Peanuts’ New Franklin Special Fixes 50 Years of Race Controversy

Everybody’s favorite Peanuts are back! The latest Snoopy Presents special on Apple TV+, premiered over the weekend. The focus of the special has garnered a lot of excitement: After being introduced in the late 1960s, Franklin, Peanuts’ first Black character, is finally getting the spotlight in Welcome Home, Franklin.

The Daily Beast’s Obsessed spoke to Craig Schulz, executive producer of Welcome Home, Franklin and overseer of all Peanuts media, and director Raymond S. Persi over Zoom, about Franklin’s introduction and initial backlash, following the legacy of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz (who is Craig’s father), and seizing the opportunity to respond to a controversial shot from the 1973 Thanksgiving special.

The creation of Franklin has a remarkable origin. “The year was 1968,” Schulz says. “Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated. A young school teacher named Harriet Glickman had seen this, and it profoundly affected her. She thought that one way to get a better message out to the community was to reach out to some cartoonists and see if we could get a Black character in the cartoon world—which there hadn’t been up until then.”

One of the cartoonists Glickman reached out to was Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts universe. That same year, on July 31, Franklin joined the Peanuts, first introduced in a comic strip meeting Charlie Brown on the beach. That very sequence was recreated in Welcome Home, Franklin to honor the character’s legacy.

That decision to incorporate Franklin into the comic strip came with an alarming, albeit unsurprising, amount of controversy. It wasn’t until nearly 20 years later that Craig became aware of the backlash his father faced for introducing Franklin. Charles took his son to his bedroom and showed him “this letter that’s two pages long of this rant of somebody who just blasted him for putting a Black character in the comic strip,” Schulz recalled. It was a shocking moment for the young Schulz, who explained that anonymous civilians weren’t the only people upset with Franklin’s introduction.

“Newspapers refused to run those comics with Franklin in them in those days. And my dad said, ‘If you’re not going to run it, that’s fine with me. I’m just not going to write it,’” said Schulz. By smartly wielding his power and the popularity of the comics, Franklin remained a key part of the Peanuts crew. But it was an eye-opening moment for the cartoonist: “I think the whole thing really enlightened him on the anger that was in the world,” Schulz says.

The legacy of Peanuts is immense—there’s hardly a person in the Western world who hasn’t at least heard of Charlie Brown. When creating new stories, Schulz is acutely conscious of his father’s work. “I always go back and ask myself, ‘What would my dad do? What would his judgment be?’ My son [Bryan Schulz] and I and [Cornelius Uliano] try to go out to the edge of of the box within this universe, without going outside the box, and keeping it true to the original source,” Schulz says, adding ,“We use the comic strip as our Bible and we build upon that. This story was one that we all really wanted to tell. Everybody loves Franklin. We just felt he deserved a lot of respect.”

Raymond S. Persi, director of Welcome Home, Franklin, was excited about the opportunity to finally highlight Franklin and make him the star of the show. “Franklin is a confident kid,” says Persi, “but he’s never had the chance to show anyone who he really is. He meets Charlie Brown, and he finally feels comfortable enough to be his true self, warts and all, and their bond is stronger for it.”

He continues, “A special like this serves the same purpose as that first introduction of Franklin. It’s hopefully a reminder to people that we have a lot more in common than what we have different, and if we see each other on a personal level, we’re going to connect, and we’re going to be friends.”

The key to establishing Franklin and Charlie Brown’s friendship was something that felt quintessentially Peanuts: a soapbox derby. “The original idea was building a tree fort,” Schulz says. “That's fun, but there's no action. So when the idea came up for the soapbox derby cars, that can be really fun, because it gives you the opportunity to have [Charlie Brown and Franklin] build something together and then capture the essence of the conversation of two children.”

There’s something very different about how children communicate; while adults are concerned with accomplishments and jobs, kids really want to explore the essence of who you are as a person, not what you do. That provided Schulz and company an exciting opportunity to explore Franklin.

The derby itself highlights the beautiful animation on display in Welcome Back, Franklin. “Our team put a lot of thought into it: How to get the cars to animate correctly, and tracking the action,” Persi says. Persi understood that sound would play a big role in clarifying all the exciting, chaotic action. “Charlie Brown and Franklin’s car has a specific sound to it, so that even if you’re not paying attention, it’ll just sort of mentally cue you in on who’s there and who we’re following.” The sound and animation play together wonderfully, and the soapbox race is an exhilarating highlight of the special.

But the moment that has everyone talking was revealed in the trailer—a shot of Franklin sitting at a dinner table with Charlie Brown and friends. It may not seem like much, but it’s a direct reference to the 1973 TV special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. While Peanuts and controversy are an exceptionally rare combination, conversation has grown over the years about that lasting image. In the ’73 Thanksgiving special, Franklin sits on one side of the dinner table, while everyone else sits opposite him. That image has drawn the ire of various commentators, concerned that Franklin remains segregated from his white friends, even while at the same table. This time, Franklin gets his proper seat at the table, with all his new friends.

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Schulz himself wasn’t aware of the controversy, as he doesn’t spend much time on the internet. It was his son who clued him in. “It was very important to my son Bryan,” Schulz observed. “He said, ‘This is our chance to kind of rectify the whole thing.’” The challenge, then, was to make the moment an organic part of the story, so it didn’t feel like they were just trying to fix something for the sake of it.

The scene is subtle and emotional. Franklin starts on the opposite side of the table, before joining his friends on the other side, who surround him with smiles. “To make it have the most impact, [I suggested that we] match the shot exactly to what it was in the Thanksgiving special,” Persi says. “So, we looked at the original frame. You’ll see [in the special] it’s even that same weird, wonky perspective of the table. We put it in there just so that it would immediately get people to connect to that moment.”

While the message of Welcome Home, Franklin is one of boundless positivity and joy, the creators are aware that the world today doesn’t feel like that. “The time in 1968 is similar to the time we have right now,” Schulz says. “There’s a lot of divisiveness, and a lot of anger in the world.” For Schulz, Franklin’s special is “a powerful way to show that two people can come together if you just take it down to a basic level,” and that’s something he hopes comes across to kids and their families watching.

“It’s part of being a kid,” Persi agreed. “You’re just not worried about all that outside stuff.”

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