Good grief, Halloween is approaching! Warner Home Video (WHV) has two irresistible treats that promise to bring consumers into the spirit of the season, starting with the all-time favorite classic, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which will see it’s first ever release on Blu-ray DVD.
Press Release from Warner Home Video
BURBANK, CA – Good grief, Halloween is approaching! Warner Home Video (WHV) has two irresistible treats that promise to bring consumers into the spirit of the season, starting with the all-time favorite classic, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which will see it’s first ever release on Blu-ray DVD. This special is also available as a Deluxe Edition on standard DVD format. The Halloween celebration continues with WHV’s hilarious Bugs Bunny’s Howl-Oween Special, which is also new to DVD. All titles will be released September 7, 2010. The Blu-ray edition of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown will be a Blu-ray combo pack which includes a Blu-ray and DVD and will retail for $24.98 SRP while the standard DVD edition will retail for $19.97 SRP. Bugs Bunny’s Howl-Oween Special will retail for $14.97 SRP.
The critically acclaimed and Emmy® Award-nominated It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown will come in Blu-ray format for the first time in a deluxe re-mastered edition. Viewers can now enjoy Charles M. Schulz’s timeless classic unlike ever before, with beautiful high definition picture quality and improved audio.
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown finds the Peanuts gang outfitted in spooky costumes, ready for trick or treating and crashing Violet’s Halloween party. Charlie Brown is in a ghost costume (with more eyeholes cut out than needed), Lucy is dressed as a witch and Snoopy is in a World War I flying ace costume. Linus however, decides to steadfastly hold vigil in the pumpkin patch to await the Great Pumpkin with Sally by his side. Will this be the year the Great Pumpkin finally makes an appearance? Linus is convinced that he will.
Originally broadcast in 1966, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown earned an Emmy Award nomination and since then, has become a critically-acclaimed classic which airs on television annually. In addition to its new availability on Blu-ray, the special will also feature updated packaging, a bonus episode and documentary.
DVD Special Features:
* It’s Magic, Charlie Brown – This bonus episode finds Snoopy putting on a show after he checks out a book on magic tricks from the library. With Marcie and Sally as his assistants, he performs many tricks (some that work and some that don’t) before an audience. The grand finale features the biggest trick of all, making Charlie Brown disappear. To everyone’s amazement, Snoopy makes him invisible but doesn’t know how to bring Charlie Brown back. Will Snoopy find a way to reverse the trick?
* We Need a Blockbuster, Charlie Brown – Documentary featurette that focuses on the myth and tradition of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which through the decades has grown to become a staple in Halloween season television programming. Through interviews with members of the Schulz family and producers, the documentary examines the challenges and pressures that arise when they attempt to follow-up an underdog hit with a bigger and better TV special.
A star-studded line-up of favorite Looney Tunes characters is featured in Bugs Bunny’s Howl-Oween Special, a hilarious animated adventure available on DVD for the first time. Kids and adults will delight in this wonderful tale that finds that “wascally wabbit,” Bugs Bunny making holiday rounds dressed as a witch. Witch Hazel however, thinks Bugs is a real witch who has come to intrude on her home turf and makes plans to eliminate him. Joining Bugs Bunny are his popular pals including Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Speedy Gonzales. When Bugs and his buddies tangle with Witch Hazel’s wacky magic, they are zapped into a mixed-up menagerie of oddball monsters.
Portions of legendary Looney Tunes cartoon shorts are cleverly mixed into the plot of Bugs Bunny’s Howl-Oween Special. They include A-Haunting We Will Go, Broom-Stick Bunny, Hyde and Hare, Hyde and Go Tweet, Hyde and Hare (part two), A Witch’s Tangled Hare, A Haunting We Will Go, Claws for Alarm, Transylvania 6-5000 and Bewitched Bunny.
DVD Special Features:
* Hair-Raising Hare – In this bonus short, Bugs Bunny is lured into the castle of an evil scientist who plans to feed him to an orange-haired, sneaker-wearing monster. Once Bugs meets up with the monster, the shenanigans begin and he uses his wisecracking ingenuity to outsmart the creature.
* Interactive Menu-based Puzzle Game – Kids and fans will love putting the puzzle pieces together and once finished it plays a fun Looney Tunes clip.
“A legendary classic like It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, should be re-mastered and transferred onto Blu-ray disc because it’s one of pop culture’s great treasures and it’s essential we preserve precious programs like this for future generations,” said Amit Desai, WHV Vice President of Family, Animation and Partner Brands Marketing. He added, “Both Looney Tunes and Peanuts are enormously successful franchises and our goal is to continue to bring forth material in fresh, new and innovative ways for consumers to enjoy. These two specials are a wonderful way to celebrate the Halloween holiday because the whole family can watch them together. We’re delighted to bring them to the public.”
The Credits
About United MediaUnited Media is a worldwide licensing and syndication company that focuses on building brand equity around a wide range of creative content. United Media licenses and/or syndicates properties including Peanuts, Raggedy Ann & Andy, Dilbert, Hallmark’s Rainbow Brite, hoops&yoyo and Maxine, Babymouse, Dirty Dancing, Deadliest Catch, Iron Chef America, and HISTORY, the award-winning cable network and its acclaimed programming that includes the popular Ice Road Truckers series. United Media is an E. W. Scripps Company. For more information, visit www.unitedmedialicensing.com.
About Warner Bros. AnimationWarner Bros. Animation has been producing award-winning original animation since 1930, when it released its first cartoon, "Sinkin’ in the Bathtub." Since then, Warner Bros. Animation's characters have set the standard for innovative, quality animation. Producing for network and cable television, online, home entertainment and feature films both domestically and internationally, Warner Bros. Animation is highly respected for its creative and technical excellence, as well as maintaining the studio's rich cartoon heritage. Warner Bros. Animation also oversees the creative use of, and production of animated programming based on classic animated characters from the Hanna-Barbera and DC Comics libraries. Warner Bros. Animation is one of the most honored animation studios in history, garnering a grand total of six Academy Awards®, 35 Emmy® Awards, the George Foster Peabody Award, an Environmental Media Award, a Parents' Choice Award, a Humanitas Award, two Prism Awards and 20 Annie Awards (honoring excellence in animation).
About Warner Home VideoWith operations in 90 international territories, Warner Home Video, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, a division of the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, commands the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace. Warner Home Video's film library is the largest of any studio, offering top quality new and vintage titles from the repertoires of Warner Bros. Pictures, Turner Entertainment, Castle Rock Entertainment, HBO Home Video and New Line Home Entertainment.
About Warner Bros. Home Entertainment GroupWarner Bros. Home Entertainment Group brings together Warner Bros. Entertainment's home video, digital distribution, interactive entertainment/videogames, direct-to-DVD production, technical operations and anti-piracy businesses in order to maximize current and next-generation distribution scenarios. WBHEG is responsible for the global distribution of content through DVD, electronic sell-through and VOD, and delivery of theatrical content to wireless and online channels, and is also a significant worldwide publisher for both internal and third party videogame titles.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
