5 Facts You Didn't Know About It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the third special based on Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip -- and second holiday-themed special, after A Charlie Brown Christmas -- has become a ubiquitous presence on TV every Halloween season (it airs Thursday and Sunday night at 8/7c on ABC), so you'd be forgiven for thinking you know all there is to know about It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. But we bet there's plenty you don't know.

Here are five fun facts you probably didn't know about It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

1. Lucy's signature move -- pulling the football away from Chuck as he's about to kick it, causing him to fly through the air and land on his back -- was animated for the first time here.

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2. The image of Snoopy as the "Flying Ace" became a good luck charm for the NASA astronauts during the Apollo space missions. The crew of the Apollo 10 mission even nicknamed their lunar module "Snoopy" and their command module "Charlie Brown."

3. Recording Sally's lines was a race against time, because the six-year-old voicing her, Cathy Steinberg, had a loose front tooth and when it fell out, her speech would sound a little bit different. It fell out as she said her very last line.

4. The real Charlie Brown got rocks, too. Pranksters gave Peter Robbins, the 10-year-old boy who voiced Charlie Brown, rocks instead of candy when he went went trick-or-treating that year -- much like Charlie Brown in the film. Hopefully he also got Baby Ruths or Snickers or peanut M&Ms, too.

5. This last one is admittedly a little self-serving: Lucy is reading an issue of TV Guide featuring herself on the cover in one scene.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown airs Thursday, Oct. 19 and Sunday, Oct. 29 at 8/7c on ABC.