EST. We’ll have the popcorn and strawberry sundaes ready.