Is it just me? I’m tired of Lucy’s smart mouth, tired of Charlie Brown always being the good guy and getting insulted and sneered at by his ‘friends’. Tired of his dog putting him down. Tired of his stupid and insulting sister. Tired of the same old jokes.
I’m really tired of the crappy music in those cartoons they make of Peanuts and put on television and poor Charlie trying real hard to make everything work out right and his ‘friends’ always screwing him over and his dog always having to sort out the mess.
I figure the cartoon needs to be retired. Am I the only one who thinks this?
I don’t think the strip has gotten any worse over the years. Those of us who grew up with it have just found it less funny as our tastes in humor have matured. When I was 10, “Peanuts” was my favorite comic strip. Now I rarely bother to read it.
Maybe it has changed a bit. I recall a book that came out in the '60’s called “The Gospel According To Peanuts.” And was a serious attempt to show that Snoopy represented Jesus!
Okay.
It seemed to get more attention then.
I read all the strips in the Dallas Morning News every day for research (my wife and I are sort of kicking around an idea for a strip), and Peanuts hasn’t been funny for YEARS. Sparky Schulz was an innovator decades ago and I know a lot of cartoonists revere him, but enough already. Put down the pen and back away.
You guys didn’t happen to see the “60 Minutes” piece on Charles Shultz, did you? He still does all the work entirely by himself, won’t even accept suggestions from friends or family. I forget how old he said he was; I think 77 or 78. He’s kind of a loveable old curmudgeon.
Peanuts has deteriorated slightly over the years. It’s merely good instead of being great. Bill Waterston explained why – in the early years, Schultz was way ahead of everyone else in creativity, humor and imagination. Shultz hasn’t gone downhill; everyone else has moved up to his level.
Peanuts is one of the great newspaper comic strips of all time. My list, in order:
Krazy Kat – The absolute champion; nothing else is close. You’ll either think this statement is either as obvious as needing air to breathe, or completly wacko. You either get Krazy Kat or you don’t; if you get it, you see its greatness. KK gets funnier the more times you read a particular strip – read them at least twice before judging.
Pogo – Nearly #1. Forget the political end; Pogo was just plain funny. Walt Kelly was second only to Herriman and KK in the use of language.
Peanuts – because of its pervasive influence on comics today.
Barnaby – Very witty, with first-class use of humor by implication (the jokes are in what the characters implied) and cumulative humor (one strip is funny, and the next strip builds on this).
Calvin and Hobbes (no explanation needed)
Doonesbury – a continuity/dramatic strip disguised as a humor strip. Few did so many things so well.
Dilbert
Other top current strips include Foxtrot, Crankshaft, and Rose is Rose, but I wouldn’t put them among the greats quite yet.
I’ve got to agree with the Chef and disagree with Ursa…PEANUTS has gotten extremely lame over the past 25 years.
Back in the '50s it was revolutionary…little kids who talked seriously about depression and rejection, dogs with rich fantasy lives, etc. In the '60s it remained fresh and even topical. It just NOSEDIVED in the '70s, though.
By then, Schulz was making too much money to end it. The horror scenario is that somebody else will carry it on when he dies, and it will get WORSE.
Remember the godawful post-Chester Gould DICK TRACY?..At least the zombie BLONDIE isn’t so bad, because that strip never WAS amusing.
I am not that crazy about Peanuts anymore, but I still have a lot of respect for Charles Schultz. I actually like his comic strips on important military holidays like Veteran’s Day.
Peanuts will not continue when he retires or dies…it can’t be too much longer.
We have a local cartoonist in Nevada that draws a comic strip called “Pickles” I always read that one…it’s pretty funny, usually.
I also read “For Better or Worse”…not really funny but kind of like a long novel about a family.
–Gail
“Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place.” --John Cleese
Excellent choices, RC! I wouldn’t put DILBERT up there, myself, but still, excellent choices.
You really like ROSE IS ROSE? I think the creator tried to veer off into CALVIN AND HobbES territory when Watterson quit…all that boring little kid’s dreams and fantasies. Pasquale is NO Calvin. And s/he’s sort of overdoing the “Rose-as-Motorcycle-Mama-or-Little-Kid” punchlines.
FOXTROT occasionally lifts itself from the mediocre, which is still impressive in today’s comic-strip climate.
CRANKSHAFT…ecch.
How about THE BOONDOCKS? I’m seeing glimmerings of cleverness there, and possibilities for the future…it’s certainly the least lame of the African-American-created strips.
*RealityChuck: Peanuts has deteriorated slightly over the years. It’s merely good instead of being great. Bill Waterston explained why – in the early years, Schultz was way ahead of everyone else in creativity, humor and imagination. Shultz hasn’t gone downhill; everyone else has moved up to his level. *
I agree with you on this. What also has taken Peanuts down in my mind is the lack of continuity. I can handle characters staying the same age forever. But when Schultz introduced Sally and Rerun, they were babies. Now they’re only a year or two younger than their older siblings. And are Lucy & Linus in the same grade? They’re not twins, and I guess it’s technically possible that they’re in the same grade (depending on the school district).
Just once, I want Charlie Brown to kick Lucy in the head when she holds the football.
I absolutely LOVE Calvin and Hobbs and mourned the end of the strip because the creator ran out of ideas. I frequently peruse every cartoon book he ever put out about those lovable two.
I recall Pogo with much fondness, though none of my local papers carry him anymore.
I stopped liking Peanuts ages ago when I realized that Charlie Brown was NEVER going to win at anything and even if he did, his friends would either not notice or put him down about it and I frequently had this desire to thoroughly pound Lucy.
I also intensly dislike Doonesberry after it switched from cool, casual, hippy-like characters to yuppies.
I still remember Lil’ Abner in Dogpatch USA and Daisy Mae.
I also like Peanuts, but I’m not old enough to remember the early stuff. I’ve read a couple of old Peanuts books, and I have to agree, the older strips are brilliant, whereas the newer strips are merely good.
The comic strip that really has to be retired: GARFIELD. I loved Garfield when I was younger, and I collected all the books. At some point, though, Garfield just stopped amusing me, and I figured I’d grown out of it. Recently, though, I went back and re-read some of the books, and they were still pretty funny. The current strips are just blah. Also, have you noticed Garfield’s eyes? They’ve gotten all oblong, when they used to be perfectly round. It makes him look funny. Other strips that can probably be put out to pasture: B.C., Snuffy Smith, and Hagar the Horrible.
And finally, the one comic strip that I do not like, have never liked, and probably never will like: Fox Trot. God, I hate that strip! It’s rarely funny, the characters are all caricature and no substance, the same plot lines keep getting dredged up over and over again, and the guy cannot draw. After all this time, whenever a character is drawn in profile, both eyes show up on the SAME SIDE OF THE NOSE!!! That is SO irritating!
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned my all time favorite comic strip: Mutts. It’s extremely well drawn. Has a sort of zen-like cuteness. And usually great little story lines. The dog is far cuter than snoopy, plus he thinks like a dog, not a WWII flying ace. Oh, and the cat is great too. (What can I say, I’m a dog person). Lets see if I can do a link: http://www.kingfeatures.com/comics/mutts/index.htm
Peanuts trivia: Did you know Schults hates the title Peanuts? He didn’t pick it, the syndicator did. He says he would have named it Charlie Brown at the time, though now he recognizes the Snoopy is actually the focus of the strip.
Oh, and about BC. You may have noticed that the author is very christian. Frequently for holidays he puts up a sort of psalm like strip. Well, he is apparently also a very strange christian, and newspapers frequently find they have to drop one or another of his strips because it will dabble strangley in crucifixion images and such. I wish I had a real example to give, but I’ve only heard about them, never seen them.
I also agree that Garfield is by far the most worn-out comic on the funny page. And family circus, I guess that started out boring.
It pains me to admit this, but Peanuts has run its course a long time ago. I have from my childhood the series of Peanuts paperbacks and would read those multiple times. It’s too bad that Charles Schulz didn’t see the writing on the wall, like Bill Watterson did, and quit before the strip stagnated.
One thing that could be done for variety, since Sparky is living in the past anyway, is have more appearances by different characters. Whatever happened to Sherman, Violet, Patty, Pig Pen, Sally and her “boneless cat”, Franklin, “5”, etc…? You rarely even see Schroeder anymore.
I agree with Jebediah, Mutts by Patrick McDonnell is one of the better drawn comic strips in the paper I read.
But doesn’t anyone like Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman? The funniest strip in my paper. Jump Start by Robb Armstrong can be funny. And for “soap opera” strips, the best is definitely For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston.
The Far Side was an excellent strip, but I personally think that Gary Larson’s drawings were terrible, and opened the door to the terribly drawn one-panel strips you can find today, such as Closer to Home or In the Bleachers.
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry
