With the legacy of the Vince Guaraldi Trio so firmly established, one can imagine creating new Peanuts music would be a daunting task – but it’s one that Canadian composer Jeff Morrow (Snow White, Ant-Man, The Little Mermaid) and iconic singer-songwriter Ben Folds were up for. They provide original songs and score for Apple TV+’s Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical, the first Peanuts musical in 35 years.

“One of the great things about Peanuts is that it doesn’t try to play to kids, even though it’s about kids,” Morrow says. “They all have very real emotions, and sometimes dark thoughts too. Charlie Brown often comes off as really depressed, which is kind of unique amongst shows for kids! Likewise, the music can follow suit. It’s just as sophisticated and deep emotionally as anything else.”

Perfect for the summer days beginning to wind down, the musical’s plot follows the gang on the way to summer camp – despite the initial reluctance of first-time camper Sally Brown, culminating in a hilarious song penned by Morrow that’s full of complaints. They eventually learn that their cherished camp is set to be closed, leading Charlie to devise a plan to save it. Although Morrow’s score does have some more traditional, orchestra-backed cinematic moments – mostly when Snoopy is on a treasure-hunting side quest of “outlandish antics,” as Morrow describes – he still thinks that the jazz that remains is the natural fit.

“There’s something about the way that the characters talk to each other. Like jazz does, it feels like it unfolds very naturally, not in a preconceived way,” he says. “The way Schulz drew these characters, the way he drew his lines, it feels even more hand drawn than some other strips. I think there’s something about the rough edges of jazz that work with that. It’s going to be a little different every time, and that’s something unique to jazz.”

Morrow describes his favourite musical moments in the special as the times when he’s able to take an established motif – like the upbeat, cheery melody of the special’s celebratory opening song – and flip it on its head to evoke emotion, rewriting it into the “saddest piano version” to “make the emotions hit a little harder.” If you’re looking for emotion, though, look no further than Folds’ tracks. He comes in to provide Charlie Brown with three reflective, contemplative songs when things are looking bleakest.

“I identify with Charlie Brown,” says Folds. “He’s right there in that sort of looking at the world like ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I had to sit with him for a little while on the edge of the lake on a hill, and consider how sad that is for a kid to have the whole memory of their childhood wiped off the face of the earth. He’s probably not a big gospel singer. He’s probably not the kid that’s going to ask to sing solos in chorus. So, the song needs to be a little like his personality: not big.”

Folds was thinking a lot about the current state of children’s media when writing his songs, sharing Morrow’s sentiment in wanting to keep in line with Peanuts history and distinguish the special from the pack a little bit when it comes to its depth and nuance. He thought a lot about how his emotional moments would be earned, finding a way to solve what he calls the “problems in the script” – in this case, the narrative gaps that musicals often leave to be bridged by song.

He needed a way that felt narratively and emotionally satisfying, but not easy. “When I say ‘problems,’ I don’t mean that the writers were deficient. All scripts have problems. We’re solving the problems in any art that we make,” he says. He landed on a recurring theme and moral of reminding viewers to strive to do their best, but it’s not as straightforward as you might expect.

“We always tell our kids to try their best, but sometimes our best isn’t good enough,” he continues. “In most kids programming, a superhero shoots a villain, and we’re done. They’re not that dumb. I thought ‘Let’s give the kids the agency,’ and they say to the older generation, ‘You did your best, and we’re looking around and, you know, there’s some problems.’ The last lyric is ‘Wish us good luck,’ because it implies that they’re going to need it, and that they may make some mistakes too.”

To find out for yourselves how the problems get solved – and maybe reconnect with what made it so special (and unexpectedly emotionally potent) to crowd around the TV to watch something like It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown – tune in to Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical, premiering on Apple TV+ on Friday, August 15.