October 13, 2016

It's the Great Pumpkin broadcast update: full, unedited show airs October 28 on ABC

Good news!  As expected, ABC has announced a second, unedited broadcast of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Now the special will be shown first in an edited version on Wednesday, October 19, 2016 from 8:00 - 8:30 PM (Eastern/Pacific), and then the full unedited version together with You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown will air Friday, October 28, 2016 from 8:00 - 9:00 PM (Eastern/Pacific).

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was first broadcast on October 27, 1966.  As far as we know, there will be no TV commemoration of the 50th anniversary; but at least the original unedited special will air 50 years and 1 day after it first aired!

4 comments:

See Yan said...

It is sad that for those who is not living in USA now (like me), they cannot watch the full ep... :(

Scott McGuire said...

Well, you can always get and watch the show on DVD - all DVD releases should be unedited (the US ones are).

See Yan said...

Re Scott McGuire:
Is it true? I bought a US DVD on "It's the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown" (coz I also bought a US DVD Player which is also region 1). It is still a 25-minute version (the same as the one shown on TV)?!

Scott McGuire said...

Yes, all US DVD releases of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" are uncut. 25 minutes and a few seconds is the correct, full running length.

There were only about 5 minutes of commercials per half-hour back in 1966 when the special first aired.

However, now there are 7-9 minutes of commercials per half-hour on US network channels. So when "Great Pumpkin" (or other Peanuts TV specials from the 1960's) are shown in a half-hour timeslot, several minutes are cut from the show to make room for commercials.

But the DVDs have the full, unedited shows.