#welcome home Franklin

[peanutsgifs]

WELCOME HOME, FRANKLIN (2024)

[classycookiexo]

Love this

[cometcrystal]

SCHRUCY MENTIONED 🎉

[rizumuj]

My boy Franklin got the center seat,

I know that's right!!

[queenimmadolla]

Welcome Home, Franklin is really healing things in me i didn’t know needed to be or could be healed

[failureface]

thoughts on "Welcome Home, Franklin"

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Okay, this special was really great.

I love Franklin. He's a sweet boy who never had a unkind thing to say about Charlie Brown- he was the straight man to the wacky antics of the Peanuts gang. But I never got the feeling he was more than that in the strips. This special serves as the backstory and character that Franklin didn't originally get, but sorely needed.

And this special beautifully and gracefully rights some of the wrongs that past Peanuts media made.

I was surprised this film even went there in terms of discussing racism a little. Peanuts is an IP that you expect people to be overly-protective of. 'No, the scene in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" isn't racist- and it's NOT weird that all the kids are white' is more of what I expected to hear from this. But refreshingly, this special addresses it. Like, YEAH, there IS a lack of diversity! It feels so much better for that stuff to be acknowledged rather than swept under the rug.

I love the fact that Franklin is unsure of himself and his ability to make friends. This makes him super relatable and sympathetic, and also makes a clear connection to why he gravitates towards Charlie Brown. The two of them bond over their shared feeling of being "the Underdog", and not knowing how to make friends or navigate social landscapes. Franklin also opens up Charlie Brown to new experiences and knowledge, telling him about discrimination and introducing him to music he hasn't heard before. Not only that, but Franklin encourages Charlie Brown to be less anxious and push himself further. And Charlie Brown is a much needed friend and sympathetic ear for Franklin. They have each other's back and their bond is undeniable.

That's what this special is truly trying to get at. That friends of different backgrounds and experiences from us can help us to learn and grow as people. I think that's a really wonderful message and one that we all need at any age, and one that we especially need now.

Overall, this special really blew it out of the water, and I gave it five stars.

Special shoutout if you were able to make it to the premiere stream in the Peanuts discord, that made it twice as fun to watch!

Some miscellaneous thoughts under the cut

Franklin's music taste is so elite

The music picks in this movie are honestly fantastic. The soundtrack really elevates the experience and every song is awesome

THE BEACH SCENE! It's so rewarding as a fan to see moments that are plucked straight from the strip. It feels like the people making them really know Peanuts

All the little tiny schrucy crumbs- I eat it up. I know screenshots and gifs will be made and posted and I will be reblogging them.

Lucy and Franklin's beef- I wasn't expecting it but it's so funny and adds some really great dynamics into the fold

Since this is about the friendship between Charlie Brown and Franklin specifically, minor inaccuracies Franklin actually being on Peppermint Patty's baseball team in the strip are forgiven. Some fans more scrupulous than I would probably have an issue with this, but I'm not one of those fans. This isn't 100% faithful to Peanuts Lore but I don't mind.

I LOVED the scene where Charlie Brown wants to pull the breaks and Franklin wants to keep going. It shows so much without saying anything, and it gives way for great conflict that makes sense and comes from real places within the characters

And I love how Franklin is allowed to be mad, and he and Charlie Brown fight. We're not afraid to rock the boat anymore, and it makes Franklin feel so much more human

Just the right amount of Snoopy scenes, this one reached the perfect balance of Snoopy and Story

Everything is just so overwhelmingly cute here I had to restrain myself from writing "cute" or any of its synonyms in my review

"We saved you a seat!" <3333

[a-tired-bisexual]

My review of Welcome Home, Franklin! :

[black-n-animated]

Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin premieres February 16.

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Have you seen the new Peanuts show focused on Franklin? It looks so cute and fun! The animation looks beautiful too!

Hadn't seen it yet but omg this looks soooooo cute 🥺🥺🥺🥺 Feb 16th release date, making a note rn!!

mod dyr

[nickpeppermint]

I CANNOT WAIT for the new Welcome Home Franklin special

Franklin is one of not so many kids who NEVER said anything mean about Charlie Brown

I don't remember Franklin ever making fun of him or being cruel to anyone at all

Even Linus, Charlie's best friend, said some quite hurtful things

His dynamic is also very nice with CB and lots of other kids, he's a kind and friendly to the whole cast, Shulz didn't gave him a silly quirk like the rest, but still made him very memorable with his sporty n cheery attitude

Franklin is a GOAT, that's why he deserves his own special!

[peanutsgifs]

WELCOME HOME, FRANKLIN (2024)

[thejadedjewel]

So Welcome Home, Franklin just totally referenced and nuked the hell out of the "Franklin sitting alone on the other side of table" crap that always comes up on Thanksgiving.

They also made cannon that his full name is Franklin Armstrong.

Thoughts?

[linesonscreens]

Stuff I Watched in 2024 – Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home Franklin (TV Special):

What is it?

Welcome Home Franklin is the latest in a recent series of Peanuts TV specials premiering exclusively on Apple TV+. This one is a retelling of how Franklin came to be a part of the Peanuts gang.

Things of Note:

Friendship ended with Linus. Now Franklin is Charlie Brown's best friend. No, really. That's canon now.

Gorgeous animation, good music, great performances, and lots of interesting references to black culture for the kids watching to learn about.

Lots of nods to the strip as well. They even threw in a wonderful little dig at the weird way they had him sitting apart from everybody in Thanksgiving special.

Okay, I know I joke too much about Peanuts characters being gay and I promise to knock it off going forward, but but I swear to God the creators may have actually been going for some kind of queer subtext here.

Questions about the nature of their relationship aside, Charlie Brown and Franklin actually work really damn well as friends. It turns out Peanuts really benefits from there being at least one character who's unambiguously in Charlie Brown's corner.

This shift in his character also solves the age old problem of the franchise not knowing what the hell to do with Franklin (“Make him rap maybe???”). As a result this is the first time he's has really felt like he belonged in the same main-character tier as Lucy, Linus, etc.

Speaking of Linus, what the hell man!? You ditch your main bro without even a word for Pigpen!? You sicken me!

Final Verdict:

I'd definitely recommend this one. The story is hardly reinventing the wheel but it's solidly written, beautifully drawn, and has a ton of heart to it. The Apple TV+ specials have really been knocking it out of the park lately and this one is probably the best of the bunch. Go check it out!

(Happier Than The Sun by Stevie Wonder is playing while this gif takes place. Make of that what you will.)

Stuff I've watched so far in 2024:

Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home Franklin

Craig Before the Creek

Godspeed

Orion and the Dark.

Day Job

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A few more of these left to go still. I apologize if they're annoying but also I'm not going to stop posting them even if they are.

As always, let me know if there's anything particularly good out in the animation world that I should see. I'm always looking for new stuff to watch.

[hollywoodhandle]

'Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin' Review: Franklin's Perfect First Chapter

I can enjoy some Peanuts content always. The characters and stories are consistently so heart warming and ‘Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin’ is no different as you follow Franklin Armstrong (no relation to Louis Armstrong) as he discovers the meaning of friendship and finds his seat at the table in his new town. This film is the origin story for one of Peanuts’ most beloved characters,…

[cannedweirdo]

what does this mean

[joefool]

Special Review: Welcome Home, Franklin

I know that many Peanuts fans dislike Apple’s ownership of the IP. They’ve pumped out lots of new Peanuts content (most if it Snoopy oriented, even the non-Snoopy stuff is, according to the marketing “Presented by Snoopy”) and most fans would say that it’s more to milk the cash cow than to show any sort of respect for the original work. I don’t entirely disagree, they are a corporation seeking to make bank on the global popularity of Snoopy and the gang. However, I think it’s hard to watch this special and not feel like there’s some earnest artistry on display.

If Apple really wanted to maximize profit, they’d crap out a Cocomelon-tier Snoopy special every few months aimed at young kids. That’s a profitable endeavor. Welcome Home Franklin feels different. It’s made by many people connected to Schulz, both his family and the man who inspired Franklin originally. It reckons with Peanuts’s past and highlights an often under-used character. It’s simple, but it isn’t hollow or cynical. It feels like a real attempt at making something nice and comfortable. Unfortunately the results are mixed.

With slick animation, gorgeous scenery, a non-description nostalgic town and a faithful jazzy soundtrack, it does feel like a modernization of the Peanuts vibe. Some classic comic moments were included like Snoopy using his ears to block the rain, it was nice! The writing is the main thing that left me wanting more. Most of the cast feels devoid of their rough edges, with even the heavily spotlighted Charlie and Lucy feeling a bit limited. And the whole thing is a bit blunt with the for-kids moralistic messaging. I don’t mean the commentary on lack of diversity, or the nod to black athletes. I just mean that the whole thing needed a bow on top about the value of friendship. The Peanuts specials often have lessons, I suppose, but Schulz was such a understated storyteller and so many Peanuts stories end on a somber, discordant, or vague note that it felt a bit wrong to end it so cleanly and clearly and sweetly.

Am I yelling at clouds? Probably. It is mostly for kids, and it is mostly for profit, and at least it looks and sounds really nice and feels like an earnest attempt to preserve and extent the legacy of Peanuts. I don’t count myself among the Apple Peanuts haters, as I like that the attention is being given to the property and I don’t think new content cheapens the old classics. I liked watching it. I’ll keep watching more. I guess I just yearn for a more risky swing that captures more of the nuances of Schulz’s writing.