A Thankless Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, by Emma Rudkin

The Peanuts are iconic. While they originated as a comic strip in the Sunday paper beginning in 1950, I knew them only from cartoons growing up. Even before I was fully sentient, I knew that “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” was my favorite. As I’ve aged, I remain steadfast in my belief that it’s the best Peanuts cartoon. “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” was fun, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is sweet…but the scene of Snoopy fighting a lawn chair alone mops the floor with them. Upon rewatching the special last year, though, I realized something: love wasn’t the only thing I felt for the 25 minute short. In fact, love wasn’t even the predominant feeling. There was something much darker: a deep disappointment in the miscarriage of justice that occurs in those 25 minutes. 

We’re all familiar with Peanuts’ habitual, though mostly benign, cruelty towards one another; Lucy pulling the football out from under Charlie Brown just before he kicks it is the exemplar. But is it really benign? Or is Lucy actually the arbiter of preemptive justice? Because the way Charlie Brown conducts himself is nothing short of appalling. Don’t get it twisted, though—Linus and Peppermint Patty are very much culpable here as well. 

In short, the premise of the short story is that Peppermint Patty invited herself, her friend Marcy, and her friend Franklin over to Charlie Brown’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Charlie Brown has to visit his grandmother’s house by 4:30 for their family dinner, though, so Linus proposes a solution: Charlie Brown can host his Thanksgiving dinner early in the day, then leave to attend his family’s later. Simple enough, right? Charlie Brown, while receptive, shares that he doesn’t know how to cook anything but cereal and maybe toast. Linus reassures him that “we” can help him. Just as he says this, Snoopy walks up and is immediately put to work when Linus—less so asks and more so tells—Snoopy to go outside and set up a table and chairs outside for the dinner.

I’m sorry—did Snoopy know he was included when you said “we” would help out, Linus? When Linus said “we,” that implies he’d contribute in some way himself. To the contrary, he goes outside and scolds Snoopy for goofing off, as they “don’t have time” to be messing around! Not to mention that the labor Snoopy had already done outside is unsafe for a human, much less a dog—that garage is dangerous!

Woodstock watches in horror as he sees his best friend, Snoopy, crushed between the garage ceiling and the garage door.

While Linus was inside doing (probably) nothing, Snoopy was fighting for his life against that garage door (and won, for the record), was snapped into the jaws of a table tennis table, and still had enough joy in his heart to play a quick game of table tennis. That is when Linus decided to come out and reprimand Snoopy for his negligence Hand on his hip, Linus orders Snoopy to go get chairs to put around the table. Snoopy, in his infinite grace, responds with a respectful if not stoic salute. As Snoopy resumes his compulsory labor retrieving seats, the lawn chair just refuses to cooperate.

Not only does the lawn chair not cooperate, it physically attacks Snoopy. Turns out Linus wasn’t just recruiting Snoopy for a dinner, but also a war. After a 56 second fight, Snoopy barely makes it out within an inch of his life. He carries his burden in silence and no one but Woodstock would ever know about what happened on the lawn that day. Through it all, Snoopy doesn't fly off the handle and attack Linus like we all know he has every right to do. Not only does he keep it together, but he also continues his undue laborious task of singlehandedly putting the table together—chairs, tablecloth, and all. He stands next to his creation with yet another dignified salute. This time, his work and behavior was up to Linus’s standards, which I think are awfully high for someone who does nothing. Without so much as a thank you (on Thanksgiving, by the way), Linus tells him to “come on inside” because they “need help with the food.”

If I were Snoopy, assuming I hadn’t already lost it, this would be my breaking point. Snoopy’s contribution was first advertised as “helping” Linus and Charlie Brown prep for the dinner. While he was outside setting the table up, what were they inside doing? Grabbing the 18 toasters Charlie Brown somehow had for Snoopy to singlehandedly prepare the toast—one of the two things Charlie Brown admitted he had previously attempted to make himself? Did they even try to make the toast themselves? Or was it always part of the plan to volunteer the dog to do it?

In an iconic montage, Snoopy, Woodstock, Charlie Brown, and Linus (though mostly Snoopy and Woodstock) put together an avant-garde Thanksgiving dinner that I would’ve done anything to dig into as a kid. The screenshot on the left perfectly captures the dynamic of this enterprise: Charlie Brown and Linus standing idly by while Snoopy produces an output that could feed a small army. Woodstock, despite how small he is, manages to put in more work than Charlie Brown and Linus combined when he spreads butter on the toast himself. You never learned how to spread butter on toast, Charlie Brown? Give me a break.

Snoopy, meaning well, puts on a festive Pilgrim outfit for himself and Woodstock (he’s a dog, so I’ll excuse his ignorance) from his doghouse and knocks on Charlie Brown’s door. Charlie Brown lets him in and immediately asks, “Snoopy, how can you serve the food in that ridiculous outfit?” Charlie Brown, Snoopy retrieves the table and chairs, cooks the food, and sets the table for your Thanksgiving party. I’m sorry, Charlie Brown, but this isn’t your Thanksgiving dinner anymore…it’s Snoopy’s. I don’t care if you didn’t want to host anything to begin with, your failure to establish boundaries with Peppermint Patty is a debt you’ve forced your uninvolved dog to pay! Don’t act like you’re the victim of circumstance when you then transfer all of the onus to Snoopy. To not offer so much as a thank you for all of the work Snoopy has done for your party, and instead immediately chastise your dog’s attire is nothing short of preposterous. It’s Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown, can you not muster a modicum of gratitude?

The next scene is more of the same, but somehow even more egregious: Charlie Brown pleads with Snoopy to switch the Pilgrim hat for a chef's hat. Snoopy, despite his excitement to wear the pilgrim outfit, gives Woodstock his cork toy shotgun so he could free his hands to grab the chef hat. Woodstock, while pure of heart, is small and not very strong, so as you might expect, the gun is too heavy for him to handle. He stumbles and drops it on Snoopy, pushing Snoopy to the floor. After Snoopy is whacked by the gun, Charlie Brown lectures Snoopy on how they don’t have “any time for this playing around”. His behavior speaks for itself. He then asks Snoopy (still on the ground, by the way) to “please get ready to help serve” the guests who were about to arrive. On one hand, I commend Charlie Brown for saying “please”—it’s the first one in the short and we’re just over halfway through at this point. On the other hand, I know exactly what Charlie Brown means by “help serve”, and it isn’t to pitch into a collaborative effort: we all know Snoopy is going to be serving the dinner singlehandedly.

After everyone sits and Linus says grace (riddled with whitewashed American history and propaganda that could be its own essay), Snoopy begins serving the dinner. He plates the dishes and slides them across the table to everyone, saving himself for last—a true embodiment of class. Peppermint Patty has a conniption over the unorthodox meal and lashes out at Snoopy and then Charlie Brown, who walks away. She calms down and expresses regret at how she spoke to Charlie Brown…completely ignoring Snoopy, who was the first target of her hysterics. Even after she apologizes and they make up, Peppermint Patty gives Snoopy no such apology. Even after Marcy reminds Charlie Brown that the whole point of Thanksgiving is to be thankful for what they all have, he fails to wise up and thank Snoopy.

Despite his day of arduous, thankless labor, Snoopy doesn’t miss a beat in celebrating with The Peanuts when they find out they can all go to a “real Thanksgiving dinner” with Charlie Brown’s relatives. Even though he isn’t invited himself, he sees them off and hits one last classy salute as they drive away. 

Despite getting left behind, perhaps it’s Snoopy who truly gets the last laugh. Once everyone leaves, he and Woodstock dig into the traditional Thanksgiving dinner they must’ve been cooking all along—Turkey, pumpkin pie, and all. I think it’s obvious who the true “sly dog” is…and it’s not Charlie Brown.