{"id":481022,"date":"2026-06-17T00:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/481022\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T00:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:59:08","slug":"cbs-reaches-agreement-over-stephen-colberts-use-of-peanuts-music-on-the-late-show-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/481022\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS reaches agreement over Stephen Colbert\u2019s use of Peanuts music on The Late Show | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

On his last day hosting CBS\u2019s The Late Show, Stephen Colbert<\/a> played one of the most iconic songs from the Peanuts soundtrack.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no! I hope this doesn\u2019t cost CBS<\/a> any money!\u201d he joked, as Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine performed the song, titled Linus and Lucy, on air. It was a final dig at the network, which many fans believe cancelled the show due to Colbert\u2019s criticisms of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

It did, indeed, cost CBS. Lee Mendelson Film Productions, the California company that controls jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi\u2019s famed Peanuts catalog and had become increasingly litigious over unauthorized uses of the music, announced it had reached a licensing agreement with CBS for an undisclosed amount. The production company said it would donate all proceeds to World Central Kitchen<\/a>, the disaster-relief food nonprofit founded by chef Jos\u00e9 Andr\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

Colbert also donated $2.5m to World Central Kitchen during the penultimate episode of the Late Show.<\/p>\n

\u201cLMFP found the music\u2019s use on The Late Show funny and entertaining, and is proud to support World Central Kitchen\u2019s mission,\u201d said Jason Mendelson, chairman of the company. \u201cA principal goal of our enforcement actions is to educate individuals, businesses, and government entities about the need to obtain written license agreements to use music in a commercial setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company had recently taken legal actions over the unlicensed use of Guaraldi\u2019s Peanuts music by an apparel accessories manufacturer, a video game producer, a collectibles auction house and the US Department of the Interior, according to the company.<\/p>\n

The Bay Area-based company was founded by producer Lee Mendelson, who worked with Peanuts creator Charles M Schulz, animator Bill Melendez and Guaraldi on the animated Peanuts specials. Schulz himself was born in Minnesota, but had moved to Santa Rosa, California<\/a>, in 1969 and lived there until his death in 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On his last day hosting CBS\u2019s The Late Show, Stephen Colbert played one of the most iconic songs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-481022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}