Best Family Movies of 1973

Turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie... and the Peanuts gang to share them with. This is going to be the greatest Thanksgiving ever! The fun begins when Peppermint Patty invites herself and her pals to Charlie Brown's house for a REALLY big turkey party. Good grief! All our hero can cook is cold cereal and maybe toast. Is Charlie Brown doomed? Not when Linus, Snoopy and Woodstock chip in to save the (Thanksgiving) Day. With such good friends, Charlie Brown - and all of us - have so many reasons to be thankful.

Wilbur the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte, a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.

Sinbad and his crew intercept a homunculus carrying a golden tablet. Koura, the creator of the homunculus and practitioner of evil magic, wants the tablet back and pursues Sinbad. Meanwhile Sinbad meets the Vizier who has another part of the interlocking golden map, and they mount a quest across the seas to solve the riddle of the map.

Addie tries to invite her father's sworn enemy over for Thanksgiving dinner in the hopes of ending their long-standing feud.

A modern day musical telling of the ministry of Jesus Christ set in New York. The Apostles, portrayed as an acting troupe re-enact the parables and teachings of Jesus.

Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral, and witnessing a murder.

The pressure to conform, the inevitability of change, and the resistance to trying something new form the basis for the usual madcap adventures associated with the creative mind of Dr. Seuss. "Dr. Seuss on the Loose" builds upon three short stories - "The Sneetches," "The Zax" and "Green Eggs and Ham" - to create a thematic trio that explores the often fickle and flexible world of attitudes.

1973 BBC TV movie adaptation of the book by Lewis Carroll.

Jonathan is sick and tired of the boring life in his seagull clan. He rather experiments with new, always more daring flying techniques. Since he doesn't fit in, the elders expel him from the clan. So he sets out to discover the world beyond the horizon in a quest for wisdom.

Precocious Claudia and her brother run away from home and hide in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Stuck with a feeble sports department, college coach Sam Archer (John Amos) faces the ax unless he can reverse the school's athletic fortunes. An African vacation with his assistant (Tim Conway) answers Archer's prayers when he spots the athletically gifted Nanu (Jan-Michael Vincent). Sam counts on Nanu's remarkable abilities to put the team back on the winning track. This upbeat farce boasts an impressive cast of comedians.

A boy and a tree grow old together.

While the rest of the world is getting ready for Christmas, all the bears in Bearbank are getting ready to sleep… except for Ted E. Bear. Ted gets curious about the holiday, and sets out to learn the meaning of it from Santa Claus himself.

A department store Santa tries to convince a little girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus that he is Santa Claus, and winds up going on trial to prove who he is.

Jeremy is learning cello at an arts school in New York. At school he spots Susan, who practices for a ballet audition, and he falls in love.

A partially-animated ABC Afterschool Special about two youngsters who are miniaturized, then travel through their Uncle's body to understand more about his health.

An Army deserter (James Garner) flees by camel across the desert with a white boy (Clay O'Brien) raised by Indians.

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts.

Two brothers and a stray dog stumble upon some jewel thieves in a lighthouse.

An eight-year-old boy discovers a family of tiny people, only a few inches tall, living beneath the floorboards of a Victorian country home.

Charley is a workaholic family man that finds out from an angel that his "number's up" and he will be dying soon so he tries to change his ways and be a better husband and father with the time he has left.

A sequel to "A Cricket in Times Square," in this feature a musical cricket returns to his New York City home and his friends, a cat and a mouse, to discover the meaning of Christmas.

"The Three Musketeers" is 1973 animated TV movie from Hanna Barbera that is a remake of their own 1968 cartoon of the same name. In this film, the queen consort of France is falsely accused by Cardinal Richelieu of being involved in a plot to overthrow her husband, the king of France. The king's musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and a new recruit named D'Artagnan, attempt to solve the situation.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, two friends in a Mississippi River town, have one adventure after another - including attending their own funeral and being pursued by a murderer.

The film re-enacts the true story of three children, Jane Duff, aged seven, her brothers Isaac (9) and Frank (4), who in 1864 went missing from their bark-roofed log hut west of Natimuk in the Wimmera region, 25 kilometres west of Horsham in Victoria.

Call It Courage is a story set in the Pacific Islands. It chronicles the journey of Mafatu, the son of the chief of Hikueru Island, Tavana Nui. Mafatu is afraid of the sea due to witnessing his mother die as a young child, which makes him a shame to his father, and referred to as a coward among his tribe. One night Mafatu takes a dugout canoe and sets sail into the ocean without knowing where he will end up. He is caught in a storm and the canoe is lost. He lands on a deserted island and learns to hunt and fish for himself, along with his companions Uri, a yellow dog, and Kivi, an albatross.

Lex is a wonderful dog.

The Emperor of Japan is scheduled to visit the small fishing village of Titipu for the annual cherry blossom festival. Unfortunately, during the ceremony the town tailor, Koko, winks at the pretty Kataisha, who is to be the wife of the Emperor's son Nanki Poo. Koko is promptly arrested and thrown in a dark, dank dungeon and sentenced to death for disrespecting the Emperor. Things look bleak for Koko until Nanki Poo falls in love with the lovely Yum Yum, and Koko gets caught up in a scheme to deceive the Emperor.

A youn alien comes to earth to teach humans how to live in peace.

Two schoolboy musicians help to catch a jewel thief

Two bratty lovers decide to pull the old screw-and-switch on their difficult parents.

Skindivers on holiday in Malta discover strange world beneath the sea.

This Australian children's film is about scientist Bill Stewart goes to Fiji with his son Tim to investigate the appearance of the Crown of Thorns starfish in the reefs off the island.

Two young girls with a passion for touching fur coats become locked inside a furrier's shop after hours when two burglars break in.

A conflicted teen lashes out by vandalizing equipment at the nuclear plant where his father works, then hits the road and finds a spiritual path.

When the world's only Yeti in captivity is kidnapped from London Zoo, a group of children succeed in rescuing it.

Annie Marie imagines herself in the stories "Alice in Wonderland", "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", "The Wizard of Oz" and "Cinderella".

A combination of live action and animation chronicinge the great journey of Marco Polo to the mysterious Orient. Much of the story centers on Polo's relationship with the powerful Kublai Khan.

With the holiday season approaching, poor Reuven, the furrier, has no recourse but to sell the family's beloved goat for supplies. But Aaron has other ideas!

Jimmy learns to appreciate his parents when a hand puppet dressed as a jester visits him up in the middle of the night and renders him invisible.

An NYU student visits a Mennonite friend in Lancaster, Pennsylvania after a fellow Mennonite is killed while protesting the Vietnam War.

In this movie version of "Bellbird" (1967) a reporter, Philip Henderson stirs up the town further when they are already suffering with a drought.

Dr. Seuss is serving up laughs and lessons in the newly remastered TV classic, Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham and Other Stories! Join Sam-Am-I and his persistent attempts at introducing a reluctant fellow to a most delectable dish. Their escapades take them across a zany landscape while assembling a cast of characters that only the imagination of Dr. Seuss can bring to life. Will Sam-I-Am convince his new friend to take a chance and finally try something new? Find out in this timeless tale the whole family will enjoy. Then, meet The Sneetches, who teach us that being yourself is the best way to fit in while the story of The Zax reminds us that there is nothing to gain from being stubborn. So bring an appetite for a full course meal of fun that will fill your heart and mind!

Julie on Sesame Street was one of a series of Julie Andrews TV specials, produced by ATV and distributed by ITC. It was broadcast on ABC on November 23, 1973 and later in the UK on ITV on July 10, 1974. Using the alleys and stoops of the Sesame Street neighborhood as the venue for this television special, Julie Andrews and Perry Como join forces with the Sesame Street Muppets for an hour of music and antics.

Bing's 1973 primetime Christmas special from NBC, with his family and guest stars.