ABC Makes Charlie Brown Rap, Some Parents Not Too Happy

With yet another holiday season approaching, ABC dusted off its yearly 'Peanuts' specials to provide some classic entertainment for families across America. There's a slight problem, though. These characters are so old that sometimes younger generations don't relate so much. With this in mind, the animated entourage's frontman, Charlie Brown, picked up a mic and tried his hand at rap in a new series of promos this week.

"Rakin' leaves, and rollin' on a pumpkin," Brown raps. "Trick or treat, then the party get thumpin'."

Most coverage has rightly pointed out that Brown raps sound more 1980 than 2010, but many are still angry that an iconic character has somehow been compromised.

"You get those people and you get some of those mothers that say you're kind of demeaning a classic, who are righteous and want to be pure about it," said Marla Provencio, executive vice president of marketing at the ABC Entertainment Group, when responding to complaints. "But our goal as marketers is to try to get attention. We just thought it was a great opportunity to really kind of do something different. We've had this franchise for a long, long time."

Apparently, the ABC marketing team wrote Charlie's raps themselves and then sent the lyrics off to a voice actor for recording. "That's the fabulous and fun thing about animation," Provencio explained. "You can put anything in their mouths." And, truth be told, someone else had the novel idea of syncing the Peanuts gang to hip-hop back in 2006, when they linked the animated bunch rocking out to Outkast's 'Hey Ya!' The video became an instant Internet hit.