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
More on the corner box

Benjamin L. Clark, my august collaborator on the lengthy-named and well-received Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects, reminds me that the Peanuts corner title box was not actually printed on to the art boards used to draw Peanuts for the first several …

General
That corner box

If you’ve seen early Peanuts strips in old newspaper clippings, certain reprints, or even certain reprints, you’ll have seen that the name of the strip is printed in the upper left corner of the strip — indeed, printed right onto the original art board that Schulz used. “What,” you may …

General
Spanish Peanuts, explained

When I posted yesterday about Peanuts appearing in Spanish in an English language Pomona, California paper in the 1970s, I had already intended to follow up by finding the very start of this, and seeing if the paper carried some explanation. (Could I have waited on the original post before …