Peanuts specials stay on ABC

It’s a little early for me to get my usual requests to note the date, time, and channel of the upcoming airings of the key “classic”  specials (It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas), but I can get one part of the answer out of the way now – ABC has signed a deal with Peanuts Worldwide (that’s the new Peanuts owner, co-owned by Iconix and Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates) for five more years of these specials.

One thing I don’t quickly find is whether this five year deal starts with this year, or whether this year’s showings are simply covered by a previous deal. The reason that becomes a particularly interesting question is that that decides whether ABC has A Charlie Brown Christmas booked up for 2015 – the special’s 50th anniversary, and an opportunity for much hoopla.

Share the news!
Animated Peanuts
A Summer Musical: The Dolores Report

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 …

Animated Peanuts
Dolores CONFIRMED!

That is genuinely Dolores, the obscure Latina Peanuts character from the filmstrips, in the new special that releases this coming Friday. I’ve had it confirmed by the director of the special, who is half Latin himself. He indicates that she will not be the only character of such heritage in …

Animated Peanuts
Officially, it’s a “Super Chubby”

When I reviewed the 2015 book adapting the TV special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, I had this to say: The book that’s titled It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (adaptation by Kara McMahon, art by Scott Jeralds) takes basically the whole special and simplifies everything. It briefly tells you that Charlie …