Is childhood in the Peanuts universe miserable?

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Kamino_Neko

Yes. But there were only 18 episodes.

On the other hand, there have been a HELL of a lot of specials.

And 4 features.

Oh yeah, I did forget about the features.

[salinqmind]

@Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus

Same here, although I don’t think of it so much as dark as brooding. The characters are children but have adult thoughts. It’s not blatantly funny but there’s usually humor in the situations that develop.

That’s the proper word, ‘brooding’. There’s nothing really dark, just the occasional bummers of life.

I never saw the point of ‘Rerun’, Lucy and Linus’ little brother, for one thing he looked too much like Linus. But it’s a brilliant mixture of hilarity and naive expectation the way he is constantly knocking on Charlie Brown’s door asking ‘can your dog come out to play’ (as if!) - and expecting people to give him bicycles! Ever hopeful!

[Robot_Arm]

Here’s my view on what adulthood is like in the Peanuts universe.

[BigT]

@AHunter3

Peanuts became popular in part because before that most common portrayals of children and children’s lives depicted kids as carefree and happy and with no heavy worrisome problems to haunt them. And cute and sweet also. Schulz wrote Peanuts in such a way that an entire generation of people read it and identified with those kids: “Oh, yeah, that’s how I felt when I was a kid!”.

Understanding that kids DO have heavy weighty stuff on their minds and agonize about things and consider themselves miserable a good portion of the time. And have to deal with other kids. Kids don’t treat each other nicely and sweetly all the time.

But it really went into the opposite problem, in my opinion. Kids aren’t that consistently unhappy, either. Just because “happiness isn’t funny”* doesn’t excuse why every important in the kids’ lives seems to be bad, leaving no room for these happy times that you imply exist.

I remember childhood pretty well. There were a few bad times, but they were vastly outnumbered by the good times. The little things DON’T bother you as a kid. As you get older, these things bug you more, but that’s why so many long to be a kid again. We say things like, “When I was a child, I didn’t have to worry about these things.”

Schulz really seemed to write about life as he saw it, and, seeing as he was depressed all his life, that made it rather depressing. Even the so-called happy moments are only such because they are brief respites from the drudgery of life.

Are the kids happy? I honestly don’t think so. They’re happier than Charlie Brown. And Snoopy is often happy, being the only one who gets to use his imagination and thus actually get to be a child. But the kids being truly happy? I don’t see it

Which one do you think is happy? The ones constantly pining for relationships they can’t have? The bully whose only enjoyment seems to be to watch other suffer? The kid who still has to carry around a security blanket? The anti-social piano player? The girl who can’t ever do anything by herself without someone else to act as an authority figure?

I wouldn’t say these children had sucky childhoods only because what does happen to them is not that bad. But they sure seem to think it sucks.

*Doesn’t stop any other comedy with children in it.

[BigT]

Also, because it was mentioned in that other thread, here’s ablog post on that switcheroo April Fools prank, with many of the comics that are so hard to find.

And one thing I forgot to mention: I think the Peanuts specials are way I hear that type of jazz and get all depressed.