55 Years ago TODAY (10.27) the #Peanuts #Halloween special #ItsTheGreatPumpkinCharlieBrown aired for the first time on CBS. To celebrate the anniversary (and the Holiday), here’s an updated version of last years post on the topic:
On Sunday, May 8, 1988, two gunmen in ski masks entered Charles Schulzs’ home through an unlocked door, planning to kidnap his wife Jean. The attempt failed when their daughter Jill drove up to the house, prompting the criminals to flee. It was an attempted kidnap-ransom, one which if pulled off successfully would have made the would be wife snatchers very rich, for Schulz was one of the wealthiest entertainers in the world. At the time he was raking in $30-$40 million per year in merchandise and endorsements for his Peanuts comic strip. When Metropolitan Life Insurance licensed the rights to use the Peanuts as the cornerstone to their advertising campaign from 1985-2016, the deal was worth an estimated $12 Million per year. “Get Met, It Pays” made the insurance giant a household name. I especially enjoyed them because I come from a family of Met Life employees… starting with my Grandfather. “Mother Met” as he used to call it, was now famous thanks to Snoopy and his pals; just another example of advertisers co-opting lightning in a bottle creativity. At its height, Peanuts was published daily in 2,600 papers in 75 countries, in 21 languages. Met Life successfully bought their way into some seriously cozy cultural currency.
32 years later, when Apple kidnapped the entire Peanuts gang and demanded an Apple TV+ subscription as ransom, the attempt failed miserably (yet again) as the pitchforks came out in the form of online petitions (maybe there’s something good about Social Media after all). In a desperate effort to buy their way into our hearts, Apple had stabbed us in the back!
Soon it’s Halloween, and if Apple hadn’t been forced to bow to the pressure and forge a partnership with PBS , millions of families wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the beloved Holiday Classic.
Hopefully all the candy will make it go away, because I still have a bad taste in my mouth.
Happy Halloween !!
