The Great Pumpkin
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The Great Pumpkin is an unseen character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.
The Great Pumpkin is a Santa Claus-like being that seems to exist only in the imagination of Linus van Pelt. Every year, Linus sits in a pumpkin patch on Halloween night waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear. According to Linus, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch he finds to be most "sincere". ("Look around you! Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see!") The Great Pumpkin then flies through the air to deliver toys to all the good little children in the world. In one strip, Linus claims that the Great Pumpkin has in fact been seen by people other than himself in pumpkin patches across the country, if not the world, indicating that if the Great Pumpkin is indeed imaginary, his existence is at least believed in by people other than (and even more suggestible than) Linus. The fact that Linus is, aside from his pumpkin faith, one of the most sober-minded characters in the strip seems to be a point in his favor, and adds great irony to his irrational belief in The Great Pumpkin.
Invariably, the Great Pumpkin fails to appear, and a humiliated but undefeated Linus vows to wait for him again the following Halloween.
The strip's other characters generally do not believe in the Great Pumpkin. Linus's sister Lucy, in particular, is embarrassed at his behavior each Halloween.
Occasionally, Linus will convince another character (such as Sally, Peppermint Patty, or Marcie) to wait with him for the Great Pumpkin, but this never goes well either. The animated television special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown depicts one such Halloween, with Sally joining Linus in the pumpkin patch. Someone did arise from the pumpkin patch that night -- Snoopy, in his World War I flying ace outfit. Sally then screamed outrage over missing trick-or-treating and the kids' Halloween party.
Linus takes his mission to inform the public of the Great Pumpkin's existence very seriously, and once jeopardized his campaign for student body president by mentioning him in a campaign speech (a storyline adapted as the animated special You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown). He regularly goes from door to door to spread the word of the Great Pumpkin. Invariably, the person to whom he is speaking slams the door in his face. Stressing the importance of faith in the Great Pumpkin, Linus states that one must never say "If the Great Pumpkin comes", but rather, "When the Great Pumpkin comes"; a lack of sufficient faith, he avers, might cause the Great Pumpkin to pass one by at the critical time.
In the strip published on November 1, 1961, Charlie Brown stated that he had heard on the radio that the Great Pumpkin had appeared in a pumpkin patch owned by someone named Freeman in New Jersey. This is one of the few occasions where the Great Pumpkin is perceived to be "real".
Linus's seemingly unshakable belief in the Great Pumpkin, and his desire to foster the same belief in others, has been interpreted as a parody of Christian evangelism by some critics. Others have seen Linus's belief in the Great Pumpkin as symbolic of the struggles faced by anyone with beliefs or practices that are not shared by the majority. Still others view Linus's lonely vigils, in the service of a being who may or may not exist and who never makes his presence known in any case, as a metaphor for man's basic existential dilemmas. Charles Schulz himself, however, claimed no motivation beyond the humor of having one of his young characters confuse Halloween with Christmas. In the 1959 sequence of strips in which the Great Pumpkin is first mentioned, Schulz also has Linus suggest that he and the other kids "go out and sing pumpkin carols".
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
1. Koresky, Michael. "The Book of Linus." Reverse Shot, Spring 2004.
| Peanuts |
|---|
| Characters |
| 555 95472 | Charlotte Braun | Charlie Brown | Sally Brown | Eudora | Franklin | Frieda | The Great Pumpkin | Kite-Eating Tree | Lila | Little Red-Haired Girl | Marcie | Miss Othmar | Patty | Peggy Jean | Peppermint Patty | José Peterson | Pig-Pen | Poochie | Roy | Schroeder | Shermy | Joe Shlabotnik | Snoopy | Snoopy's siblings | Thibault | Linus van Pelt | Lucy van Pelt | Rerun van Pelt | Violet | Woodstock |
| Films |
| Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!) | A Boy Named Charlie Brown (feature film) | Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown | Snoopy, Come Home |
| Other Media |
| A Charlie Brown Christmas (album) | The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show | Linus and Lucy | Snoopy!!! The Musical | Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular | This is America, Charlie Brown | You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown | Peanuts in popular culture |
| People |
| Vince Guaraldi | Donna Johnson | Bill Melendez | Charles M. Schulz |
