Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/23/good-grief-charlie-browns-halloween-special-not-airing-on-tv-for-the-first-time-since-1966.html
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Also Santa Claus is dead. Because this is what holidays are in 2020.
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If NPR doesn’t air David Sedaris reading Santaland Diaries this year I’m going to completely lose my shit.
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“The Great Pumpkin is dead.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
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26 or 27 (!) years ago, I went out to my car to quickly doze during a work break. I turned on the radio and heard this – there are few things that have made me laugh so hard (another is Plutonium Circus, in spite of (1) the serious subject matter and (2) Stanley Marsh was an asshole)
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As if we needed another reason to hate Apple.
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There are copies on The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/search.php?query=It's%20The%20Great%20Pumpkin%2C%20Charlie%20Brown&and[]=mediatype%3A"movies"
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I’d seen this elsewhere, but it’s still very important news.
The CBC herein Canada long played tye specials (the Thanksgiving one in October for our Thanksgiving) but it’s tapered off, though I think they still air the Christmas one. I gave up cable in 1997, the money going to internet access. But DTV brought the US stations back, except just at that point the specials moved from CBS to ABC, and I can’t get ABC. And now tyey aren’t over tge air.
I’m not sure I saw the Christmas one the first year, but I’ve seen it every year since. Even have it on DVD. I keep meaning to buy the set with Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving (I don’t know why they don’t include Easter) but the price fluctuates and the best price is away from the ho!idays, when I can’t get excited.
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You have to wonder what their thinking is here. Will people really join Apple+ to watch it? Probably not. Will people dislike Apple for doing this and lose goodwill? Absolutely yes.
Here’s an idea. Buy the rights and make it freely available online platform agnostic. Would Apple get goodwill for doing this? Absolutely yes.
You’re welcome Apple. (I’ll take my consulting fee in free products lol)
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I like how Apple makes it available for free for 71 1/2 hours longer than it previously was and somehow they’re the bad guys. And if people are going to point out that streaming is not as widely available as broadcast tv, they have a point and yet why would Apple be to blame and not the rights owners that chose to go with a streaming platform instead of broadcast tv.
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So, not even a video Santa… a la THX1138?
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Yet another example of how our copyright durations are too long by a factor of 5. This should be in the public domain. People should not be building media empires out of 44 year old TV specials made by people that have long since retired and many of which are dead. The idea that one creative work should be supporting 4 generations in a family doesn’t make sense.
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This. It’s not like copyright is even required here. Apple and other streaming providers still provide a valuable service by providing convenient, easy to use, and high quality streaming even without copyright protection. If they can’t make the case based on the quality of their service and the ability to produce new works, they don’t deserve to be in business. They shouldn’t be paying for or having exclusive rights to TV shows produced half a century ago.
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Wait, was this show created by beagles?
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Don’t tell Charlie Brown, he has enough to deal with.
It might explain why Snoopy went from being a quadruped to a biped though.
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It’s barely a third of the way through it’s copyright term. This work doesn’t go into the public domain until 2086, because we don’t want to discourage artists from doing work if it can’t support their great great great grandchildren.
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At least we still have this:
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At the very least, take a few minutes to enjoy some of the music that Vince Guaraldi created for the show. It will make you feel nostalgic and happy.
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The TV broadcasts inserted commercials, bleah. I’ve been watching the DVDs for years. Then these holiday specials came out on blu-ray. I took a chance on them and was blown away at how much better the video is than the DVDs. Somebody took the time to properly clean and scan the original films.
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