Charles M. Schulz Museum celebrates 50th birthday of Charlie Brown Halloween special

Her mouth open wide with excitement, Tami Donner posed Friday while comfortably doing a handstand against a wall at the Charles M. Schulz Museum. Above her, against a blue backdrop, were the words “Celebrating 50 Years!”

Donner of Paradise was among the adults and children eager to partake in the museum’s celebration of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” the classic animated TV special that premiered Oct. 27, 1966.

The anniversary carries special significance for Donner, a self-described “Snoopy freak,” because she, too, turned 50 this year.

Donner’s connection to Snoopy and the other characters from Schulz’ “Peanuts” comics stretches back decades. As a child in Fresno, she at one point played the iconic beagle in a production of the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

So it came as a welcome surprise to Donner when her two friends drove up to the Schulz museum when they were in the area for a convention.

“I couldn’t stop shaking until we went in here,” she said.

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” one of multiple beloved animated specials based on Schulz’s comics, features Peanuts characters celebrating Halloween. Among them is Linus, the character known for his ubiquitous blanket, who waits in a pumpkin patch for a visit from The Great Pumpkin, though it never arrives.

The special premiered to much success, with nearly ?50 percent of the American viewing audience tuning in.

And it has endured in the five decades since: As of 2015, the special had 6 million viewers on ABC, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

To honor the 50th anniversary, the Schulz museum earlier this month rolled out a small display in its main exhibition gallery, which was where Donner and her friends gathered Friday.

The exhibit includes historical background on the creation of the Halloween special as well as reproductions of storyboard sections and original animation cels - a rare find, according to museum archivist Cesar Gallegos.

“It’s really tough sometimes, especially with animated art, because the cels don’t really hold up too well,” Gallegos said, referring to celluoids, a transparent sheet used in hand-drawn animation. “A lot of cels get thrown away, they get reused. ... For a lot of different reasons, people may not think this is something worth saving.”

In putting together the “Great Pumpkin” display, the museum wanted to convey how “it always started with Schulz,” Gallegos said. Schulz took his inspiration for the special, animated by Bill Melendez, from his own comics: The Great Pumpkin debuted in “Peanuts” in 1959, according to the museum. As part of the anniversary commemorations, the museum is also screening “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” in its theater multiple times a day. The special can be seen at 10:15 a.m. on weekends and 1:45 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. daily. The exhibition runs through late November.

If Rena Alviso and her family are any indication, interest in the Peanuts characters continues to cut across generations.

Alviso visited the museum Friday with her mother, Michele DeYoung, her husband, Anthony, and their two children. Alviso’s love for “Peanuts” characters was fostered by her mother, who has collected ornaments and other figures of Woodstock, the bird drawn by Schulz, since she was a teenager.

Alviso is now passing that appreciation down to her young children. She and her husband took the family to the museum in advance of hosting a “Great Pumpkin”-themed 4th birthday party this weekend for their son, Andrew, who donned a blue Snoopy shirt to explore the museum. Alviso said she’s long had a tradition of watching the “Great Pumpkin” special and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” every year. DeYoung said the Halloween story, in particular, has enduring appeal because of the way Linus continues to wait for the Great Pumpkin despite disbelief and heckling from his friends.

“He doesn’t care that everybody thinks he’s weird,” DeYoung said. “I think that’s the part that, deep down, we all want to be that way.”

You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @thejdmorris.