At long last, Franklin Armstrong has gotten the spotlight. After 55 years, the first Black character inducted into the Peanuts gang gets to show off his complexities beyond his complexion in Apple TV+‘s latest Peanuts special, Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home Franklin. Right in time for Black History Month, no less.
The special focuses on the titular character depicted as a socially awkward kid who struggles to make new friends organically in the new neighborhood his family moves into. When he befriends hapless Charlie Brown, they instantly bond and enter a soapbox derby race. Franklin was never given this much attention or personality despite his long-running presence in Peanuts. As overdue as this special was, the significance of Franklin as a character cannot be overstated -not only to the Peanuts series but also to the diversity across the comic medium and the voices it inspired. One of whom was a co-writer on the special.
The special focuses on the titular character depicted as a socially awkward kid who struggles to make new friends organically in the new neighborhood his family moves into. When he befriends hapless Charlie Brown, they instantly bond and enter a soapbox derby race. Franklin was never given this much attention or personality despite his long-running presence in Peanuts. As overdue as this special was, the significance of Franklin as a character cannot be overstated -not only to the Peanuts series but also to the diversity across the comic medium and the voices it inspired. One of whom was a co-writer on the special.
- 2/16/2024
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
Shortly after the April 4, 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., a California school teacher named Harriet Glickman sent a letter to Peanuts creator Charles. M. Schulz. In it, she asked him to introduce a Black character to Charlie Brown’s world, in hopes of helping ease the racial tensions roiling the country at the time. While Schulz admitted it was a great idea, his original response was one of concern that such a move might appear condescending. Nevertheless, Glickman persisted and today we have Franklin Armstrong, who is finally getting his origin story explored in Apple TV+‘s Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin. “The flack [my dad] got from that was tremendous,” recalls Craig Schulz of the character’s debut on July 31, 1968. “A lot of backlash, a lot of nasty letters, editors threatening to pull the comic strip from their newspapers and so forth… For him, it had been quite the dilemma...
- 2/15/2024
- TV Insider
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