How to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for free

How to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for free

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will be broadcast on PBS, and it’ll be available on the Apple TV app for free. Here’s how to watch it.
Photo: Apple/Cult of Mac

There’s good news for fans of the Peanuts holiday specials. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is available free through the Apple TV app. That gives many opportunities to watch Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty and Marcie act out The Courtship of Miles Standish.

Here’s how to watch it on a variety of devices, including Windows, Roku, etc., starting on Wednesday, November 25.

Sorry, the free broadcast is over

Apple TV+ recently acquired the rights to all Peanuts holiday specials. And it made a deal with PBS to broadcast the Thanksgiving and Christmas installments.

But PBS and PBS KIDS played A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on Nov. 22 at 7:30 p.m. local time (6:30 p.m. CT).  It was commercial free.

Watch through Apple TV

Don’t despair. Anyone who missed the broadcast can watch Charlie Brown serve toast and popcorn to his friends for free, via the Apple TV app. This will be available from Wednesday, November 25 through Friday, November 27.

On an Apple device

The free Apple TV application is needed to watch the Peanuts Thanksgiving special on Mac, iPhone, etc. Don’t confuse this software with Apple TV+, which is a for-pay subscription streaming service. And also don’t confuse the app with Apple TV hardware. Both the service and the hardware make watching these specials easier, but they aren‘t required. At all.

The Apple TV application is available in the App Store for iPhone and iPad. There’s also a Mac version. Install any or all of these as you would any free software.

Once you have the application installed and running, look around forA Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. (Here’s a direct link.)

On Windows, Android or Chrome OS

Watching Apple’s video content is as easy as visiting its website for anyone with a computer running Windows or Chrome OS. The same goes for Android phones and tablets.

You’ll watch the Peanuts specials in a browser. And you can jump straight to the A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving page.

On a Roku, Fire TV or smart TV

Apple produced a version of the Apple TV application for a wide range of streaming devices. That includes smart TVs, too.

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 account, also called an Apple ID, if you don’t have one already.

However you do it, remember you can only use Apple TV to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for free from Wednesday, November 25 through Friday, November 27.