Long fordgotten

General

A post from Hogan’s Alley editor Tom Heintjes reminded me of something that I meant to discuss. As many of you know, in the 1960s, Ford licensed the Peanuts characters to advertise their affordable family car, the Falcon. But I’ve seen some people say that the characters advertised only the Falcon, and that’s not true. Folks who read my book The Peanuts Collection saw a poster that promoted the 1965 Mustang, ’65 being the last year of the Peanuts license. But that, too, is not all.

In late 1964, Ford launched a rental program, the “Ford Rent-A-Car System”. During 1965, they ran several newspaper ads featuring the Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and even Pig-Pen.

(Click to enlarge)

Added later: One thing to think about is how this campaign, focused largely on holidays and events, ended with Thanksgiving ’65… the month before A Charlie Brown Christmas would permanently link holidays and Peanuts in people’s minds.

General
Snoopy on the big screen

For those of you who like to keep track of every time Peanuts characters appear on screen, Maestro, the new Leonard Bernstein biopic by Bradley Cooper, has the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade passing by outside a window, including prominent use of Snoopy. You can see the Snoopy moment with some commentary from …

General
Peanuts publisher buyout

Sources are reporting that KKR is buying Simon and Schuster, probably currently the biggest publisher of Peanuts thanks to their Little Simon-published storybooks, from the current owner, Paramount. Sometimes, when one company buys another, it makes no real difference, just a slight change in letterhead. However, KKR isn’t a media …

General
Correct the record

While searching for something else, I stumbled across this announcement of the Kaye Ballard Peanuts album in the Chicago Sunday Times Magazine for January 15, 1961. Now, let’s take a zoom in on that drawing… and its caption. Magazine sections are generally created with a long lead time, allowing them to …