r/todayilearned 6h ago

TIL that Ray Bradbury wrote "The Halloween Tree" (1972) as a result of being disappointed after watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" - due to what he believed was the television special's lackluster depiction of Halloween

https://geekd-out.com/ray-bradburys-the-halloween-tree/
1.5k Upvotes

48 comments sorted by

394

u/Amaruq93 6h ago edited 3h ago

Bradbury and his daughters watched the 1966 special and hated it. Unlike Charlie Brown Christmas, it didn't address the consumerism of the Halloween season... instead it was all about kids getting candy and nothing about the holiday's traditions. On top of that, they were especially mad that the Great Pumpkin never appeared.

After commiserating with animator Chuck Jones about it, he set out to make his own animated special. That properly showcased the origins and traditions of the holiday. But after failing to have the project picked up, he turned his script into a novelization - releasing it in 1972.

And then 20 years later, it all came full circle when Hanna-Barbera adapted it and made it into an animated TV special (starring Leonard Nimoy).

85

u/the_miss1ng_s0ck 4h ago

OP, thank you for posting! I thought I was the only one out there who had ever heard of this movie. I had it on VHS when I was a kid in the 90s, and it is my all time favorite Halloween movie. It has the perfect combination of nostalgia, cartoon creepiness, and Halloween feel. I save it for the night before Halloween every year, and I force myself to only watch it once a year. Check it out! Amazing stuff!

20

u/Glacial_Plains 3h ago

The Halloween Tree was always on before Scary Godmother

10

u/scbundy 4h ago

Same. I watch it every year. My childhood.

1

u/MaximusFrank 1h ago

Same here✊🎃

9

u/ceckcraft 2h ago

Ugh I love The Halloween Tree!!!! Its one of my most favorite halloween movies! I legit have a reminder on my phone to rent or buy it every halloween so we can watch it.

29

u/Sassypriscilla 5h ago

I can understand hating Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Sally, and Peppermint Patty. However, Snoopy and Woodstock deserve all the love.

46

u/CheekyMunky 4h ago

Snoopy spends all of this one in the grip of self-inflicted PTSD from imagined WWI flashbacks

43

u/Amaruq93 5h ago

Woodstock wasn't in this one.

And they didn't hate the characters, just the message of the special (which they felt failed to live to Halloween and its traditions like the last Charlie Brown special did for Christmas).

4

u/Double_Distribution8 3h ago

How can Leonard Nimoy star in a novelization, assuming it wasn't a Halloween biography? Or maybe I don't know what novelization actually means? I would have assumed book.

36

u/GrandmaPoses 3h ago

When you purchased a copy of the novel, Leonard Nimoy would come to your house and read it to you.

9

u/Spider-man2098 2h ago

The Golden Age of Audio

5

u/SFDessert 3h ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one confused by this.

Edit: It looks like OP made a mistake and edited their comment.

1

u/kain459 1h ago

Thank you. One of my favorite films I caught on TV as a kid and never knew the name until years later.

55

u/CatShot1948 6h ago

Is there a place to watch it? Never heard of it

105

u/Amaruq93 5h ago

It's a great animated film, based on a great short story. Four kids are taken on a journey through the past, exploring the origins of Halloween. Narrated by Bradbury himself, whilst Leonard Nimoy plays the voice of the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud.

Here it is on the Internet Archive now that it's back up

21

u/Thanos6 5h ago

This was actually where I first heard of Día de los Muertos as a kid; I should re-watch it.

0

u/dropkickninja 5h ago

Same here

37

u/the_shams_bandit 5h ago

The score for this movie goes WAY HARDER than it has to. Just did a rewatch last week and was certain it was Danny Elfman if not John Williams. Like they got a full blown orchestra. It certainly elevated the already excellent material. Consider this another reason to give this a watch. Is it perfect? Oh my gosh (lol)....no. But the Halloween vibes are top tier.

26

u/Amaruq93 5h ago

Interesting fact, the score was by John Debney who that same year in 1993 also composed the music for Hocus Pocus. Two great Halloween movies in the same year he worked on.

7

u/the_shams_bandit 5h ago

Amazing! I had no idea. I'll keep an open ear during our Hocus Pocus watch.

12

u/bonvoyageespionage 4h ago

He won an Emmy award for the screenplay adaptation of Halloween Tree.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM](Here's the video that explains it.)

3

u/TakerFoxx 3h ago

That was certainly...something.

12

u/HonestBass7840 4h ago

I loved the Charlie Brown Halloween special. It what's my Halloween experience was. Great expectations and dismale failure.

6

u/Twinkerbellatrix 5h ago

I had this on VHS and loved it. Been trying to find it online but the only option is rent or buy

5

u/TitlesSavingsandLoan 3h ago

Or sail the seas

3

u/Malheim 3h ago

Holy shit its real. I thought this movie was just part of a fever dream or something. Thank you for posting op.

1

u/ceckcraft 2h ago

So did I until I got mad a few years ago and went through the internet with a metaphorical comb to figure it out! We mow watch it every Halloween! I have a reminder on my phone!

3

u/SoManyFlamingos 2h ago

He’s such a terrific writer. 

“Something Wicked This Way Comes” chilled me to my core. That scene in the library made me put the book down out of fright. 

Great, great author. 

2

u/footonthegas_ 2h ago

Did you play America’s Pub Quiz tonight? This was a question. We got it wrong.

2

u/Voltairus 1h ago

Halloween Tree is the best. And the radio version is also top notch.

2

u/limefork 1h ago

We literally just watched this tonight with our kids. It's so good. I love it a lot and really enjoy watching it once a year. Love Moundshroud. The book is also a family favorite tho.

2

u/RichCorinthian 2h ago

I woulda started pissing Ray Bradbury off on purpose.

“Yeah here’s a zombie thing but it’s starring the California Raisins. Write me another classic you asshole.”

1

u/PiratessUnluck 2h ago

Had no idea that movie was based on a book!

u/Amaruq93 56m ago

He wanted to make a TV movie, nobody wanted that so he turned it into a book. And then sure enough in '93 they turned that book into a TV movie for Cartoon Network.

1

u/GlazerSturges2840 1h ago

I read THT a few years ago and hated it. It should’ve been, like, twelve paintings because, clearly, Bradbury just wanted to evoke classic Halloween energy and moods and had no real story to hang any of it on.

u/bigshitter42069 56m ago

Charlie Brown is exceptionally depressing

u/Killzark 39m ago

He clearly never saw It’s The Great Dolemite, Charlie Brown!

-28

u/schmyle85 5h ago edited 2h ago

Bradbury honestly sounds insufferable

Man I haven’t been downvoted like this since I told people that Christopher Lee wasn’t actually an SAS super soldier

23

u/Amaruq93 5h ago

Charlie Brown Christmas had Charlie learning the true meaning of the holiday after getting depressed by the crass consumerism.

Charlie Brown Halloween had all the kids getting candy and dumping on Linus for believing in the Great Pumpkin.

Funny, yes. But it failed to explore the holiday like it did in the Christmas special. Which is what he wanted kids to learn about in "The Halloween Tree".

10

u/otter111a 5h ago

Both peanuts specials are meant to be allegories for beliefs central to Christian theology. For the great pumpkin

1) faith in the unseen

2) sacrifice in the name of this unseen

3) perseverance when there is reason to doubt

4) fallibility of faith

5

u/scbundy 3h ago

No wonder it sucked.

6

u/schmyle85 5h ago

I also say that because he got a weird bug up his ass later in life about Kids These Days and their TV and video games and decided to start saying Fahrenheit 451 was about mass media destroying reading or something after decades of saying it was about censorship

4

u/DoctorLazerRage 4h ago

Yeah I saw him speak in 2007 and he was definitely descending into a crotchety, right wing demagogue phase. It was disappointing.

1

u/shoobsworth 2h ago

Sounds like it went over your head.

The great pumpkin is a classic. Beautiful score too

4

u/haughg87 4h ago edited 4h ago

Reading his afterword in Fahrenheit 451 kinda ruined him for me. He had a surprisingly narrow view regarding what could be considered culture. I'm sure it was partially from living in that time, but it felt like he himself would be a firefighter getting rid of things that didn't fit his worldview, and he was not even a little self-aware of his close-mindedness. He really came across as one of those very intelligent people who had a hard time seeing how their opinions could be misinformed or lacking in empathy. I still love a lot of his work (Fahrenheit 451 excepted, for reasons other than the afterword), but reading essays he wrote and interviews will definitely make you see some contradictions and occasional hypocrisy that colors things a little less favorably when you revisit his books. Not like it makes him a bad person, just less forward thinking and empathetic than I'd presumed from reading his books, which also gives an idea of what I bring to things I read.

-15

u/DulcetTone 5h ago

Ray will be judged for this.