There are many media that started
in printed comics which could argue to have had become an integral part of
American pop culture. Aside from the usual suspects from superhero comic books,
there are those from newspaper comic strips. One iconic example was “Peanuts,”
created by Charles M. Schulz, which was popular enough to get animated TV
specials and movies. After Schulz’s death in 2000, all “Peanuts” assets were packaged
into a company currently held by Canada’s DHX Media. In 2018 the whole animated
“Peanuts” library was acquired by Apple for digital streaming, and a new
animated special is being produced for the launch of the Apple TV+ streaming
platform.
Yahoo News relates that a trailer for a new “Peanuts” animated
special was released this week, an appropriate period given the provided storyline.
The title is even “Snoopy in Space,” after the smart yet wacky beagle that is
the deuteragonist of the franchise aside from Charlie Brown. The special, as
one can surmise, is in honor of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11,
the lunar mission that put men on the moon. It is no wonder then that the
production is a collaborative effort between Apple, Peanuts Worldwide and NASA,
because the special has an educational factor for STEM promotion.
An initial plot blurb for “Snoopy
in Space” would have it as a multi-part animated miniseries following Snoopy,
his bird sidekick Woodstock, his ever-unlucky boy Charlie Brown, and the rest
of the Peanuts gang going on a field trip to NASA. The adventure-seeking beagle
lucks out when NASA officials consider him and Woodstock as ideal candidates
for a new space mission. The special will then have two parallel storylines
featuring Snoopy and Woodstock undergoing astronaut training, and the Peanuts
kids getting shown the ropes of NASA Mission Control in Houston.
The partnership between “Peanuts”
and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration goes back to May 1969
when NASA gave the Apollo 10 Command-and-Service Module (CSM) and Lunar Module
(LEM) the respective call signs “Charlie Brown” and “Snoopy,” evoking the “Charlie
Brown failure” theme due to the mission not actually landing on the moon (that
was for Apollo 11 later in July). Charles Schulz even left a “Peanuts” artwork
in the Snoopy LEM as a gift for the Apollo 10 astronauts. NASA has since used
Snoopy as their astronaut safety mascot, and this animated special is a logical
conclusion to that.
Apple TV+ will not be available
until this September, at which point the “Snoopy in Space” special will finally
premiere on streaming. But the release of the trailer now is a way to connect
the theme of the production to the Apollo 11 anniversary, especially with the
actual lunar landing commemoration this Saturday, July 20.
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