Peanuts, the popular, long running comic strip by Charles Schulz was a pretty parents-free environment. The kids all seemed to have parents, you just never saw or heard from them. When the adults were voiced in the 1960s television specials, their words were replaced with what could best be described as trombone sounds.

For Charlie Brown, Sally, Lucy, Linus, Pig Pen, Schroeder and the rest of the gang, their true father was Schulz himself. His thoughts and feeling about childhood and parenting were often expressed right inside the comics.

Schulz died in 2000, but his comic legacy is still going strong. There’s a new Peanuts movie coming out in November of this year and the team behind that film produced a short Father’s Day clip which Mashable presents exclusively above.

It’s hard to ignore the irony of such a message from a comic that never showed a single father, but then again, Peanuts kids were only marginally children. They had adult thoughts, emotions and anxieties. Though we’ve all grown up loving the Peanuts, it’s often hard to know where Charles Schulz stood on children and parenting. So we turned to the one person who might know: Schulz’s son, Craig. He’s also one of the co-writers for the upcoming film, so we snuck in some questions about the making of the movie, as well.

What kind of father was Charles Schulz?

Well, my dad was really kind of a hands-off father. He was the type of father who would kind of let you explore on your own, do on your own, help you if you needed help, but on the other hand, not hinder you with overly fatherly advice and try to give direction in your life. He was a fun father, always willing to come out and play sports with us, at any time: baseball, football, but he was also busy with his career. Kind, loving father, fun to be around. And the only father I ever knew, so that was great.

The irony is that fathers (actually, parents) never appeared in Peanuts; they didn’t even have real voices. Was he ambivalent about parents’ roles in children’s lives?

I wouldn’t say he was ambivalent about parents’ roles in children’s lives. The reason adults didn’t show up in the comic strip was because it was a children’s world and it was based upon children’s perspectives of the world and themselves. It showed that children already do have intellectual thoughts and views on the world and there really wasn’t a place for adults in that world. I think adults in this world would have set the whole neighborhood out of balance.

His Peanuts characters were almost like little adults, with very complex emotions. Did he have that expectation of his own children?

Peanuts creator Charles Schulz (left) with his son, Craig. Image: Craig Schulz

I don’t know what expectations he had of his own children, like I said he was sort of a hands off father. But he was lucky enough that his parents let him do what he wanted to do to try to live his dreams out and I think my dad was the same way with us. We each had our own things we wanted to accomplish in life and he was there to help us if we needed his help in any way. But for the most part, he was hands off and sat on the sidelines and watched us accomplish what we would accomplish on our own.

Did he draw with you?

I think as a small child he probably drew with us, not a lot, he wasn’t one to try to teach us how to draw, by any means. Actually none of the five children really had any artistic ability whatsoever. I took art classes all through high school and was really terrible at it, I could barely draw a straight line and I have a tough time writing my signature. So, he might have been disappointed in that, I don’t know. But some of the grandkids are tremendous artists, so maybe it does skip a generation, I don’t know.

Which is your favorite Peanuts character? Which one do you identify most?

I tend to relate to Pigpen, because when growing up I was always the dirty child, playing in the dirt, racing motorcycles, and that sort of thing. Pigpen is great because no matter what he looks like he’s very happy with himself. He doesn’t have some of the problems the other characters do, where they have a lot of insecurities and so forth. He’s happy with who he is and so be it, I think that’s what I like about him.

Were any of the characters based on you?

Pigpen might have been based on me for all I know! If you look at when Pigpen arrived, it kind of coincides with where I was in my life, so it’s possible Pigpen was based on the dirtiness of me.

How important is it to keep his legacy alive?

For me it’s very important. You know my dad asked the question at one point “Will I be remembered?” And I think that’s one of the reasons we did the movie, was to say it’s been 50 years since “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” it’s been 65 years since the comic strip, and I think it will continue for at least a hundred years. We try to do our best every day to keep his legacy alive, whether it be in the movie, or products, or the comic strip, in any way we can. I think it’s a great commentary on the world and I think his message is a message that should be kept alive as much as his legacy.

Do you own a lot of original sparky artwork (stuff that was never published)?

Actually I own very little Sparky artwork as a matter of fact, his studio burned down in the 60’s and he had a lot of stuff in there that we probably would have all kept as kids. But most of that disappeared. So no, I never had much of his artwork.

How do you find the balance in the new film between classic Peanuts elements and fresh ideas?

We wanted to base the film on classic Peanuts elements. My favorite era is the 60s. Though the artwork for the film is based upon characters from the 80’s to the 90’s, we stuck with classic Peanuts. You’ll find it’s all right out of the comic strip. Whenever we had questions, we went to the comic strip for our answers. We stayed true to his work, that’s what we think is best that’s what people love and that’s where we went.

How long did it take to come up with the core premise for the movie?

It took quite a while actually. I’ve been working on the movie for over 8 years. I came up with the idea after hearing a clip of Snoopy’s Christmas with the Royal Guardsmen. As I was listening to it I had the vision of what Snoopy flying could look like these days in CG and the new animation style, and from there I kind of built the second story. It's really Charlie Brown’s story that kind of dovetailed together with Snoopy’s story and after working on that for a couple of years brought on Neil [Cornelius Uliano] and my son Brian, and we turned it into the full-blown move that’s going to come out in November.

As far as the look of the film, has director Steve Martino and the team at Blue Sky met your expectations?

Everyone at Blue Sky has gone well beyond my expectations, I had fears that they would never be able to draw these characters and make them look right in CG. I had high hopes and they’ve gone above and beyond and they have hit an absolute home run with his film and I couldn’t be happier.

When did you become aware of what your father did for a living?

That’s a funny question, because as small children most of us didn’t think my dad even had a job. We all knew what everyone else’s father did: one’s dad owned a mortuary, one owned a gas station, one owned a convenience store. We could see what they did. My dad just kind of went into a room, drew some pictures and somehow we had food and cars and everything else. It wasn’t until probably mid-60s after Charlie Brown Christmas when Peanuts really took off and news reporters started showing up, film crews started showing up at the house, that we really got a sense of what he did.

Does the impact your father’s work has had on generations of people surprise you?

It surprises me every day. Every day I talk to people from around the world and I hear the impact that it’s had on them, how important it is in their lives, the effect it has on their lives and the messages that he generated. The big thing is that it’s timeless. I read comic strips in researching the movie and the stuff that he had done 40 years ago is still relevant today, so I think it’s a timeless comic strip. I think the messages are timeless, because they deal with people, and true emotions. I think what really has given it the legs that it has, are the messages and my father's ability to study human nature and the human condition and analyze it in a funny comic strip way. I think it will continue for a long, long time.