After public outcry, the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Christmas specials will return to network TV after Apple made a deal with PBS.
Last month, Apple TV+ became the new home to the beloved Peanuts holiday specials.
That sparked an outcry from viewers who were accustomed to annually tuning in on network TV.
Apple offered each special to stream for free for a handful of days, but that didn’t stop online petitions from gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures.
Today, Apple bowed to the backlash, announcing it had teamed up with PBS for ad-free broadcasts of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (on Nov. 22) and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (on Dec. 13).
Both specials will also be available for free during three-day windows on Apple TV+ (Nov. 25-27 for “Thanksgiving” and Dec. 11-13 for “Christmas.”)
For subscribers, the specials will be available beginning Nov. 18 and Dec. 4, respectively.
Emmy-winning A Charlie Brown Christmas began airing in 1965; It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown in 1966 and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in 1973.
Last month, Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the Peanuts gang celebrated the comic’s 70th anniversary.
Charles Schulz’s comic celebrated the anniversary with an announcement of a new TV show and a philanthropic push that included donating Peanuts murals for kids to paint in 70 children’s hospitals around the globe, from Brooklyn to Brazil.
Peanuts made its debut on October 2, 1950.
The travails of the ‘little round-headed kid’ Charlie Brown and his pals eventually ran in more than 2,600 newspapers, reaching millions of readers in 75 countries.
A Charlie Brown Christmas won an Emmy and rerun immortality.
There was a hit stage musical, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
The characters also appeared on sheets, stationery, amusement park attractions and countless other products.
Apple TV+ debuted Snoopy in Space in 2019.
There’s also a new Apple TV+ animated show debuting in February called The Snoopy Show.
Jeannie Schulz said her husband managed to create ‘recognizable characters that express the humanity of each of us. It hits on a lot of cylinders’.