Peanuts Halloween 1959: The first mention of the Great Pumpkin

1959 was a great year for Halloween in the Peanuts comic strip, running from October 26, all the way through November 3.

It was the first time the Great Pumpkin was mentioned in the Peanuts strip, and it was the first time Charles Schulz made a long-running theme in his Halloween-related strips.  Many of these gags made it straight into "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".

Here we see a near-repeat of the 1956 comic, but the punchline here is the one that ended up in the TV special.

The October 31, 1959, strip was expanded to become the intro to "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".

And for the first time, we see Linus' disappointment, when his pumpkin patch was passed over by the Great Pumpkin.  Before Halloween, Linus' friends were silent on the subject, but they started letting him have it after the fact.

The November 1, 1959, Sunday comic strip had nothing to do with Halloween: Linus came up with tricks to get napping Sally and Snoopy off his blanket.