Who came up with the Great Pumpkin?

[MrAtoz]

@That_Don_Guy

That’s only on TV, and even then, there is at least one TV special (“Play it Again, Charlie Brown” - one of the few not based on anything in the strips, IIRC) where you can hear an adult voice. In the strips, adults talk normally, although the only two I can think of off the top of my head are Charlie Brown’s mother and Linus and Lucy’s grandmother.

That only happened in relatively early strips, with a disembodied speech balloon coming from off-panel. For the vast majority of the strip’s time, adult speech is not represented. When it’s necessary to know what an adult has said, the kids will repeat it. “What’s that, Miss Othmar? Why isn’t my book report done? Well, you see, it’s like this…”

This was certainly well established by the time they started making the TV specials, which I suppose is why they came up with the device of the muted trombone.

As for The Great Pumpkin, I remember a strip where Charlie Brown suggests to Linus that he stop talking about the Great Pumpkin, and Linus responds along the lines of, he’ll consider it when Charlie Brown stops talking about Santa Claus, so I don’t think it’s really a question of Linus “getting the two mixed up.” Besides, Linus also believes in the Easter Beagle, and he really did show up.

And the Easter Beagle was also Snoopy! Good grief, it’s Snoopy all the way down, isn’t it?