'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,' celebrates 50 sincere years

Remember a time when autumn meant burning leaves instead of burning Samsung Note7 phones?

It’s hard to believe, but on October 27 the animated TV classic “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” celebrates its 50th anniversary.

It was the third “Peanuts” special, following “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and the mostly forgotten “Charlie Brown’s All-Stars” (which, if it took as long as a typical Major League Baseball game, would be reaching the seventh inning stretch any day now).

Of course the characters remain frozen in time, or we would now be up to “It’s Your Colonoscopy Report, Charlie Brown.”...