Good Grief, Charlie Brown!

I know, I know, everything about Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts has been commercialized already. In fact, Charles Schultz built an empire on the proceeds of Peanuts licensing. So, it should come as no real surprise that Ford bought rights to use the Peanuts theme song (known as Linus and Lucy) for the company’s latest television ad campaign, right? I mean, MetLife, the huge monolithic insurance company, has been using Snoopy literally as a part of the company logo for years now. What can be worse than an insurance company personifying itself with the use of America’s most beloved cartoon dog?

Ford using Linus and Lucy to sell minivans, that’s what.

I’m not sure what it is about Linus and Lucy, but selling cars with the classic, upbeat jingle just doesn’t seem right. My friends over at Autoblog express a similar revulsion for Ford’s unwise use of the childrens’ classic.