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How to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

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The holiday classic is free to watch through Nov. 27 — but you're going to need Apple TV+.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
Maybe this time Lucy will let Charlie Brown actually kick the football. (Image credit: Peanuts Worldwide)
NOW TO WATCH CHARLIE BROWN

ON PBS NOV. 22: You can watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for free on Nov. 22, 2020, on PBS and PBS Kids.

ON APPLE TV+: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is available now on Apple TV+ ($5 a month). Apple will stream it for free from Nov. 25-27.

Halloween is behind us. The Christmas holidays already are making an appearance, seemingly earlier than ever. But up first in the United States? Thanksgiving. And that means one thing. Food. It also means Black Friday deals. And football. OK it means a lot of things — and one of those also is A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

But how to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving given the ever-changing landscape of streaming services and content? The answer is easy.

You can watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on Apple TV+ starting Nov. 18.

Before you start groaning that you'll have to subscribe to yet another paid service just to watch Snoopy and the gang, there's good news. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will be free to watch from Nov. 25 to Nov. 27. The rest of the time, though, you'll have to have a subscription.

Same goes if you want to watch the other Charlie Brown holiday specials. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was an Apple TV+ exclusive. Same goes for A Charlie Brown Christmas, which will premiere on the service starting on Dec. 4, and will be free to watch Dec. 11-13.

Like the other Peanuts holiday specials, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is one part history lesson, one part feel-good morality, and a good dose of old-fashioned fun. The cartoon special made its premiere on Nov. 20, 1973, and won an emmy the following year. It's a short watch — just 25 minutes — but it's also manage to stand the test of time.

Apple TV+ costs $4.99 a month after a free seven-day trial. (You'll get a free year's subscription, however, with the purchase of a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, or iPod touch.) Apple TV+, in addition to being available on all Apple devices, also is on Roku and Amazon Fire TV, select smart TVs from LG, Sony, Vizio and Samsung, and is available on the web.

How to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for free on PBS

That's important because the Peanuts holiday specials used to be shown on CBS, which is a broadcast channel and thus available to far more people, including those using an antenna to receive over-the-air channels for free.

Apple TV+? Not so free.

But there is one opportunity to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving outside of Apple's walled garden, and that's Nov. 22 on PBS and PBS Kids. It'll show the special without advertising, too.

PBS and PBS kids are available on most streaming services, too.