Apple TV+ unveiled a new Peanuts special titled Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin. This special focuses on the comic strip’s first Black character, Franklin Armstrong.
When the trailer was released, a particular moment sparked discussions across social media, as it harked back to the 1973 special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. The scene in question is the one where Franklin is depicted sitting on one side of the dinner table while the others occupy the opposite side.
Already streaming on Apple TV+, the new special fixed that scene, showing all the Peanuts characters rallying around Franklin.
Craig Schulz, son of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, recently addressed the controversy and disclosed that his son Bryan told him about the issue with the scene.
“It was very important to my son Bryan,” Schulz told The Daily Beast. “He said, ‘This is our chance to kind of rectify the whole thing.’”
Director Raymond S. Persi explained how they made the emotional scene happen, adding, “To make it have the most impact, [I suggested that we] match the shot exactly to what it was in the Thanksgiving special. 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.”
Franklin was introduced in 1968, and Schulz recalled that “newspapers refused to run those comics with Franklin in them” initially. In 2024, Schulz said, “The time in 1968 is similar to the time we have right now,” as “there’s a lot of divisiveness and a lot of anger in the world.” Schulz hopes the special shows how “two people can come together if you just take it down to a basic level.”
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