A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Unless you’ve been responsible for getting a Thanksgiving Day spread on the table for a houseful of company, it’s hard to appreciate Charlie Brown’s (voice of Todd Barbee) dilemma when his friend Peppermint Patty (voice of Christopher DeFaria) invites herself and her friends Marcie and Franklin (voices of Jimmy Ahrens and Robin Reed) over for the big meal.

Even though Charlie plans to eat at his grandmother’s house, he meekly concedes to prepare dinner for his friends. Unfortunately Charlie’s culinary skills don’t exceed the ability to pour cold cereal. Calling on help from Snoopy and Woodstock (both voiced by Bill Melendez), the hosts put together a meal of buttered toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks and jellybeans.

Peppermint Patty, however, is expecting a more traditional holiday offering and gets upset when Snoopy scoops up the finger food and flings the filled plates to the guests seated around a ping pong table in the backyard. After some gentle prodding from Marcie, Patty apologizes for her outburst and is pleasantly surprised when Charlie’s grandma invites all of them to her house for turkey.

In the midst of the dining disaster, the history of the first American Thanksgiving is retold, again with the help of Snoopy and Woodstock. At only 30 minutes, this animated short created by Charles M. Schulz and scored by Vince Guaraldi offers a sweet reminder about the reason for the season. And hopefully makes dinner guests more appreciative if they have turkey instead of pretzels on their dinner plates.