CNN is reporting that a new animated special will spotlight Franklin Armstrong, the first Black ‘Peanuts’ comic strip character, more than 50 years after his debut.
The Apple TV+ special “Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin” explores the character’s origin as a young boy from a military family who likes baseball, space and listening to Stevie Wonder. All were possible when the comic’s creator Charles Schulz first featured Franklin in 1968.
“A Franklin special is really overdue,” Craig Schulz, who co-wrote the special and is the son of Charles Schulz, told NPR. “We get to go back and really find out where Franklin came from and really tell the whole story of this kid.”
Los Angeles school teacher Harriet Glickman wrote to Charles Schulz explaining the importance of integrating his comic. According to correspondence shared by the Schulz museum, Glickman believed Peanuts comics could help shape attitudes about race in America after the death of Martin Luther King Jr.
