VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Charles Shulz’s Son, Craig, & Director Raymond Persi On Diversity In ‘Peanuts Presents: Welcome Home Franklin’

In an exclusive uInterview, Criag Shulz and Raymond Persi discuss their new special, Peanuts Presents: Welcome Home Franklin.

“I think that the purpose of the special is that we seem like we have a lot of differences. But if we are in the same room and let down our guards, we’ll see how much we actually have in common,” director Persi told uInterview. “Even the things that are different about us enrich each other, so we just have to be open to that.”

Co-writer Shulz, son of cartoonist Charles Schulz, said that his father would appreciate how the special goes “beyond the comic strip page.”

“We show the audience more about what they want to know about each of the characters, whether it be Lucy or Peppermint Patty, now we get a chance to highlight Franklin,” Shulz said. “We really see Franklin’s backstory, we see that his father was in Vietnam… There’s no better, more appropriate time than today to introduce a character like Franklin again and tell the whole story of his journey.”

Franklin was the first black character introduced by Charles Shulz. Shulz said he hopes the show sends a message about all kids’ struggles to fit in.

“When you look back on it now and you look at this, you find out that a black kid can come into a neighborhood and be himself and blend with any number of kids,” he said. “All the kids in Charlie Brown’s world have their unique problems, and Franklin is really the most grounded character… He just struggles to fit in and he finds a way to do that.”

Persi said that the character he relates to most is Linus.

“He’s trying to be calm and be a force of good, but he also has a lot of insecurities, and sometimes those insecurities kind of take over. I connect with Linus a lot,” Persi said.

Shulz said that, while he would like to live in a fantasy world like Snoopy, he has always related most to Pig-Pen.

“He’s a lot like Franklin, he’s confident in his skin, and he doesn’t have any of the really weird quirks that the other characters do,” he said. “He seems to get along with everybody.”

Peanuts Presents: Welcome Home Franklin is available to stream on Apple TV+.