Peanuts Licensee Hallmark at 65
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While Peanuts celebrates its Diamond Anniversary Hallmark marks a 65 year partnership with the comic strip.
My Facebook has been inundated with ads for unlicensed Peanuts shirts – it didn’t help that I clicked on one of the links, ensuring even more intrusions. This stuff is “not sold in stores” and “only available for a limited time.” My guess is it is only available until Peanuts Worldwide shuts them down or at least gets Facebook/Meta to rein in the pirates.
There are many (many!) legitimate licensees and the longest lasting Peanuts partnership is probably Hallmark.
In 2025, they’re putting an extra emphasis on Peanuts, the comic strip featuring world-known characters like Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy van Pelt and Woodstock. The comic is celebrating its 75th anniversary and organizations all over the world, from New York Yankees Double-A affiliate Somerset Patriots to streetwear clothing brand Kith, are honoring the characters with merchandise looking back at its history. Hallmark is right in the middle of it, showcasing its 75th anniversary collection and taking The Star down memory lane to look at how the partnership between the two brands started 65 years ago and what keeps it strong today.
Joseph Hernandez at The Kansas City Star gives us an indepth history of the Peanuts and Hallmark friendship.
Hallmark has worked with iconic figures like Walt Disney and Maya Angelou, but the longest partnership the company has had is with Peanuts Worldwide, who now manages the legacy of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, the American cartoonist who created the comic strip and brought its well-known characters to the world. The partnership was forged by Arnold Shapiro, then Hallmark’s managing editor, who was a big fan of the comic that began appearing in The Star in 1959.
It began with four test cards created by Schulz in 1960 specifically for Hallmark, featuring Charlie, Lucy, Linus and Violet on two birthday cards, a get-well card and a congratulations card for the birth of a child. Snoopy wouldn’t appear until 1961, where he’s seen lying on his doghouse. Schulz later permitted Hallmark to design products featuring Peanuts characters.
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article311555384.html#storylink=cpy
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