When it comes to holiday traditions, families love coming up with rituals they can revisit year after year together. Halloween is no exception to the rule, and for many families, there is only one TV special they all gather around and tune into. We're talking about It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, of course, because why wouldn't we revel in it? After all, it's one of the greatest family-friendly Halloween movies of all time, and it's one that holds a boatload of nostalgia for fans young and old.
Given the popularity of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, we assume you'll want to know all the details on where you can watch and stream it in real-time this year. If you count yourselves among the Snoopy fans, here's where to tune in.
Where can I watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown in 2024?
There is only one destination for It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. It can be streamed exclusively on Apple TV+, as the streamer has the rights to all the Peanuts specials, including The Great Pumpkin.
On one hand, having a home on a streaming service is good because you can sit down and watch it whenever you're all available — no more rushing through dinner to make sure you're seated around the TV on time. On the other hand, well, you have to be an Apple TV+ subscriber to be able to see it.
The same goes for all the Peanuts holiday specials, including A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Happy New Year Charlie Brown, For Auld Lang Syne and others, in addition to shows like Snoopy in Space and The Snoopy Show. If you're in a family of Peanuts superfans, it could be worth it to subscribe.
If you don't have an Apple TV+ subscription, another guaranteed way to watch is through old-fashioned physical media. If you buy The Peanuts Holiday Collection — also available on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray in addition to DVD — you can watch whenever you want. It doesn't matter who has the rights, so long as you have your DVD or Blu-ray player. You never again have to check the streaming sites or TV listings.
Is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown going to air on TV this year?
In the past, PBS and Apple TV+ had struck a deal that allowed PBS and PBS kids to air the special on TV one or two nights during the Halloween season. Sadly, no deal like that came together last year, and no announcements have been made for 2024 so far.
Is there any way to see the Great Pumpkin for free without subscribing to Apple TV+?
If you don't subscribe to Apple TV+ and have no plans to join, all is not necessarily lost. Apple TV+ is generously making It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown available to stream for free to non-subscribers from Saturday, October 19 to Sunday, October 20. (Question: how many times in a row can we watch it before the window closes?) It'll do the same for the other holiday specials, with a schedule that looks like this:
- It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown streams for free Saturday, October 19 to Sunday, October 20.
- A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving streams for free Saturday, November 23 to Sunday, November 24.
- A Charlie Brown Christmas streams for free Saturday, December 14 to Sunday, December 15.
Mark those calendars now!
Is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown available to rent anywhere else?
With most movies, even if you can't stream them for free, you can find a way to buy or rent them through services like Amazon Prime Video. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case with Great Pumpkin.
Warner Bros Peanuts Holiday Collection
It's not going to be available on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video (though those services have their own Halloween offerings that are worth checking out, especially Disney+, Netflix and Hulu).
As more and more streaming services pop up, and rights to different movies and shows bounce from one to the other — has anyone else noticed how the Harry Potter movies keep going back and forth between Max and Peacock? — the only certain thing is that nothing stays in one place forever. There's no harm in checking — the worst that will happen is you'll end up saying, "I got a rock."
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
As the entertainment and news associate editor for Good Housekeeping, Adrianna (she/her) writes about everything TV, movies, music and pop culture. She graduated from Yeshiva University with a B.A. in journalism and a minor in business management. She covers shows like The Rookie, 9-1-1 and Grey's Anatomy, though when she’s not watching the latest show on Netflix, she’s taking martial arts or drinking way too much coffee.
