[1] He is the second person of color to appear in the strip, debuting a year after José Peterson, a polite, biracial athlete of Mexican and Swedish ancestry who was introduced in 1967.

[4] Franklin's father was a soldier fighting in Vietnam, to which Charlie Brown replied "My dad's a barber... he was in a war too, but I don't know which one."

[5] While his surname is never confirmed in the comic strip, some animated specials, beginning with You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown, give his full name as Franklin Armstrong.

Schulz chose the surname as a nod to African-American cartoonist Robb Armstrong, who would later contribute to Welcome Home, Franklin, a direct-to-Internet special based around the character.

A Los Angeles schoolteacher named Harriet Glickman wrote to Schulz on April 15, 1968 (11 days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.), urging him to introduce a black character into Peanuts.

"[12] In his initial appearances, Franklin seemed confused by all the strange things in Charlie Brown's neighborhood, especially Linus and his obsession with the Great Pumpkin.

In a Weekend Update commentary on a 1992 episode of Saturday Night Live, Chris Rock, who hyperbolically stated that Franklin had not said a single word for 25 years, related his own childhood experience as the only black student in his grade school class.

[15] Since this surname is never mentioned in the comic strip (nor in any other special for three decades), it is generally considered to be outside of Peanuts canon.