A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving - Broadcast History

Broadcast History

The show aired on CBS until 2001, with 2000 being the last primetime airing. It moved, along with the rest of the Peanuts specials, to ABC in 2001. Traditionally, ABC aired the special on Thanksgiving night until 2005. (2003 being an exception, when it aired on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.) The special aired once again on Thanksgiving night every year from 2008 onward.

In 2006, ABC decided to move the special to the Monday before Thanksgiving; this was in response to the success of regular Thursday programs Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, coupled with CBS's decision to air regular programming on Thanksgiving night, with Survivor and CSI. ABC decided to directly engage in a ratings war with CBS (Thanksgiving lies in the middle of sweeps), displacing the Charlie Brown special to Monday and airing regular programming on Thanksgiving night instead. ABC repeated this in 2007 on Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but as of 2008, the ratings for Ugly Betty had fallen (to the point where the show was moved off Thursdays in 2009 and eventually canceled in 2010), and ABC decided to air the special in extended form and move the special back to Thanksgiving night in 2008. ABC also aired the special on Tuesday that year (immediately before the Dancing with the Stars finale), due to having an open time slot to fill after the cancellation of Opportunity Knocks. The special aired only on Thanksgiving night in 2009. For 2010, the show aired November 18, one week before Thanksgiving, to fill the void of another canceled show, My Generation, in addition to its annual Thanksgiving airing.

Due to the show's half-hour time slot, it has traditionally been paired with another half-hour show, often one from the Peanuts library, though not always so. In 2004 and 2005, ABC instead used A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving as the lead-in to a feature film (the 2000 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 2004, and Finding Nemo in 2005), which was given an extended 2½-hour time slot. In 2006 and 2007, ABC paired the special with He's a Bully, Charlie Brown. Since 2008, it has been paired with "The Mayflower Voyagers" episode from the This is America, Charlie Brown miniseries.

To make room for their long commercial breaks during modern airings, ABC made cuts to two scenes (in 2005, it was extended for the network television premiere of Finding Nemo; but now, it was edited again in order to make room for He's a Bully, Charlie Brown and the Dancing with the Stars results show):

• Snoopy and Woodstock go into Snoopy's doghouse to dress up as pilgrims, and when Woodstock walks away, Snoopy stretches out his arm cartoon style, and scolds Woodstock. Then, both go to the door and Snoopy knocks on it with his paw.
• In the scene where Marcie apologizes to Charlie Brown on Patty's behalf, the pendulum on the grandfather clock in the background is permanently stuck to the right, and moments later stuck to the left.
• When they are seated at the ping pong table, Franklin is seated on one side alone. There is a chair that appears and disappears beside Franklin when the scene cuts back and forth.
• The scene in the end credits where Snoopy and Woodstock are eating turkey is cut in later airings, going straight to them eating pumpkin pie during the end credits. On Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2008, the "turkey eating" portion was shown in its entirety.

In 2008, when this was re-extended, the credits are slightly sped up in order to make room for "The Mayflower Voyagers".

However, in 2012, the special was shown in its entirely (32 minutes with commericals), with nothing cut, edited or changed.