As a toddler, Clara Spars, who grew up in Charles M. Schulz’s adoptive hometown of Santa Rosa, assumed that each metropolis had life-size “Peanuts” statues dotting its streets.
In spite of everything, Spars noticed the sculptures in all places she went — within the Santa Rosa Plaza, at Montgomery Village, outdoors downtown’s Empire Cleaners. When she and her household inevitably left city and didn’t encounter Charlie Brown and his motley crew, she was perplexed.
No matter void she felt then is lengthy gone, because the beagle has turn out to be a popular culture darling, adorning all method of merchandise — from pimple patches to luxurious purses. Spars herself is the proud proprietor of a Baggu x Peanuts earbuds case and is repeatedly gifted Snoopy attire and equipment.
“It’s so humorous to see him in all places as a result of I’m like, ‘Oh, lastly!’” Spars stated.
The spike in Snoopy merchandise has been particularly pronounced this 12 months with the seventy fifth anniversary of “Peanuts,” a.okay.a. Snoopy’s seventy fifth birthday. However the grip Snoopy presently has on popular culture and the retail business runs deeper than anniversary buzz. In line with Sony, which final week acquired majority possession of the “Peanuts” franchise, the IP is value half a billion {dollars}.
To be clear, Snoopy has at all times been fashionable. Regardless of his proprietor being the “Peanuts” strip’s essential character and the namesake for many of the franchise’s diversifications, Snoopy was inarguably its breakout star. He was the winner of a 2001 New York Occasions ballot about readers’ favourite “Peanuts” characters, with 35% of the vote.
This 12 months, the Charles M. Schulz Museum celebrated the seventy fifth anniversary of the “Peanuts” caricature’s debut.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
However the veritable Snoopymania possessing at present’s shoppers actually exploded with the social media growth of the early 2010s, stated Melissa Menta, senior vp of world model and communications for Peanuts Worldwide.
That’s additionally when the corporate noticed the primary indicators of uncharacteristically excessive model engagement, Menta stated. She largely attributed the success of “Peanuts” on social media to the caricature’s suitability to visible platforms like Instagram.
“Nobody reads the comedian strips in newspapers anymore,” Menta stated, “but when you consider it, a four-panel caricature, it’s really an Instagram carousel.”
Then, in 2023, Peanuts Worldwide launched the marketing campaign that made Snoopy actually viral.
That 12 months, the model partnered with the American Crimson Cross to create a graphic tee as a present for blood donors. The shirt, which featured Snoopy’s alter ego Joe Cool and the message “Be Cool. Give Blood,” unexpectedly grew to become internet-famous. Within the first week of the collaboration, the Crimson Cross noticed a 40% improve in donation appointments, with 75% of donors below the age of 34.
“Individuals went loopy over it,” Menta stated, and journalists began asking her, “Why?”
Her reply? “Snoopy is cute and funky. He’s the whole lot you need to be.”
“Charles Schulz stated the one purpose he had in all that he created was to make folks snort, and I feel he’s nonetheless doing that 75 years later,” Schulz Museum director Gina Huntsinger stated.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
The Crimson Cross collaboration was so fashionable that Peanuts Worldwide introduced it again this 12 months, releasing 4 new shirt designs. Once more, the Snoopy fandom — plus some Woodstock fanatics — responded, with 250,000 blood donation appointments made nationwide within the month after the gathering’s launch.
Along with the Crimson Cross partnership, Peanuts Worldwide this 12 months has rolled out collaborations with every kind of outlets, from luxurious manufacturers like Coach and Kith to mass-market powerhouses like Krispy Kreme and Starbucks. Menta stated licensed product quantity is bigger than ever, estimating that the model presently has greater than 1,200 licensees in “nearly each territory world wide,” which is roughly 4 occasions the quantity it had 40 years in the past.
Then once more, at the moment, Schulz loved and repeatedly executed veto energy when it got here to product proposals, and licensing guidelines had been specified by what former Occasions workers author Carla Lazzareschi referred to as the “Bible.”
“The five-pound, 12-inch-by-18-inch binder given each new licensee establishes accepted poses for every character and painstakingly particulars their personalities,” Lazzareschi wrote in a 1987 Occasions story. “Snoopy, for instance, is alleged to be an ‘extrovert beagle with a Walter Mitty complicated.’ The rules cowl even such issues as Snoopy’s grip on a tennis racquet.”
Though licensing has expanded enormously since then, Menta stated she and her retail improvement associates “attempt onerous to not simply slap a personality onto a T-shirt.” Their purpose is to honor Schulz’s storytelling, she added, and with 18,000 “Peanuts” strips within the archive, licensees have loads of materials to tug from.
Rick Vargas, the senior vp of merchandising and advertising and marketing at specialty retailer BoxLunch, stated his group repeatedly returns to the Schulz archives to mine materials that would resonate with clients.
“So long as you’ve gotten a recent take a look at what that IP has to supply, there’s at all times one thing to search out. There’s at all times a brand new product to construct,” Vargas stated.
Certainly, this has been considered one of BoxLunch’s strongest years when it comes to gross sales of “Peanuts” merchandise, and Snoopy merchandise particularly, the manager stated.
BaubleBar co-founder Daniella Yacobovsky stated the model’s “Peanuts” collaboration was considered one of its most beloved but.
(BaubleBar)
Daniella Yacobovsky, co-founder of the celebrity-favorite accent retailer BaubleBar, reported related excessive gross sales for the model’s current “Peanuts” assortment.
“Particularly for people who find themselves constant BaubleBar followers, each time we introduce new character IP, there may be this large pleasure from that fandom that we’re bringing their favourite characters to life,” Yacobovsky stated.
The bestselling merchandise within the assortment, the Peanuts Pals Ceaselessly Allure Bracelet, bought out in at some point. Plus, clients have reached out with new concepts for merchandise linked to particular “Peanuts” storylines.
Extra just lately, Peanuts Worldwide has centered on advertising and marketing to youthful costumers in response to unprecedented model engagement from Gen Z. In November, it launched a collaboration with Starface, whose cult-favorite pimple patches are a staple for teenagers and younger adults. The Snoopy stickers have already bought out on Ulta.com, Starface founder Julie Schott stated in an emailed assertion, including that the model is fielding requests for restocks.
“We all know it’s an authorized hit when resale on Depop and EBay begins to spike,” Schott stated.
The identical factor occurred in 2023, when a CVS plush of Snoopy in a puffer jacket (presumably the canine’s most internet-famous iteration so far) bought out in-store and began cropping up on EBay — for greater than triple the unique value.
The culprits had been Gen-Zers fawning over how cute cozy Snoopy was, usually on social media.
“Individuals who love Snoopy adore Snoopy, whether or not you grew up with ‘Peanuts’ or join with Snoopy as a meme and cultural icon at present,” stated Starface founder Julie Schott.
(Starface World Inc.)
Hannah Man Casey, senior director of name and advertising and marketing at Peanuts Worldwide, stated in 2024, the official Snoopy TikTok account gained 1.1 million followers, and attracted 85.4 million video views and 17.6 million engagements. This 12 months, the account has gained one other 1.2 million followers, and racked up 106.5 million video views and 23.2 million engagements.
Man Casey famous that TikTok is the place the model experiences a lot of its engagement amongst Gen Z followers.
Certainly, the platform is a sizzling spot for fan-created Snoopy content material, from memes that includes the puffer jacket to compilations of his most relatable moments. A number of Snoopy fan accounts, together with one devoted to a music-loving Snoopy plushie, boast effectively over half 1,000,000 followers.
Caryn Iwakiri, a speech and language pathologist at Sunnyvale’s Lakewood Tech EQ Elementary Faculty whose classroom is Snoopy-themed, just lately took an impromptu journey to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa after seeing its welcome heart decked out with Snoopy decor on TikTok. As soon as she arrived, she realized the museum was celebrating the “Peanuts” seventy fifth anniversary.
Final 12 months, the Schulz Museum noticed its highest-ever attendance, pushed largely by its elevated visibility on social media.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
It’s a well-known story for Schulz Museum director Gina Huntsinger.
“Final December, we had been packed, and I used to be on the entrance speaking to folks, and I simply randomly requested this group, ‘Why are you right here?’”
It turned out that the buddies had traveled from Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas to satisfy in Santa Rosa and go to the museum after seeing it on TikTok.
In line with Stephanie King, advertising and marketing director on the Schulz Museum, the institution is experiencing its highest-ever admissions since opening in 2002. Within the 2024–2025 season, the museum elevated its attendance by almost 45% from the earlier 12 months.
Huntsinger stated she’s loved watching younger guests expertise the museum in new methods.
Within the museum’s schooling room, the place guests usually hint characters from the unique Schulz comics or fill out “Peanuts” coloring pages, Gen Z museumgoers are sketching popular culture renditions of Snoopy — Snoopy as rock band Pierce the Veil, Snoopy as pop star Charli XCX.
“When our social media group places them up [online], there’s these feedback amongst this era that will get this, and so they’re having conversations about it,” Huntsinger stated. “It’s dynamic, it’s enjoyable, it’s inventive. It makes me really feel like there’s hope on the earth.”
The Schulz Museum’s “Passport to Peanuts” exhibition emphasizes the comedian’s world attain.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
Laurel Roxas felt equally once they first found “Peanuts” as a child whereas enjoying the “Snoopy vs. the Crimson Baron” online game on their PlayStation Moveable. For Roxas, who’s Filipino, it was Snoopy and never the “Peanuts” youngsters who resonated most.
“No person was Asian. I used to be like, ‘Oh, I’m not even within the story,’” they stated.
As a result of Snoopy was so merely drawn, Roxas added, he was simple to challenge onto. They felt equally about Good day Kitty; with little figuring out options or dialogue of their very own, the characters had been clean canvases for their very own personification.
Roxas visited Snoopy Museum Tokyo with their brother final 12 months. They bought a lot Snoopy merchandise — “the whole lot I may get my arms on” — that that they had to purchase extra baggage to convey it house.
For some Snoopy fanatics, the excessive quantity of Snoopy merchandise borders on oversaturation, threatening to cheapen the spirit of the character.
Rising up, Bella Shingledecker beloved the vacation season as a result of it meant that the “Peanuts” animated specials can be again on the air. It was that sense of impermanence, she believes, that made the movies particular.
Now, when she sees stacks of Snoopy cookie jars or different trend-driven merchandise at big-box shops like T.J. Maxx, it strikes her as a bit unhappy.
“It simply feels very undesirable,” she stated. For many who purchase such objects, she stated she will be able to’t assist however marvel, “Will this move your aesthetic check subsequent 12 months?”
Lina Jeong, for one, isn’t nervous that Snoopy’s star will fade.
“[Snoopy is] at all times capable of present what he feels, nevertheless it’s by no means by means of phrases, and I feel there’s one thing actually poetic in that,” stated Lina Jeong.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
Jeong’s affinity for the whimsical beagle was handed right down to her from her mother and father, who furnished their house with commemorative “Peanuts” espresso desk books. However she fell in love with Snoopy the primary time she noticed “Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown,” which she rewatches each Valentine’s Day.
This previous 12 months, she was recent out of a relationship when the vacation rolled round and he or she discovered herself tearing up throughout scenes of Snoopy making Valentine’s crafts for his buddies.
“Possibly I used to be hyper-emotional from the whole lot that had occurred, however I bear in mind being so struck,” that the particular celebrated platonic love over romantic love, Jeong stated.
It was an awesome consolation to her on the time, she stated, and he or she is aware of many others have felt that very same solace from “Peanuts” media — particularly from its expensive canine.
“Snoopy is such a cultural pillar that I really feel like fads can’t simply wash it off,” she stated.
Quickly, she added, she plans to maneuver these “Peanuts” espresso desk books into her personal condo in L.A.
