Ben Folds<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cIf someone asked me to write for a stupid kids thing, I would find it difficult because I don\u2019t like talking down to anyone, much less kids,\u201d says Folds. \u201c’Peanuts’ isn’t like that. We\u2019re working in very rich, fertile soil.\u201d<\/p>\n
What’s the special about?<\/p>\n
The special opens with the kids getting ready to catch the bus to Cloverhill Ranch camp, but Sally isn’t so sure it’s going to be great. “Honestly, big brother, I could stay home,” she says.<\/p>\n
Sally is initially intimidated by the camp’s inside jokes and rituals, turned off by the insects, the endless climbing, no TV, cold lake water and lumpy beds.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wake at dawn\/Like you would in jail,\u201d she sings in the song \u201cA Place Like This.\u201d \u201cThe food\u2019s not what you\u2019d call upscale\/This whole endeavor, an epic fail\/And that\u2019s being diplomatic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trust \u201cPeanuts\u201d to explore reluctance to leave home and fear of change. Craig Schulz, who co-wrote the script with his son, Bryan, and Cornelius Uliano, channeled some of his own childhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cCloverhill Ranch actually is a take-off of the one in Santa Rosa called Cloverleaf that I went to as a child and hated. I bailed out after a week and went home,\u201d he says. \u201cSo many connections in the film kind of date back to my childhood that we weaved into the film.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Sally warms to camp, Snoopy discovers what he thinks is a treasure map that will transform him into a wealthy pooch, one who will lay on top of a gold dog house. And Charlie Brown learns that this summer will be the last for his beloved but struggling camp \u2014 unless he does something.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess your generation would rather sit in front of the television than sit under the stars,\u201d he tells Sally. \u201cWe have to protect these kinds of places because once they\u2019re gone, they\u2019re gone forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
A concert to save the camp<\/p>\n
Charlie Brown comes up with the idea to invite generations of camp-goers back for a fundraising concert, but the skies darken on the big day, threatening to cancel the event and sending him into a \u201cGood grief\u201d spiral.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharlie Brown is different in this special,\u201d says director Erik Wiese. \u201cHe\u2019s really happy. He loves this place. And so that\u2019s why when we get to that scene it\u2019s so effective because he returned back to the zero we sort of know him traditionally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Folds supplies the lovely, last three songs \u2014 \u201cWhen We Were Light,\u201d \u201cLook Up, Charlie Brown\u201d and \u201cLeave It Better\u201d \u2014 and credits his songwriting collaborators for setting the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI entered when those first two songs existed, and I get to just sort of step in at the point where things get really complex and melancholic,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Folds has had a flirtation with musical theater before, having written the \u201cPeanuts\u201d Earth Day song \u201cIt\u2019s the Small Things, Charlie Brown\u201d in 2022 and a few songs for the movie \u201cOver the Hedge\u201d in 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can easily confuse a song that sounds like musical theater with a song that should be musical theater,\u201d he says. \u201cReally what the value of the song is that it obviates the need for a good five to 10 pages of script.\u201d<\/p>\n
This October marks the 75th anniversary of \u201cPeanuts,\u201d and the musical arrives with a boatload of branding, from tote bags by Coach to shoes by Crocs and Starbucks mugs.<\/p>\n
Craig Schulz is already at work on a second animated musical with his son, having long ago fallen in love with the family business.<\/p>\n
“I used to always wonder how in the world my dad could go to the office every day for 50 years and write a comic strip every day,” he says, comparing it to the \u201cI Love Lucy\u201d episode with Lucy trying to keep up with a chocolate conveyor belt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I came to realize that he had his family of five kids, but I really think he enjoyed going to the studio and working with the \u2018Peanuts\u2019 characters even more so than his real family. He got to go in there and embrace them, draw them, make him happy, sad, whatever. It was a world that I don\u2019t think he could ever leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Charlie Brown and Snoopy go to sleepaway camp in a new, bittersweet Apple TV+ special fueled by a pair of Emmy Award-nominated songwriters that’s being billed as the first \u201cPeanuts\u201d musical in 35 years. \u201cMy motivation has always been to preserve and enhance my dad\u2019s legacy,\u201d says co-writer Craig Schulz, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1958751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[312607,344236,344008,344238,344237],"class_list":["post-1958750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-ben-folds","tag-charlie-brown","tag-craig-schulz","tag-ranch-camp","tag-sleepaway-camp"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Charlie-Brown-and-Snoopy-offer-an-animated-Peanuts-musical-about.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1958750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1958751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1958750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1958750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1958750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}