Something interesting that I did not know about Ray Bradbury and his story,
The Halloween Tree.
You can read the entire article:
HERE
"Ray Bradbury created the Halloween Tree as an angry reaction to "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."
According to the article, this was verified as true.
Lots of people loved the special. After all, it continued to air on network television for over 50 years (before the Schulz estate licensed the rights to Apple TV starting this year). However, one family that did not enjoy the special was the family Bradbury, watching at their home in Los Angeles. Bradbury and his daughters were angered that the Great Pumpkin never showed up.
Bradbury was disappointed in the holiday of Halloween in general at the time. He had written about it that it symbolized how “We just can’t face nothingness. We’ve got to make something of it. So we can hold death in our hands for a little while, or on our tongues, or in our eyes, and make do with it.” However, he had to admit that nowadays, kids just wore costumes because that's just how they do things. There was no connection to the macabre nature of Halloween anymore.
Bradbury talked about his disappointment in the special with his friend, animation legend Chuck Jones, who was in charge of MGM's animation department. Jones told him a story about a kid who came by his family's home after they ran out of candy and so when they told him that they had no treats for him, the kid said, "Okay, a trick then" and then went to the street and stood on his head. Jones found it very charming. They realized that the kids all knew the CUSTOMS of Halloween, but not the spirit BEHIND it.
Bradbury then showed him a painting that he had made with his daughters called "The Halloween Tree"
The two men realized that "The Halloween Tree" would be the perfect response to the Great Pumpkin, and Jones hired Bradbury to write a script for an animated special. Soon after, though, MGM shut its animation division down. Jones and Bradbury tried to shop the idea around to other places to no avail.
Thus, after a few years, Bradbury just re-worked the script into a novel called The Halloween Tree in 1972...
The novel is about a group of boys who travel through time in hopes of saving the life of one of their friends, learning the origins of the various costumes that they wear as Halloween outfits. It's a fascinating examination of the history of Halloween while also still being spooky, scary and filled with tension. It's an excellent book. Bradbury really hits into the idea of Halloween as being our chance to sort of spit in death's face. As he notes in the book, "Will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death? When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die."
As these things are wont to do, what started as an animated project before becoming a novel was then later adapted as a cartoon! Twenty years after the novel was released, Bradbury wrote an adaptation of the work for a 1993 animated feature-length special...
It won an Emmy for Bradbury and has become a Halloween cartoon classic in its own right. Warner Bros. recently announced plans to turn the novel into a live action film, as well.
It's hilarious to see that someone being angry at a Halloween classic led to a Halloween classic of its own. It's funny how things like that work out sometimes.
