Peanuts fans have had a number of podcasts to listen to over the years. Currently, there’s Unpacking Peanuts (working its way through the Peanuts canon four months per episode), Talking Nuts (working its way through the canon one month per episode), and It’s a Podcast, Charlie Brown (focused on, but not solely about, Peanuts in animation.) In the past, well, the AAUGH Blog Podcast was around for sixty interesting largely-book-themed episodes (okay, fifty-six interesting ones, but I’ll take that as a sold a-minus!) there was The Peanuts Gallery (focused on the animated specials), and searching I find things I’ve never sampled, like Peanuts In The Time Of Covid-19, which apparently just read strips aloud.

The latest addition to the Peanuts podcast roster brings something special to the table: officialness. You Don’t Know Peanuts is a co-production of Peanuts Worldwide LLC, the corporate owner of the Peanuts rights. The hosts of the show are Melissa Menta, the senior VP of marketing and communications at Peanuts Worldwide (a knowledgable person whom I can tell you from experience has hands on in many aspects of Peanuts) and Dave Templeton, a journalist working for newspapers in the Santa Rosa area. It looks like they’re running a monthly schedule of fairly focused episodes. In the first episode, they talk with the guy who runs the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade about the history of Peanuts characters in the parade and the special challenges they’ve presented. Episode two (just up, but I’ve not had time to listen yet) is on A Charlie Brown Christmas in time for that holiday, talking with producer Lee Mendelson’s son. The third will focus on Franklin and The Armstrong Project. These folks have access to a lot of interesting people in the many branches that make up Peanuts as it exists in the world, so I expect they’ll have good stuff for a while to come.

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