Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin, a new Peanuts special on Apple TV+, centers on Franklin Armstrong, the comic strip’s first Black character.According to Deadline, in this special, Franklin gets a standalone special centered around him and his backstory. In 1968, Franklin was first introduced in the comic strip.
According to Deadline, one scene from the trailer, which made reference to the 1973 special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, went viral on social media. The scene that has caused controversy is the one where Franklin is seated on one side of the dinner table and the others are seated on the other.
That scene featuring all of the Peanuts characters supporting Franklin has been fixed in the new special, which is currently available for streaming on Apple TV+.
Deadline reports that in a recent interview, Craig Schulz (Snoopy Presents: Lucy’s School, The Peanuts Movie), son of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz (A Boy Named Charlie Brown, It’s The Great Big Pumpkin, Charlie Brown), addressed the controversy and disclosed that he had been informed by his son Bryan about the problem with the scene.
Schulz stated to The Daily Beast: “It was very important to my son Bryan, This is our chance to kind of rectify the whole thing.”
Director Raymond S. Persi (Wreck It Ralph, Frozen) gave an explanation of how the deeply moving scene was created. Persi stated: “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.”
According to Deadline, Schulz remembered that when Franklin was first introduced in 1968, “newspapers refused to run those comics with Franklin in them.” Schulz remarked: “The time in 1968 is similar to the time we have right now, there’s a lot of divisiveness and a lot of anger in the world.”
In his words, Schulz wants viewers to see in the special how “two people can come together if you just take it down to a basic level.”
Welcome Home, Franklin premiered on AppleTV+ on February 16, 2024.