The new special, Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin, finally rights a wrong that was committed 56 years ago in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, where Franklin Armstrong, the black Peanuts character that was introduced in 1968 following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, was made to sit alone on one side of the table while Snoopy, Sally, Linus, and Peppermint Patty sat on the other side.
Though it took the creators so many years, viewers are happy it’s happening. An X user could not contain their excitement, “Oh my god, they fixed it,” they wrote alongside a picture that shows Franklin sitting with the other characters.
Charlie Brown “fixes” black character’s seating arrangement in Thanksgiving special
The Apple TV+ special focuses on Franklin and his journey of winning the Peanuts Gang to his side. The trailer tells his story of how he had lived in several towns because his dad is a military man, and he moves into Charlie Brown’s neighborhood and struggles to get anyone apart from Charlie Brown to be his friend.
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Remembering his grandfather’s words, everyone loves a winner; he sprung into action by building a special car to race in the town’s Soap Box Derby Race with Charlie Brown as his partner. The latter end of the trailer shows Franklin planning to continue the 1973 trend until Charlie Brown shouts, “Hey Franklin, we saved you a seat over here!”
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“They came through with a special for Franklin. That’s how you honor a Black Peanuts character!” an X user said about the special. Social media peeps have reacted positively to the trailer, which was released recently and set to premiere globally on February 16. Though this is on a good note, going back to memory lane, Franklin Armstrong might not have existed if not for the original creator, Charles M. Schulz’s, insistence on keeping the character.
His wife, Jean Schulz, revealed that the company that syndicated the comic strip to the newspapers wanted to remove the black character, which Charles claimed, “Either you run it the way I drew it, or I quit.”