The Great Pumpkin
The Great Pumpkin is an imaginary character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.
The Great Pumpkin is a holiday figure (comparable to Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny) 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. Each year the Great Pumpkin invariably fails to appear, and a humiliated but undefeated Linus stubbornly vows to wait for him again the following Halloween.
The Great Pumpkin was first mentioned by Linus in Peanuts in 1959, but the premise was reworked by Schulz many times throughout the run of the strip, and also inspired the 1966 animated television special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The best-known quote regarding Linus and the Great Pumpkin, originally from the comic strip but made famous by the TV special, is: "There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin."[1]
Characteristics
According to Linus, on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch he deems most "sincere." He then flies through the air delivering toys to all the good little children in the world. Linus believes that the Great Pumpkin is very sensitive and easily offended and will bypass anyone who denies or doubts his existence, which is why a person should never say "If the Great Pumpkin comes," but always "When the Great Pumpkin comes." In writing to the Great Pumpkin, while trying to convince him that one's pumpkin patch is sincere, one must not ask for anything specific, but rather wait and accept whatever he brings.
Differences between the Great Pumpkin and Santa Claus
In the daily strip of October 25, 1960, Lucy is convinced that Linus is confusing the Great Pumpkin with Santa Claus. But Linus is adamant that he can tell them apart. Santa Claus is simply doing his job giving toys as it is expected of him, the Great Pumpkin gives away toys because he is fulfilling a moral obligation. Charlie Brown makes a similar observation in a 1965 strip.
Others characters' views of the Great Pumpkin
Throughout the duration of the comic strip, Peanuts characters besides Linus at one time or another showed some belief in the Great Pumpkin, though this never lasts very long. It usually ended the morning after Halloween when the Great Pumpkin had not appeared.
- Charlie Brown does not profess a belief in the Great Pumpkin; like others in the strip, Charlie Brown cannot bring himself to believe in the Great Pumpkin as he has never seen him. Nevertheless, on at least three occasions he accompanies Linus in his pumpkin patch as an observer. In the series from November 1959, when the Great Pumpkin was first mentioned, Charlie Brown (with Lucy watching) uncharacteristically poked fun at Linus for his belief in the Great Pumpkin. In the Sunday strip of October 29, 1961, Linus claims the Great Pumpkin has in fact been seen by people other than him in patches all across the country, if not the world. On other occasions, however, Linus' belief brought Charlie Brown close to exasperation; in a Halloween series from 1965, Charlie Brown's friendship with Linus was strained when he called Linus "stupid". They soon reconciled. In the November 1, 1961 strip, Charlie Brown gives evidence that points that the Great Pumpkin might actually exist, stating he had heard on the radio that the Great Pumpkin had appeared in a "very sincere" pumpkin patch owned by a man named Freeman in New Jersey, much to the hilarious fury of Linus, who then screamed at the sky and Great Pumpkin.
- Linus' sister Lucy never directly expressed belief in the Great Pumpkin. Conversely, she usually has the most vehement criticism of Linus's belief, although on select occasions she does profess belief, but her ulterior motive is personal gain. Case in point, the Sunday strip from October 28, 1962 shows Lucy building a pumpkin patch for herself and Linus to sit in, but she confides in Charlie Brown that she's thinking more of the presents and publicity she can get. But when Linus sees Lucy's handiwork he rebukes her saying, "This is the most hypocritical pumpkin patch I've ever seen!" The last frame of the strip sees Lucy sighing in a pile of the same pumpkins she bought to build her patch and futilely selling them for fifty cents a piece. Another Sunday strip, from October 24, 1965, shows Linus writing another letter to The Great Pumpkin with Lucy right by his side the whole time criticizing him. But in the final panel, after Linus mails the letter and walks off, Lucy asks "Did you tell him I've tried to be good, too?".
- Linus tries to pass on his belief to his younger brother Rerun in a 1996 strip.[2] Rerun responds with "You're just trying to mess with my mind, aren't you?" But Rerun goes along with Linus as he goes door-to-door telling others about the Great Pumpkin, often trying his best to keep his distance.
- Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally, is usually the one person whom Linus most often convinces to sit in the pumpkin patch with him. The number of Sally's pumpkin patch vigils is second only to Linus himself. Sally's belief in the Great Pumpkin is quashed every year she waits in the pumpkin patch, yet the next time, presumably out of love for Linus, she believes in the Great Pumpkin just as strongly. The animated television special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown depicts the first time she joined Linus instead of going out for tricks or treats with the others. Yet the 1981 Halloween strip series gives the premise an ironic role reversal: it is Sally, not Linus, who tells another character, her friend Eudora, about the Great Pumpkin and brings her to the pumpkin patch. When the Great Pumpkin again fails to appear, Eudora berates Sally for wasting her time in the same manner that Sally usually turns on Linus.
- Peppermint Patty, on at least two occasions, has been depicted waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin, doing so because by her own admission she is very superstitious, trusting and, she also admits, a little stupid. One on occasion she bought a dozen pumpkins from a supermarket and set up her own patch, but was informed by Roy that Linus thinks this might be insincere. When she telephones Linus for advice, he is left struggling for an answer to her "theological problem". In the series of Halloween strips from 1975, Peppermint Patty informs Linus that she wrote and asked the Great Pumpkin for a baseball glove. Outraged, Linus banishes Peppermint Patty from the pumpkin patch for "doing the worst thing a person could do: offending the Great Pumpkin".
- Marcie sat with Linus in the Pumpkin patch on at least one occasion, and generally shows some belief in the Great Pumpkin by, on other occasions, walking door-to-door with Linus giving out Pumpkin tracts. Marcie repeatedly calls it the "Great Squash" or the "Great Grape", much to Linus' annoyance and quick correction.
- Outside of Sally, it was Snoopy who was perhaps most often seen in the pumpkin patch with Linus, though his presence might have been through manipulation by Linus, either being taken against his will or coerced through bribery. In one strip when he was having his picture taken with Charlie Brown and Lucy to help interest "non-believers", Snoopy was thinking, "From this moment on, I'm known as Rex". There was one occasion, however, where it suggests that Snoopy was there willingly. Lucy had said to Linus "Anyone who sits in a pumpkin patch for five days waiting for the Great Pumpkin is crazy!" She then sees Snoopy sitting in the pumpkin patch, looking rather embarrassed, indicating that he had indeed been sitting there for five days waiting for the Great Pumpkin.
Objects Linus mistakes for the Great Pumpkin
Over the years, Linus mistook varying objects for the Great Pumpkin:
- October 30, 1960: In the first instance, Linus and Charlie Brown spent the evening waiting in the pumpkin patch. When they heard rustling nearby and then saw something rising out of the patch Linus, thinking it was indeed the Great Pumpkin, faints, at which point Charlie Brown notices it's only Snoopy. After coming to, Linus asks Charlie Brown if the Great Pumpkin left any toys, to which Charlie Brown replies, "No toys. Just a used dog". This strip's storyline was the basis for the main plot in It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, only Charlie Brown was replaced with Sally.
- October 31, 1967: This time Snoopy was sitting with Linus in the patch when they heard rustling. Linus automatically thought it was the Great Pumpkin while a terrified Snoopy was thinking he should have never left the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm. The next day's strip, however, revealed that it was just a "bird hippie".
- October 30, 1982: During an important bowling tournament, Charlie Brown accidentally threw his ball out the front door of the bowling alley. Linus and Sally both got knocked over by the ball as it plowed through the pumpkin patch. Two strips later, Linus was still convinced that it was the Great Pumpkin. This strip's storyline was the basis for the main plot in The Great Pumpkin, a short featured on The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show.
- October 31, 1983: Spike was traveling cross-country with his cactus to visit his brother Snoopy. By the time Halloween came around, Spike's story was still being told in parallel with the Halloween-preparations strips. The two stories concluded together when Spike finally arrived in Snoopy's city: he wandered into the pumpkin patch and Linus mistook his cactus to be the Great Pumpkin.
- October 31, 1993: Again, Sally sitting with Linus out in the pumpkin patch when a Jack-o'-lantern rises in the air on the end of a stick. It turns out to be Snoopy playing a prank on Linus.
- October 31, 1996: Linus, this time in the pumpkin patch alone, sees something he does not immediately recognize. When he asks if it's the Great Pumpkin, it turns out to be Rerun with a sheet over his head. He had forgotten to cut the eye holes out of the sheet so he did not know where he was or where he was going. Rerun spent the night roaming through the yard, and was still wearing the sheet in the next day's strip.
- October 31, 1999: In the final original Halloween strips before Schulz' death in early 2000, Linus once again convinced Sally to join him in the pumpkin patch. Although they did see something creep up on them in the pumpkin patch, Sally was again outraged when it turned out to be Snoopy driving a Zamboni.[3]
Informing the public
Linus takes his mission to inform the public of the Great Pumpkin's existence very seriously, and once effectively ended his race for student body president (and Charlie Brown's bid for vice president) by mentioning the Great Pumpkin 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 evangelize the word of the Great Pumpkin. On occasion he has been helped by Marcie, Snoopy, Sally, Rerun, and even once by a very embarrassed Charlie Brown.
Religious metaphors
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 observers. 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 that may or may not exist and which never makes its presence known in any case, as a metaphor for mankind's basic existential dilemmas.[4] 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", something he asks the trick-or-treating kids in the special itself.)
In the special, when Charlie Brown asks Linus when he's going to "stop believing in something that isn't true", Linus retorts that he will stop when Charlie Brown stops believing in Santa Claus. Charlie Brown ultimately resolves that they "are obviously separated by denominational differences".
Other Great Pumpkins
Braniff Airways
In the late 1970s, Braniff Airways painted their fleet in bright primary colours, in order to give their fleet visual appeal and marketability. The airline's first 747-200 airliners were delivered painted in a striking shade of orange, causing several ATC's across the USA to welcome the new Braniff acquisitions with the phrase "Welcome, Great Pumpkin". The 1973 Petersen Publications annual, Air Progress : World's Greatest Aircraft, had its chapter devoted to the 747 headed "The Great Pumpkin Lives!".
BNSF Railway
In 1996, Burlington Northern SD60M #9297 (renumbered 8197 in 2008) was jokingly dubbed the "Great Pumpkin" by employees because of its bold orange paint scheme, one of many prototype paint designs created by the then newly-formed Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), a merger of Burlington Northern and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe). This scheme eventually became the basis for BNSF's "Heritage I" paint design, while the "Great Pumpkin" nickname has stuck among railfans for this particular locomotive.
The Simpsons
The final segment of "Treehouse of Horror XIX" (the fourth episode of the twentieth season of The Simpsons) is called "It's the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse". It is a parody of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (and was supposed to be named "It's The Great Pumpkin, Milhouse," but due to legal reasons, was rejected) and contains several references to the Peanuts series. In the segment, Milhouse wears the same clothes and plays the same role as Linus van Pelt. Lisa is modelled after Sally Brown and Bart looks like Charlie Brown, he even says "good grief", echoing Charlie Brown's catchphrase. A redesigned version of Santa's Little Helper can be seen sleeping on top of his dog house and Homer is seen sleeping on top of his house in a manner similar to Snoopy.[5] When Marge first speaks, she uses a muted trombone. This is a parody of the "wah wah wah" voice that is used for adults in the various Peanuts specials.[6] The dance scene during the Halloween party is a parody of the dance scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas right down to Kang and Kodos in a nonspeaking cameo as the twins 3 and 4."[7] Parts of the segment had music by Vince Guaraldi (best known for composing music for animated adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip), which they had obtained the rights to use.[8]
Robot Chicken
A sketch in the stop-motion parody show Robot Chicken featured a Peanuts parody involving Linus Van Pelt getting tired of never actually seeing the great pumpkin and so he raises a version in a satanic-esque ritual involving a pentagram. True to the source of the being, the creature is evil and murders him. This leads to a succession of further characters to be murdered. Charlie Brown is only saved by the kite eating tree consuming the demonic pumpkin, with him commenting that his friends can now rest. The scene then shows the murdered characters dancing and playing piano ala the Peanuts specials in Hell with a demon.
The Great Pumpkin's voice was supplied by character actor Abraham Benrubi.
Italy and the Great Watermelon
When Peanuts' strip was first introduced in Italy, Halloween was almost unknown there as a festivity. The earlier translations turned the pumpkin in a watermelon ("Il Grande Cocomero") because it was felt as a more Mediterranean and understandable fruit-figure, and the mistranslation did somehow stick in the Italian pop culture.
Dan Johnson
The Major League Baseball player Dan Johnson is nicknamed The Great Pumpkin due to his orange-red beard and his notable late-season/autumn performance. As a marginal big-league player in the Tampa Bay Rays organization, he was called to the majors late in three separate seasons (2008, 2010, 2011), and subsequently hit clutch home runs that propelled the team into the playoffs.
Licensed use on Poptropica
In October, 2010, forty-five years after the 1966 Bill Melendez TV special, the Great Pumpkin is the topic of a licensed use by the children's internet site Poptropica. The site's 15th quest (island) is "Great Pumpkin Island", and features several of the Peanuts characters interacting with the avatars of Poptropica players.[9] True to previous Peanuts versions, the Great Pumpkin never actually appears.
See also
Notes
- ^ Schulz, Charles (1961). Peanuts comic strip dated October 25, 1961.
- ^ Schulz, Charles (2002), The World According To Lucy, page 133, Ballantine Books, New York, NY, ISBN 0-345-44271-7
- ^ Schulz, Charles (2000), Peanuts 2000, page 134, Ballantine Books, New York, NY, ISBN 0-345-44239-3
- ^ Koresky, Michael. "The Book of Linus." Reverse Shot, Spring 2004.
- ^ Vejvoda, Jim (2008-07-26). "SDCC 08: Simpsons Footage Screened". IGN. http://tv.ign.com/articles/894/894050p1.html. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
- ^ Ponywether, Ariel (2008-11-03). "Review -- The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XIX"". Firefox. http://firefox.org/news/articles/2201/1/Review----The-Simpsons-quotTreehouse-of-Horror-XIXquot/Page1.html. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
- ^ Bentley, Rick (2008-10-31). "A mixed bag of parody on "Simpsons Treehouse of Terror XIX"". The Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2008334772_websimpsonspreview31.html. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
- ^ Topel, Fred (2008-09-10). "Simpsons Parodies Transformers". Sci Fi Wire. http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=1&id=59752. Retrieved 2008-09-10.
- ^ http://www.virtualworlddigest.com/buzz/tag/poptropica-great-pumpkin-island
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