The animated special Peanuts: A Summer Musical is coming out on Friday, as discussed before. And yet here I am on Thursday, covering it. What sort of secret inside access did I have that let’s me do this? Easy, I live on the West Coast. It’s already Friday on the East Coast, so the special is already up on Apple TV+

Now, I’ll leave it to others to judge the special (which I found quite watchable) and its music (there’s some good songs in there, particularly the first and last.) No, the coverage here will be on one topic and one topic only, for this blog is nothing if not obsessive. This is Dolores Report.

Does Dolores appear in the special? Yes.

Is she actually named? No.

Is she merely in crowd scenes? No. While there are plenty of very minor strip characters seen in crowd scenes (as well as folks of a range of skin color), Dolores has an actual fixed role, as one of Sally’s three cabin mates. The four of them show up together frequently through the special. And one of the other cabinmates is a recognizable character (Eudora), who both has lines and has her name spoken.

Does she speak? Yes, one line. “They’re so cute.” It may be a very small thing, but it’s a thing!

Is she ever all by herself on screen? Yes! She is seen demonstrating that the food is bad in a way that illustrates that fact being said in a song.

Now I’m no fool. I know she was never going to be a major character. Will she be seen again? Perhaps, as a scene filler or if there’s some specific need. But Peanuts has a deep bench of characters, and they’re not going to suddenly put her in with the top 10. She as not meant for big things… but to me, it is a big thing that she is no longer just lost in the filmstrips.

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