‘This is our moment’: Creators of ‘Welcome Home Franklin’ explain how special came to be

When Charles Schulz, the cartoonist creator of Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang, introduced Franklin, the cartoon strip’s first black character, he made headlines.

And Franklin is still making news.

Thanks to a new TV special, a 50-year-old controversial scene that went viral last year, is getting a “do- over.”

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving premiered in 1973 and would quickly become a holiday favorite for generations. Decades later, it would also become the focus of some controversy.

Franklin from ‘Peanuts’ gets to shine in new Apple TV+ special

The character of Franklin was born out of tragedy. Following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, a school teacher asked Schulz to consider add a Black character to his comic strip, in hopes of healing the country torn by racism.

The company that distributed the comic pushed back. But Schulz pushed ahead.

After Franklin’s debut four months after King’s killing, there were calls from Southern newspapers to pull the strip, or to at least not show Franklin sitting next to white characters in school.

At around this same time, a young boy names Robb Armstrong would begin to fall in love with the Peanuts.

“Franklin represented hope to me,” he said. “And that hope lingered. I think it led to my success. I think it led to this moment.”

Armstrong eventually went to school for animation.

In 1990 he was hired to work alongside his hero, Schulz. And that’s when something amazing happened.

More: Black History Month coverage

“One day he called me and he said, ‘I want to rename Franklin after you. Franklin Armstrong.’ I said, ‘Why, what?’ He said, ‘He has no last name, Rob, That’s not right is it?’” Armstrong said. “I said, ‘I’m honored but I was more than honored. I was also flustered.”

Armstrong worked with the Schulz family for years, even launching his own strip eventually.

A few years ago, the annual broadcast of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” sparked a new conversation on social media. Audiences wanted to know why Franklin wasn’t sitting next to anyone in this scene, with many accusing the beloved animation studio of racism.
Schulz’s son Craig says it was distressing.

“My son was the one who brought it up and said can we somehow fix this thing that’s going around on the internet,” he said. “And then there was a discussion among all of us of how we could do that organically to the story, where would it fit in? We didn’t want to just shoehorn it in and try to correct this thing that’s on the internet that we didn’t see it the way they saw it.”

“I was hurt seeing him accused of racism,” Armstrong said. “I was literally saddened and upset by it. I was even interviewed by legit publications and different media outlets (asking) ‘Is he a racist?’ Here’s a man who told his own editor, ‘If you don’t run Franklin in the newspaper, just as I sent it in, I will quit doing this comic strip.’ …  That alone, first of all, very few of us want to put our career on the line for anything. He’s putting this on the line for the sake of this Black character.”

A new Peanuts special, “Welcome Home, Franklin” is setting things right. The cartoon revisits the introduction of the popular character to the Peanuts gang and gives his story more depth and develops his friendships.

It also corrects that now infamous table scene.

“We have a chance to do more than hand wringing,” Armstrong said. “We have an opportunity to do more than say, ‘That’s the Internet.’ We can do more than just defend the end product. This is our moment.”

“We’re very proud of it and I think my dad would be very proud of it,” Craig Schulz said.

You can watch “Welcome Home, Franklin” streaming now, on Apple Plus TV.

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