When I decided to limit the Countdown in light of personal frustration/ennui/whatever the other day, my gal took the opportunity to bring home some much needed Halloween spirit in the form of...well, whatever you'd call this thing:
Officially titled the Peanuts Prowling Pumpkin Patch, it's a maddening and beautiful little decoration that reminds me very much of an old electronic football game that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. You might, though: Remember those football "board" games consisting of a big, electronic football field and a bunch of player figurines that'd slowly shake their way across when you turned it on?
It was the only toy in my godmother's ancient house, and whenever we visited there, I sat on the floor for two hours trying to make sense of it. I'm still not totally sure how it was played or what the general point of it was, but it shared a gimmick with the Prowling Pumpkin Patch: They both have figurines that seem to move under their own power, like magic!
The "base" is "based" on the pumpkin patch where Linus and Sally wasted a very famous Halloween night, complete with Great Pumpkin signage, a couple of dead trees and Snoopy's doghouse. Snoopy's abode has never been located in or beside a pumpkin patch in any form of official canon, but I'm willing to forgive this since the doghouse is actually a button that causes Peanuts music to blare through hidden speakers when pushed.
The real stars of the set are the tiny figurines, made of rubber but with magnetized feet. We get Lucy, Snoopy, Linus and Charlie Brown with a removable ghost costume. I prefer to let Charlie Brown go without a costume and pretend that someone else is under the sheet. This way, my Prowling Pumpkin Patch has five figures, and everyone else's only has four. I like to feel special in any way I can.
Click here to see it in action!
When you smack Snoopy's shack, music plays, and that signals the figurines to make their shaky, vague rotation across the patch. They're prone to falling over, but I don't mind it so much since it doesn't keep them from moving around. Plus, it opens the door for me to start a little betting pool with my imaginary friends over which Peanuts character will last the forty-five seconds without crashing. My money's on Snoopy, who skirts the official rules by starting his trek in a downward position.
This would be as good of a time as any to reiterate the information a reader sent in a few days back: It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown will be shown on October 28th at 8 PM, on ABC. It's almost getting to that time of year where we should all help each other figure out when the real seasonal stuff is going to be on TV. If you've got any tips, post them in the comments. Hopefully, we'll get some good background noise for a few of the upcoming SNTs.
Posted by Matt on 10/05/2007. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
The full Garfield Halloween Special is on YouTube in 3 parts