It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: Released as a special edition, this second Peanuts special holds up fairly well because it's one of the few really relying on the spirit and actual plotlines of Charles Schulz's comic strip.

Instead of believing in Santa Claus, Linus Van Pelt believes that a giant pumpkin - soon to be mocked on The Simpsons -- visits all the sincere pumpkin patches of the world on Halloween, delivering gifts to his believers. You might ask why no one locked this kid up, especially when his sister was so free with psychiatric advice, but that's the beauty of Schulz' original vision. Kids are just freely, wonderfully odd.

Yet that "A" plot of the special ends up not playing nearly as well as subplots. Charlie Brown's potato-eyed ghost sticks in the memory far better than Sally's belief in Linus' belief. And this special is where Snoopy completely stole America's heart.

Animator Bill Melendez devotes a significant amount of time to Snoopy's rich fantasy life, perfectly in keeping with Halloween. The beagle imagines himself the World War I flying ace, and his mistaking Violet's Halloween party for a French Caf� during wartime really solidified the cult of Snoopy.

That's what holds up best in this special, and plays fairly timelessly. When watching this at home, it was the WWI segment that had to be reversed and replayed a few times for my four year old; the rest just doesn't have the same flash.

The disc also includes a later special which shows how far removed from realism the Charlie Brown gang became on television. In It's Magic, Charlie Brown, Snoopy learns to perform real wizardry, turning Charlie Brown invisible, putting him on the cusp of being able to kick the football.

Though that special has more Snoopy (and Woodstock), and thus holds kids' attention better, the line between realism and fantasy blurs a bit too much, undercutting a lot of the franchise's charm.

For nostalgia's sake, it's worth having; just know the Great Pumpkin isn't quite as enrapturing as you might remember.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

One last nightmare for Halloween...

Derek McCaw