“Snoopy’s 12 Days”: A Holiday Special About Mischief and Friendship

• The half-hour special premieres on Apple TV on November 13
• Snoopy learns he’s landed on Santa’s naughty list and tries to turn things around
• The creators envisioned the story as a companion to A Charlie Brown Christmas

A new Christmas story in the world of Peanuts

Peanuts returns to the holiday season with a new half-hour animated special, Snoopy Presents: 12 Days of Snoopy. It premieres on Apple TV on November 13. The story arrives more than six decades after the debut of A Charlie Brown Christmas, the beloved holiday special that set the stage for new stories about the characters at Christmas. The creators emphasize that this isn’t a retelling of the classic story, but one told from Snoopy’s point of view.

In an exclusive clip presented by IGN, a beagle learns that Santa has put him on the naughty list. With 12 days until Christmas, Snoopy decides to prove he’s not so bad after all. According to the creators, proving himself isn’t just about gifts: the holiday season is meant to help him understand the value of other things. The published material doesn’t reveal specific details about what happens next, so for now, the premise and the story’s general message are what we know.

Executive producer Mark Evestaff explains the choice of premise by pointing to Snoopy’s character: he can be mischievous and sometimes self-centered, but he’s also a kind, caring friend. The writers wanted to show both sides of the character rather than portray him simply as the culprit behind the mischief. At the heart of the story is an attempt to do a good deed that may not go as planned, and how the neighbors react to it. According to Evestaff, one of the episode’s messages is that you can help your friends, and good intentions need to be backed up with effort.

Why Snoopy Ended Up on Santa’s List

This premise lets the story build comedy around Snoopy’s familiar restlessness without giving up the emotional side of “Peanuts.” Director Rob Boutilier notes that the idea of a naughty list and trying to make amends gave the artists a chance to work with both humor and more touching moments. And it’s not just about whether the beagle himself will change: the story also highlights his friends’ willingness to support him, even when his attempts to do the right thing lead to yet another mistake. This is a description of the premise, not a detailed retelling of the scenes.

Boutilier says that a simple premise isn’t a drawback for “Peanuts.” Classic specials often begin with a clear idea, while their depth comes from the characters’ feelings and how they respond to it. In “Snoopy’s 12 Days,” the starting point is some bad news from Santa; from there, the writers can explore embarrassment, the desire to make things right, and the support of friends. This approach explains why the creators talk not only about holiday adventures, but also about the characters’ emotions.

The new special will inevitably be compared with the 1965 classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and other well-known stories from the franchise—the interview also mentions “Charlie Brown’s All Stars!” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Butillier sees the comparison as a natural consequence of how popular and familiar these works are to multiple generations. The team’s challenge is to attract a new audience while also avoiding disappointment for those who have known the characters for a long time. The director acknowledges the scale of that responsibility, but warns that dwelling too much on comparisons can paralyze the work.

How the creators position the special alongside the classics

Rather than trying to surpass the classics, the team chose to focus on the characters and the legacy of “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz. Butillier describes the special as a companion piece—a complementary story meant to sit naturally alongside “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The test for the writers is how the characters behave: if you watch both works back to back, the characters’ reactions to events should not seem radically different. This is not a promise that the style or plot will match completely, but a stated principle that guided the creators as they worked.

Ivestaff says the idea for a standalone Christmas special came about after the team had already tried holiday episodes in The Snoopy Show. In the writers’ room, they felt the idea had potential, and then WildBrain, Peanuts’ content partner, and Apple TV invited the developers to pitch ideas. The team agreed, even though they understood they were tackling a subject that was especially meaningful to viewers. Ivestaff emphasizes that the creators didn’t want to repeat what had already been told, so they decided to look at the holiday specifically through Snoopy’s eyes.

The special was made by people familiar with Peanuts animated projects for Apple TV. Evestaff served as executive producer, and Boutilier directed the story; they had previously worked together on The Snoopy Show. Boutilier is also involved with other projects in this universe, including Snoopy in Space. This experience provides context for their approach: the team had already worked on bringing familiar characters into new stories and, according to the director, aimed to preserve their recognizability while carefully developing the visual language.

What Keeps Peanuts Appealing

As Boutilier explains, the animation work was guided by a desire to respect not only Schulz’s drawings but also director Bill Melendez’s contribution to the original specials. As a practical reference, the team imagined how a scene might have been handled in the 1960s, particularly during storyboarding. Sometimes the creators followed this imagined model; other times, they tried something new. Their principle was to first capture the feeling of familiar Peanuts, then carefully move the style forward so that the changes wouldn’t feel like a rejection of its earlier look.

The creators also discussed how to capture the immediacy of the early works. Ivestaff said that casting children was part of the homage: in *A Charlie Brown Christmas*, he observed, the children’s lines sounded charming and natural, partly because of the way they were recorded. Boutilier, for his part, acknowledges that literally recreating some of the old techniques would be difficult today. For example, deliberately simplified shadows might not meet modern viewing expectations. So the goal is to draw inspiration from the past, not to copy its technology exactly.

Explaining Peanuts’ lasting appeal, Ivestaff points to the characters’ recognizable, simple designs, which Schulz developed over many years of working on the comic strip. Boutilier adds that people’s emotional attachment to the characters isn’t due to the cartoons alone: readers could cut out a favorite strip and put it on the fridge. *A Charlie Brown Christmas* has already become an annual tradition for some viewers. The creators hope that *Snoopy’s 12 Days* can become a regular watch for a new generation too, but only time will tell.

Source: IGN