Are Sally And Linus Ever In The Same Classroom (Peanuts)?

Cafe Society
1

In the comic “Peanuts” I know sometimes Charlie Brown and Linus are sometimes shown in the same class, though Linus is younger than CB.

A friend of mine assures me that Linus and Sally have been shown in the same class. (But never with CB)

Was there ever a strip where Sally and Linus were in the same class.

Because I know you should have four main tiers of children, though some have been aged rapidly. Both Lucy and Schroeder were younger than CB once, then they were aged to be equal
Tier 1) Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Patty

Tier 2) Linus, Frieda

Tier 3) Sally

Tier 4) Rerun

But obviously since CB and Linus do appear together in the same class sometimes, (sometimes not), this isn’t a hard and fast rule

2

Linus is younger than Charlie Brown and Lucy, (though Lucy is first depicted as younger than CB; they seemed to have become the same age later), and Sally wasn’t born until May 26, 1959, more than nine years after the strip began.

I don’t think Linus and Sally are ever shown in the same classroom, but since my Fantagraphic collection is only current to 1970, I could stand corrected at some point.

Schulz wasn’t as exacting in his genealogy as the folks over at Gasoline Alley, after all.

3

I always thought the age difference isolated Charlie Brown even more. He was the oldest kid and had friends a few years younger. He never quite fit in.

That happens in real life. Sometimes the neighbor kids aren’t the same age as your kid. I was the youngest in my group of kids. They tolerated me, but it was better than not having friends at all.

4

I don’t remember Linus and Sally being shown together in the same class, but that’s a lot of strips so don’t quote me on that. It wouldn’t surprise me if Charlie Brown and Linus were depicted together as Linus was smarter than the others and may have skipped a grade.

5

I can think of one time they were implied to be in the same class, though some fanwanking can save the day.

Here’s the set up: Sally and Linus went on at least one school trip together–a trip that didn’t include the Charlie Brown/Lucy set. The one I remember involved a trip to a farm, where Linus got caught in a bizarre triangle between Sally and “Truffles,” the girl Linus met a few years back. Linus was so upset by the girls’ bickering over him that he climbed up on the roof of the barn, and eventually was saved by an “air rescue team” consisting of Snoopy (doing his whirlybird impression) and Woodstock (the pilot).

However – now here’s the kicker: Later, Sally gives a report in class about the incident, highly melodramatic, of course, and at one point screams out: “Who would save my sweet babboo?!!” A speech bubble pointing offpanel gives the response (presumably from Linus): “I’m not your sweet babboo!!”

Anyway I can fanwank the Linus/Sally field trip by saying that Linus was taking several upper-grade classes with the older kids because of his intelligence, but he’s still in the lower grade (say, 3rd grade or so) and maybe the class trip was for the first through third grades. Which explains why Sally is also on the trip. And perhaps Linus was only in the classroom where Sally was giving the report because all the kids who took partin the field trip were present, regardless of grade. (Yeah, it’s a stretch, but…)

Of course even my above fanwank doesn’t make sense according to strict continuity, because Sally should actually be five years younger than Linus (who right after Sally is born takes pains to calculate how old he’d have to be in order to start dating her; I think he settles on something like 22 and 17). I can’t think of kids five grades apart taking the same trip. Plus, this means Linus would have to be at least in the sixth grade (we saw Sally leave Kindergarten so she’s at least in the first grade), which puts Charlie Brown et al. in seventh grade, which is utterly preposterous.

As long as we’re finding inconsistencies: I also seem to recall Linus and Sally being together on a field trip that seemed to have the purpose of teaching the kids about different vocations. The weird thing about this is that one of the job sites was a barber shop, where Sally acted as if she were completely ignorant of the whole, um, barber shop millieu. And yet of course it had been long established that Brown pere is a barber. Not that continuity was hugely important to Schulz, but it’s hard to believe he’d forgotten this detail, considering how often Charlie Brown visited his dad at the shop, and there were a series of strips where Schroeder was talking to Charlie Brown about how Schroeder’s dad was kvetching about the “high price of haircuts” and Charlie Brown pitching a sarcastic fit over how luxurious his dad’s life was.

Yeah, I have a little bit too much knowledge about Peanuts.

6

And that makes you dangerous. :slight_smile:

7

Speaking of Schroeder, his first appearances show him as a nonverbal toddler (albeit already a piano prodigy, though he preferred his toy piano and cried when seated in front of a regular one). Somewhere along the way, he aged dramatically to become a contemporary of Charlie Brown and love interest of Lucy.

8

Not to mention that Schulz’s father was himself a barber, so it’s not like he’d forget that Sally’s dad was, too.

9

I believe Sally and Linus were in the same classroom for a Valentine’s story once. Linus had a huge box of candy he wanted to give to Miss Othmar, but when Sally saw the box she assumed her Sweet Baboo had finally come around and was going to give it to her.

The Peanuts kids aged very inconsistently and I don’t think Schulz was above switching their ages around to fit a story idea, if it was otherwise a good story.

10

I think the answer to this is to find out how many times Sally referred to Miss Othmar as her teacher.

11

That in itself is kind of a disindicator of Sally being in the same class. Given how Sally felt about Linus, and given how Linus felt about Miss Othmar, Sally would’ve cut a bitch if she had to watch him moon over her every day.

12

Wait, I thought Miss Othmar got married and became Mrs. Hagemeyer (or something with an H). I remember this very funny storyline where Othmar asked all the kids to bring in egg shells so they could make a little igloo town. Every morning for about a week, Linus forgot to bring the shells, driving Miss Othmar crazy and making Linus feel awful, to the point where he asked Lucy to make sure he didn’t forget. One morning he was thrilled to have remembered them but it turned out to be a Saturday. (BTW, this is all from the same compilation book where Miss Othmar is first introduced and Linus protests that he does not love her – he’s just “very fond of the ground on which she walks!”)

Anyway, at the end of the series, Linus was shocked to find out that Miss Othmar had left to get married. For her wedding present, he sent her… a bag of egg shells.

(Then again maybe bad coninuity struck again, because I also remember a later storyline where the teachers went on strike and I’m pretty sure Linus was watching Miss Othmar (with that name) in awe when she fell to her knees, and Linus ran to pick up her sign and carry it for her, thus causing a commotion.)

13

Bumping this to add a datapoint to this huge burning question that’s no doubt left everyone scratching their heads ever since the thread began.

I was organizing my bookshelves and came across a Peanuts Parade compilation called “How Long, Great Pumpkin, How Long?” (which contains strips from 1972 - 1973). Leafing through it, I spotted a strip with Linus and Charlie Brown in the same classroom, where they refer to their teacher as Miss Othmar. The heck?

Maybe we’re wrong and it’s not that Linus skipped a grade so he’s in Charlie Brown’s class, but rather than Charlie Brown was left back! (Perhaps spelling “maze” as “Mays” was the clincher. :D)

I know some authors aren’t strict at continuity but dang, Schulz was really lax about it.

14

On the Valentine’s Day special that ran a week or so ago (the one that was interrupted by the breaking news that Whitney Houston died), Linus and Sally were in the same class and Miss Othmar was their teacher. I don’t know if a tv special is considered canon though.

15

The same class doesn’t have to mean the same classroom. If the school were small enough, there could be more than one class (grade) in the same classroom.

16

Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty are contemporaries, and Peppermint Patty and Marcie are in the same classroom. Peppermint Patty sort of has a crush on “Chuck,” but Marcie adores him.
~VOW

17

Alternately, for certain subjects kids switch, and will sometimes be in mixed-grade groups.

18

I alway remembered the school (at least going by the earlier 50s/60s strips in those Peanuts comic collections) as being drawn as a fairly sizable and substantial brick building, somewhat representative of standard post-WWII California suburban-style schools. It had a cafeteria, halls, an auditorium, playground, gym, and I think lockers too.

19

Our local elementary has cafeteria, halls, an auditorium, a playground, and a gym, and has two to three classrooms for each grade, and it often has a split class, depending on the number of kids in each grade.

I never heard of that when I was in grade school in the 70’s, though, even though my elementary was a comparable size.

20

I found a strip where they are shown to be in the same class. September 23rd, 1979. Sally is sitting behind Linus. based on the other responses, I assume that this is a rare occurrence and probably doesn’t happen many other times. It’s strange because Linus doesn’t really need to be there. His line is not unique to his character.