Animated series The Snoopy Show on Apple TV+ stays true to Peanuts, the iconic Charles Schulz cartoon strip
- No adult talk, just the sound of trombones. No technology from after the 1970s. And never show the inside of Snoopy’s doghouse: such are The Snoopy Show rules
- After all, who would mess with a cartoon strip as iconic as Peanuts? Apple team felt nervous turning episodes into animations, such is the reverence for Schulz
Peanuts star Snoopy is famous for being a highly imaginative dog, liable at to go off on loony flights of fancy. But, it turns out, his world has some strict rules.
No adults can be heard there, just trombones. No technology past the 1970s can be used. And under no circumstances may the inside of Snoopy’s doghouse ever be shown.
Creators of the new animated series The Snoopy Show had to learn and respect all the rules as they crafted stories for Apple TV+ that were true to the original strips and various previous shows.
“I think the rules have actually made the story so much stronger,” says Stephanie Betts, an executive vice-president at media company WildBrain. “And actually, we realised it was so much wider than you can even imagine.”
The series, which debuted on Friday, consists of three seven-minute vignettes per 23-minute episode. They are mined from the almost 18,000 strips cartoonist Charles Schulz left behind.
It’s an enchanting and endearing show; we see Charlie Brown overcoming his nerves at speaking in front of his class, and an epic game of tag between Snoopy and Rerun that leads to mild injuries and laughter.
Adults will recognise the classic visual style and the world they read as kids. Kites still get eaten by trees, Lucy’s psychiatric booth still costs a nickel, and Snoopy keeps flying missions on his doghouse.
I think if you were to pitch a show like this today, it would be a very difficult sell.
“There’s something to the timelessness of Charles Schulz’s drawings,” says Mark Evestaff, showrunner and an executive producer. “I feel like this is the kind of show that we need now.”
The series’ writers were each given a large red volume – nicknamed “the Snoopy Bible” – that contained Snoopy-centric strips, and were told to use them for inspiration.
“It was like, ‘How do you build on what he was trying to tell the audience in four strips?’ We get seven minutes,” says Betts.
If the writers were intimidated, so were the artists, many of whom revere Peanuts.
“One of our storyboard artists would get nervous every time they had to draw Lucy’s psychiatry booth, just because it was this heritage thing and there’s so much weight. Everyone’s a little bit terrified,” says Evestaff.
One obstacle was that Woodstock and Snoopy in the strip communicate their feelings through thought bubbles, something that doesn’t work in a show.
That meant the artists had to rely on sounds, pantomime and a variety of expressions for the two characters, who yelp, cry, titter and gulp with powerful emotion. They’re aided by a jazzy score by Jeff Morrow.
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The Snoopy Show is a refreshing addition to a children’s TV landscape that is full of superheroes and cute shows where resolutions are predetermined. The world of Peanuts, on the other hand, explores failure and frustration.
“We do have these characters that have real problems and things don’t always work out. And they deal with issues of rejection and failure. Those are things that our kids deal with, too,” says Evestaff.
“I think if you were to pitch a show like this today, it would be a very difficult sell.”
The show still allows Snoopy to have his heroic flights of fancy – becoming the famed arm-wrestler Masked Marvel, hipster Joe Cool or the dogged World War I Flying Ace behind enemy lines.
“Charles Schulz always said he felt most like Charlie Brown – he couldn’t always kick the football, he wasn’t always the winner. So Snoopy gave that outlet to dream a little bigger,” says Betts.
Peanuts made its debut on October 2, 1950. The travails of the “little round-headed kid” Charlie Brown and his pals eventually ran in more than 2,600 newspapers, reaching millions of readers in 75 countries.
Other Peanuts projects that have been launched by Apple TV+ include Snoopy in Space and Peanuts in Space: Secrets of Apollo 10, both of which were nominated for Daytime Emmy Awards, with the latter winning.
