This Peanuts strip. Is there an intentional inside joke in it?
“Sparky” Schulz served in the US army in WWII, and attained the rank of sergeant. He could fairly be called Sgt. Schulz
I think you’re stretching. He’s just watching Hogan’s Heroes.
Well, the comic refers to Sgt. Schultz; Sparky was a ‘Schulz’ (no ‘T’), so yes, Spike was just watching ‘Hogans Heroes’.
But there were a lot of in jokes in the strip; Among other things, ‘Spike’, in fact, was the name of one of Schulz’s childhood dogs.
For more such in-strip references (as well as references to the break-up of his first marriage) I recommend Schulz and Peanuts, the recent (2007) biography.
Very enlightening. For example, there were two actual people in his life named ‘Charlie Brown’; the one the character was named for was an alcoholic closeted homosexual.
I recall one inside joke. Shulz was the Grand Marshal of the New Years Day Tournament of Roses Parade. In the strip, the characters are watching the parade on tv. One asks who the Grand Marshal is. Another says, “some cartoonist. You’ve never heard of him.”