Is Peanuts owned by anyone?
Peanuts is still owned by the Schulz family.
As of April 2009 ITTL, Sparky is still alive. Now he is 86 and still producing the strip.
The licensing for
Peanuts merchandise is spread out:
- The rights to produce TV specials based on the strip were held by the Mendelson/Melendez studio but have since been acquired by Luxor Animation.
- The theme park rights to the characters are held by Warner Parks, formerly Cedar Fair.
- The rights to produce comic books based on the strip are held by Unicorn, the kids imprint of Dark Horse Comics, headed by Garfield creator Jim Davis.
- In the event of Mr. Schulz's death, his descendants wish for the newspaper strip to be discontinued like OTL, but all other merchandise can still go forward.
The Schulz family have licensed home video rights to various companies throughout the years.
- Media Home Entertainment under its kids label Hi Tops Video. (Late 1970's until the early 90's when Media was sold to Bally)
- Paramount Home Media Distribution (1994 until 2006)
- Since 2006, Luxor Home Entertainment has had the license, with the Hi Tops label resurrected for Limited Run prints.
Snoopy Come Home, originally released by RKO-Desilu in 1973, was recently reissued by Limited Run and Sony/MCA Home Entertainment.
Bon Voyage and
Race for Your Life will be reissued by Limited Run and Paramount at a later date.