Families with a tradition of watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown can enjoy the classic Peanuts Halloween special on Apple TV+ for free this weekend. You can watch it on a very wide variety of streaming boxes, like Roku and Amazon Fire, not only an Apple TV set-top box, Mac, iPad or iPhone.
Update: Sorry, the free weekend for people who don’t subscribe to Apple TV+ is over. But look below for when the Peanuts Thanksgiving and Christmas specials stream for free and add them to your calendar.
How to watch the Charlie Brown Halloween special
Apple owns the rights to all Peanuts holiday specials. That means the way to once again see Charlie Brown get a bag of rocks on Halloween, Snoopy take on the Red Baron, and Linus try to present the most sincere pumpkin patch in the world is on Apple TV+.
But the classic is not permanently locked behind a paywall. Apple made the Halloween special free to non-subscribers to enjoy at any time on Saturday, October 19 and Sunday, October 20.
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is available to paying subscribers of Apple’s streaming service anytime.
Watch in a variety of ways
Apple users can watch the holiday classic through the Apple TV app, which is available in the App Store for iPhone and iPad. There’s also a Mac version in that app store. Install any or all of these as you would any software.
Once you have the application installed and running, look around for It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (direct link).
But enjoying the classic Charlie Brown Halloween special doesn’t require an Apple TV, Mac or other Apple device. The service is watchable on a wide variety of devices, including Windows, Roku and Amazon Fire.
For anyone with a computer running Windows or Chrome OS, watching Apple’s video content is as easy as visiting the Apple TV+ website. The same goes for Android phones and tablets. You’ll access the Peanuts special in a browser. You can jump straight to the It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown page.
But Apple made sure there’s a version of the Apple TV application for a wide range of streaming devices. That includes smart TVs.
On a Roku, go to the Channel Store and download the Apple software. On an Amazon Fire TV, installation can start with saying, “Alexa, find the Apple TV app.” You might need to create a free Apple Account if you don’t have one already.
3 months of free Peanuts holiday specials on Apple TV+
The Charlie Brown Halloween show isn’t the only Peanuts holiday special that Apple will make available for anyone to watch for free.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is also an Apple TV+ exclusive, but it’ll be open to all Saturday, November 23, and Sunday, November 24. And if you’re looking to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas for free, it will be available Saturday, December 14, and Sunday, December 15.
While the three classics will be free, Peanuts fans might want a subscription to Apple TV+. The service offers It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. Plus there’s Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne, a fresh New Year’s Eve special created by Apple. Beyond the holidays, there’s The Snoopy Show, a new series that stars the irrepressible beagle, as well as Camp Snoopy.
Apple TV+ costs $12.99 a month, and includes a wide variety of other children’s programs.
