Trivia / A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

• Channel Hop: It aired annually on CBS until 1989, moved to Disney Channel and Nickelodeon in the '90s, then to ABC in 2001, to Apple TV+ and PBS in 2020, to Apple TV+ exclusively in 2022.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: This article makes a big deal over this being the first Peanuts special where an adult voice was heard, via Vince Guaraldi singing "Little Birdie". But if you're using that as the criteria, adult voices had been used in Peanuts animation already, with the songs in A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Come Home. And, as with those earlier works, Guaraldi's singing here is non-diegetic.
• Creator Backlash: Lee Mendelson wasn't too fond of the closing-credits scene where Snoopy feeds Woodstock a turkey dinner. Charles Schulz and Bill Meléndez apparently pushed for it, although Melendez himself later admitted thinking it was somewhat morbid in hindsight.^note Granted, birds are a class like mammels, not a species like dogs
• Cross-Dressing Voices: A rarity in which an 11-year-old boy, Chris "Kip" DeFaria, played the role of the tomboyish Peppermint Patty; his older sister Gabrielle ("Gai") had been the first one to voice her, and he sounded similar enough to be her replacement after she hit puberty. This was also the second of five specials to feature James Ahrens as Marcie.
• Network to the Rescue: After the public uproar in 2020 that Apple TV+'s gaining the exclusive rights to the Peanuts specials caused, PBS stepped in to preserve the traditional over-the-air broadcast of the special. That would only last for two years, ending in 2021.
• Short Run in Peru: Because Canadian Thanksgiving is in October,^note  the second Monday in October, the same day the United States celebrates Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples' Day the special premiered on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on October 6, 1973 (a Saturday night, with Thanksgiving on Monday the 8th), some six weeks before its CBS debut.
• Technology Marches On:
  • Snoopy cooks popcorn on the stove, reminding us that kitchen microwaves (and microwave popcorn) weren't yet commonplace in The '70s.
  • Charlie Brown using an AT&T-style landline phone to contact everyone, rather than a mobile device.
  • The use of a pre-war hinge-style toaster, which only toasted one side at a time. The modern pop-up toaster is seen as well.
  • The kids being reminded of what time it is, when the grandfather clock strikes the hour.
• Those Two Actors: The final pairing of Todd Barbee (Charlie Brown) and Robin Kohn (Lucy), who'd previously voiced those roles in You're Not Elected and There's No Time for Love. They also count for Everyone Went to School Together, since they lived close to each other in Marin County, north of San Francisco, and ended up graduating in the same high school class.

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