Great Pumpkin

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The Great Pumpkin is an unseen character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.^[1] According to Linus van Pelt, the Great Pumpkin is a legendary personality who rises from the pumpkin patch on Halloween carrying a large bag of toys to deliver to believing children. Linus continues to maintain faith in the Great Pumpkin, despite his friends' mockery and disbelief.^[2]

The Great Pumpkin was first introduced in the strip dated October 26, 1959,^[3] and Schulz subsequently reworked the premise many times throughout the run of Peanuts, notably inspiring the 1966 animated television special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The strips of October 30, 1977 and October 26, 1986 both include a thematical illustration of the Great Pumpkin in the title panel, which is not part of the story of the strip.^[4][5]

While Schulz usually avoided outright politics, he enjoyed his Great Pumpkin strips and incorporating religious references in many comics and animated cartoons.^[6]

Premise

Linus awaits the Great Pumpkin with a sign welcoming it.

Each year Linus awaits the arrival of the Great Pumpkin in a pumpkin patch deemed most sincere and lacking in hypocrisy. The following morning, each year, an embarrassed yet undefeated Linus vows to wait for the Great Pumpkin again next Halloween. Linus acknowledges the similarities between the Great Pumpkin and Santa Claus (in the television special, Linus writes to the Great Pumpkin that Santa Claus has better publicity). Charlie Brown attributes Linus's belief in the Great Pumpkin to "denominational differences."

In the comic strip dated October 25, 1961, Linus explains: "There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin."^[7] This quote would later be said by Linus in the TV special. A few days later, Linus claims previously reported official sightings of the Great Pumpkin in Connecticut and Texas,^[8] and Charlie Brown hears of a sighting in New Jersey.^[9]

Linus remains faithful to the Great Pumpkin, even devising a Great Pumpkin Newsletter in comic strips dated October 1998.^[10]

Religious metaphors

The Great Pumpkin has been cited as a symbol of strong faith and foolish faith, leading to vastly different interpretations of creator Charles Schulz's own faith. As described in the book on Schulz's religious views, A Charlie Brown Religion, Schulz's views were very personal and often misinterpreted.^[6] Linus' seemingly unshakable belief in the Great Pumpkin, and his desire to foster the same belief in others, has been interpreted as a parody of Christian evangelism by some observers. Others have seen Linus' belief in the Great Pumpkin as symbolic of the struggles faced by anyone with beliefs or practices that are not shared by the majority.^[11] Still others view Linus' lonely vigils, in the service of a being that may or may not exist and which never makes its presence known in any case, as a metaphor for mankind's basic existential dilemmas.^[12]

Schulz himself, however, claimed no motivation beyond the humor of having one of his young characters confuse Halloween with Christmas. In the 1959 sequence of strips in which the Great Pumpkin is first mentioned, for instance, Schulz also has Linus suggest that he and the other kids "go out and sing pumpkin carols",^[13] something which he also asks the trick-or-treating kids in the special itself.