RATS!

Peanuts holiday specials aren't airing on conventional television this year, and maybe never again.  They're now airing on Apple TV+, Apple's new online pay-TV service.

Apple TV+ made a deal with the late Peanuts" producer Lee Mendelson's production company to air "It's the Great Pumpkin," Charlie Brown," "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on its platform.  They can be seen any time - for a price.  But they're being made available to everyone at no charge for three separate three-day windows - "It's the Great Pumpkin," Charlie Brown" from today to Saturday, "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" from November 25 to November 27, and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" from December 11 to December 13.

You can expect the New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, and Easter "Peanuts" specials to be similarly restricted. Not to mention all of the other "Peanuts" TV specials.

This is just another example of being forced to pay for what you used to get for free.  Apple TV+ knows that these "Peanuts" holiday specials are popular - along with the Beatles and the original Volkswagen car, "Peanuts" is probably one of the most universally popular cultural icons ever - and after the specials had aired for 35 years on CBS and 20 years more on ABC, the pay-TV service has found a way to leverage that love for Charlie Brown and Snoopy and the rest into big profits.  Even twenty years after "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz's death, his characters are so beloved that people will pay through the nose to watch their holiday specials.

Wouldn't Charlie Brown have seen this as a big commercial racket?  It's run by a big  Eastern syndicate, you know.  (Actually, more like a big Western syndicate, as Apple TV+ is, I believe, based in California.)

I was never a fan of "It's the Great Pumpkin," Charlie Brown," so I won't care if I miss that.  And I happen to have "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" saved on my laptop.  (Also "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown.")  But I will definitely take advantage of the free airing (at tv.apple.com) of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" this year, as it may be the last time I ever get to see it.  It makes sense that Apple TV+ would do something as venal as make people pay to see such cherished holiday specials at a time when people are having a hard time being able to afford Internet service, never mind a pay-TV Internet service, thanks to a pandemic that has already robbed us of several holiday traditions in 2020.  No parades, no Santa Claus at the department store, no pageants or historic-house tours . . . At least we had these specials.  The operative word is "had."

I guess we'll have to settle for the fiftieth-anniversary airing of "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town," the Rankin-Bass Christmas special telling Santa's life story and how he was raised by a family of toy-making elves and grew up to stand up to the Nazis and the Gestapo (in "one of the northern countries") before being driven into exile at the North Pole.  Oh, joy!