A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving by Charles M. Schulz

The duo continued to work together on animated Peanuts specials for decades, alongside producer Lee Mendelson. That fell to director Bill Melendez, who first collaborated with Schulz on A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment, Schulz’s widow, Jean Schulz, addresses the debate by noting that while her husband wrote A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, he wasn’t involved in the animation process. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. It’s an image that increasingly bothers modern-day viewers of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, several of whom took to Twitter over the holiday to express their complicated feelings about the special, and Franklin’s legacy. Even though he’s part of the group, he’s still distinctly separate from them. At issue is a sequence from the half-hour cartoon where Charlie Brown and his friends sit down for their version of Thanksgiving dinner, featuring toast, popcorn and jelly beans in place of turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.ĭuring the meal, though, one friend seems left out in the cold: Franklin, the only main Black character in Peanuts, is seated in a beach chair by himself on one side of the table.

In recent years, though, the 1973 animated special - written by Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz - has been accompanied by a side of controversy.

Just as A Charlie Brown Christmas has been a seasonal pop culture gift for 55 years and counting, it’s hard to imagine a Thanksgiving weekend without at least one helping of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving by Charles M. Schulz