Good grief. Fans of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving were not pleased this week when they realized the classic Peanuts holiday special was not available for live streaming when it aired on PBS Sunday night. After PBS and AppleTV+ made a deal that the beloved movie would air on cable TV (instead of exclusively on the streaming platform, as was initially planned), fans thought for a moment it was a Turkey Day miracle. However, that quickly turned to dismay when they discovered that while the program was, indeed, airing over the air on PBS, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving could not be live streamed via PBS' platforms.
As previously reported, AppleTV+ secured the exclusive rights to all the Peanuts cartoon holiday specials — A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and It's The Great, Pumpkin Charlie Brown — earlier this year, meaning that for the first time in more than 50 years, those titles wouldn't air on cable television. Despite the fact that those specials could be viewed on AppleTV+ for free for a limited time, fans were still irate that the streaming service scooped them up.
Ultimately, AppleTV+ and PBS generated a deal that would see A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving air on PBS and PBS KIDS on Sunday, Nov. 22, and A Charlie Brown Christmas on Sunday, Dec. 13. Unfortunately, when cord-cutters tuned into PBS using various live stream options, they realized the program would not stream on PBS platforms. Twitter was a flurry with disgruntled fans; continue reading to see some of the reactions.