What makes a holiday special a classic? For me, it’s the ability to stand the test of time. To remain constant while simultaneously reinventing yourself for the subsequent generation.
Nothing and no one has done this better than Charles Schultz and the Peanuts gang . So as a fun homage to this legendary cartoon, I’ve compiled 10+ mistakes from the Charlie Brown specials fans never noticed.
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Where did Linus’ blanket go?
When Linus and Lucy make their way to the pumpkin patch in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown , Linus has his trusty blanket in-hand.
But after they make their pick and start walking back, the blanket is nowhere to be found.
The wording moves around on Lucy’s sign.
When Charlie Brown first starts talking with Lucy in A Charlie Brown Christmas , watch her sign that says “The doctor is IN” and “Real in.”
The word ‘doctor’ moves around on the sign as the scene moves forward.
Does Lucy have one more or one less finger?
When Lucy is out trick-or-treating, she asks for an extra piece of candy for her brother. When she holds up her right hand, you’ll notice that she has five fingers.
But there are only four on her left hand.
What happened to the American flag?
Near the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas , Linus begins reading a bible verse to explain the true meaning of Christmas. When he begins, you can clearly see an American flag in the top right corner of the screen.
When the camera angle switches, the flag disappears.
Where did Linus’ shoes go?
Lucy is a good sister. After bringing an exhausted Linus into the house at 4 AM in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown , she removes his shoes and puts him to bed.
As she goes to exit the room, the shoes completely vanish!
Snoopy’s pile of bones never gets smaller.
Snoopy sits atop his doghouse at the beginning of A Charlie Brown Christmas , happily snacking on a large pile of bones.
If you watch carefully, you’ll notice that the pile never gets any smaller — even though Snoopy takes from the stack three different times.
The hole in the fence is gone!
Linus tries unsuccessfully to roll a pumpkin through a small hole in the fence. When he’s unable to do so, he takes the long way around the fence’s perimeter.
But there’s no hole to be seen on the other side of the fence, what happened?
Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree is pretty inconsistent.
By that, I mean that it physically changes throughout the special. In the beginning, the tree only has three branches; later on, it has four.
Finally, when it flops over after a failed decorating attempt, it has six branches.
Sally’s hand is the wrong color.
Just before we see Snoopy arise from the pumpkin patch, there’s a shot of Sally standing firm with her arms crossed.
Her hand is painted the exact same color as her dress — whoops!
Lucy’s terminology is incorrect.
Lucy refers to a fear of cats as “ailurophasia,” which is a made-up word that means nothing. What she should have said was ” ailurophobia .”
Now, she is only five years old, so it’s possible that this may have been deliberate.
Why does Linus stop shivering?
Before Lucy makes her way to Linus, we see him shivering in the fetal position. Then, as soon as Lucy stands him up and they begin their walk home, his convulsions cease.
Why? She didn’t put a jacket on him, so shouldn’t he have kept on shivering until they got home?
Schroeder’s piano is playing by itself.
Have a look as Schroeder sits and plays his piano in front of Lucy. When he stops playing to have a heated debate about the merits of Beethoven, the piano keeps on going!
What happened to Sally’s ghost costume?
She had it with her the whole time, but then as soon as she decides to join Linus in the pumpkin patch — all of a sudden it’s just gone?
That’s pretty spooky.
The auditorium changes colors.
At the beginning of A Charlie Brown Christmas , the brick auditorium the children dance and perform in is yellow.
Later on, when Charlie Brown exits the auditorium with his tiny tree in-hand, the building has now changed to a red color.
Linus’ letter vanishes right out of his hand.
Don’t blink, otherwise, you’ll miss it. As Linus makes his way from the house to the mailbox, his letter to the Great Pumpkin completely disappears from sight.
One frame it’s there, the next it’s just gone.
