When Is ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’ Airing on TV This Year?

Gabrielle Moss November 25, 2:39 pm

One of the great Thanksgiving traditions, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving has been part of many of our holiday routines since it first aired in 1973. In the past, the Thanksgiving season was marked by multiple network showings of the special — but when is A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving airing in 2024?

The unfortunate news is that A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is not airing on any network this year. Though in previous years Apple TV+ (who hold the rights to the entire Peanuts TV library) allowed PBS to show the special, this year, it can only be watched online.

If you are not an Apple TV+ subscriber, you can’t stream the special anywhere, unfortunately (though you can get a free trial subscription to Apple TV+ for seven days; it will cost $9.99 per month after that). Non-subscribers will still have a chance to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas for free, though; the site will allow non-subscribers to stream them for free on Saturday, Dec. 14 and Sunday, Dec. 15 on the Apple TV+ app.

CBS/via MovieStillsdb

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving originally aired on Nov. 20, 1973, two days before that year’s Thanksgiving. In it, the Peanuts gang learns a lesson about friendship and working together when Peppermint Patty invites herself and the rest of the kids to Charlie Brown’s house for Thanksgiving dinner … even though Charlie is actually having dinner at his grandma’s house that night.

It was the third primetime Peanuts holiday special, after A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965 and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown in 1966. Originally produced for CBS, the show has aired on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and ABC through the years; its last major network airing was in 2019, on ABC. In 2020, Apple TV+ bought the right to all Peanuts films, but allowed A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to be aired once annually on PBS in 2020 and 2021. Beginning in 2022, it became available exclusively on Apple TV+.

Charlie Brown joined the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as a balloon in 2002; his last appeared in the parade was 2018.