That should be Nanobyte’s theme song. The guy is completely incapable of posting anything outside of GQ. Lucky us.
Marge: Your father is… resting.
Bart: “Resting” hung over? “Resting” got fired? Help me out here.
So does he chase down every schoolchild and adult that doodles it on a notebook, or every vandal that spray paints it on a bridge abutment ? If I paint Bugs Bunny on the side of my house am I asking for a lawsuit ?
First of all, folks, the man’s name is spelled Schulz, not Schultz. Now that I’ve satisfied my anal tendencies…
Anything in popular culture that lasts half a century has got to have something going for it, whether everyone “gets it” or not. Peanuts struck a chord in the nation as no other part of this genre did, or probably ever will. While many erudite posters in this thread have come up with reasons for the strip’s greatness, my personal opinion is that many things combined in order to make it resonate in so many people. They can’t be tracked down and identified because many of them are subjective and personal.
To me, the Peanuts characters were more than two-dimensional. They agonized, philosophised, fantasized and lived in a world larger than most strips of the time, or even today. The commentary was not just about social issues of the day, although there were those. Peanuts observed and reflected the human condition. That’s why I think it was so wildly popular in the 60s, when, as a nation, we were searching for our identity. No matter how crazy things got socially or politically, Peanuts always seemed to bring home the message that we’re all human, most of us are still little kids deep down inside, and nobody’s perfect.
Charles Schulz was an innovator, an artist, a philosopher, and that rarest of birds, a genuine humorist. I didn’t always find his work to be funny, but the characters were always my friends. Schulz is also to be admired for the fact that he wrote and inked every single strip for 50 years. Peanuts wasn’t just his job, it was his life’s passion, his raison d’etre. And we are his beneficiaries.
RIP, Sparky.
The Dave-Guy
“Since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx
Peanuts hasn’t been worth reading on the whole for the last fifteen years, but then, neither has Doonesbury, and I venture to suggest many still treat Garry Trudeau as some sort of genius (which he was, and maybe still is).
I remember fondly the Peanuts collections I had from the 50’s and 60’s, when there was more pointed commentary from the kids, which included some quite un-nice members of the ‘gang’ (Violet was a stuck-up priss and I don’t recall Patty as being much better (not Peppermint Patty; the orininal one)). And the Peanuts Christmas special is still classic, despite having been seen every year for over 30 years.
Then there is this great golf strip: Charlie Brown asking Snoopy what he thinks about before he takes a shot and Snoopy replying: “I ask myself, you haven’t hit a good shot all day, what makes you think you’re gonna hit one now??”
Yes, Warner Brothers will be most unhappy. For all that company knows, you may be using Bugs Bunny to advertise something in your house. And since you didn’t ask permission from them, they will be upset.
If you want to really get in trouble, try painting Mickey Mouse on your house. Watch the wrath of Disney fall on you.
what about all those children’s wards where there are countless plaguized (sp?) cartoon characters lining the walls? do you honestly think if Walt Disney had seen that in a hospitol that he would sue? i think not
eggo
Disney will indeed sue if you use their characters in an unauthorized manner, a day care center here had a mural on their wall and received a threatening letter to remove same immediately.
As for Peanuts and Charles Schulz - I have in my “library” a stack of Peanuts cartoon collections - both hard and soft cover - that I have been collecting over 20 years. It is just about 3 feet tall. In my closet at this very moment are 5 items of clothing with Snoopy and Woodstock on them. I felt sadder to hear of Charles Schultz death than many of my own family’s deaths. I cannot imagine opening to the funnies pages and not seeing Peanuts there.
Does anyone know if the newspapers are going to continue to print re-runs and for how long?
eggo said:
I think so. In fact, I believe that Children’s Hospital was forced to paint over the pictures of Disney characters on their walls because they hadn’t asked DisneyCorp for permission first. Hanna-Barbera stepped in and paid for the wall to be repainted (with Fred Flintsone and the Scooby Gang, not uncoincidentally), and got as much good publicity as Disney got bad.
As Harlan Ellison said, “Don’t f**k with the Mouse.”
JMCJ
Winner of the Mr. & Mrs. Polycarp Award for Literalizing Cliches for knowing an actual atheist in a foxhole.
Sigh. That should be “not coincidentally”. Teach me to try and use double negatives for effect. Just gets me all confused, it does.
JMCJ
Winner of the Mr. & Mrs. Polycarp Award for Literalizing Cliches for knowing an actual atheist in a foxhole.
Peanuts: If you have to even ask, you’ll never get it!
Nanobyte, based on reading many of your postings, you must be the most negative person around! Boy, and I thought I was ever the cynic! Maybe you were given one too many rocks when “trick or treating” at Halloween?
(And, obviously you’ve never had a dog!)
Nanobyte must fit the definition of a Troll! Like many OPs from Nbyte before, S/He starts an upsetting topic just to get our goat, and then leaves…like hit and run. You’ll notice that his/her name appears only once in the list of Posters, so s/he’s afraid of rebuttal! 
Speaking as a fan, as we all are, I kinda got tired of the whole “Peanuts”-thing long ago.
Now I enjoy the Christmas special as much as anyone BUT there is a limit.
With all of the posters, tee-shirts, greeting cards, MET Life blimps, stickers, stationary, coffee mugs -not to mention a number of horrible feature length cartoons- you have to think- Enough already.
You created a brilliant strip- made millions upon millions of dollars-and…
Here is a quote from Watterson that sums it up perfectly:
“When cartoon characters appear on countless products, the public inevitably grows bored and irritated with them, and the appeal and value of the original work are diminished. Nothing dulls the edge of a new and clever catoon like saturating the market with it.”
Needless to say, that says it all.
Speaking as a fan, as we all are, I kinda got tired of the whole “Peanuts”-thing long ago.
Now I enjoy the Christmas special as much as anyone BUT there is a limit.
With all of the posters, tee-shirts, greeting cards, MET Life blimps, stickers, stationary, coffee mugs -not to mention a number of horrible feature length cartoons- you have to think- Enough already.
You created a brilliant strip- made millions upon millions of dollars-and…
Here is a quote from Watterson that sums it up perfectly:
“When cartoon characters appear on countless products, the public inevitably grows bored and irritated with them, and the appeal and value of the original work are diminished. Nothing dulls the edge of a new and clever cartoon like saturating the market with it.”
Needless to say, that says it all.
andros and ellis555:
I don’t see anything inconsistent about thinking it somewhat egotistical, in a case where the world (or the US or whatever) seems to think your comic strip is so great, to forbid its being continued by others. Like it’s not a Rembrandt, is it (which have no continuity anyhow)?
Well, I don’t think he invented anything; he just designed something. But would/could an inventor say no one could improve on his invention, so long as he paid royalties to the owner of the patent (which would probably be a company, no matter how egotistical he was) during the 17 yr it was in force? But I didn’t say he had no right to do that; I just said that decision seemed a little egotistical to me.
Even Standord students do that on occasion. 
Spent a year there a long time ago for an MSEE.
funneefarmer:
I wonder if he ever sued the artist who stuck Snoopy and his doghouse on a single abandoned piling near in SF Bay near the Emeryville Mudflats. It remained there for a decade or two.
RealityChuck:
Only very vaguely. And about the rest, I dunno. At least Dilbert is still often funny. . .although it’s in a pretty narrow rut.
I never read Calvin and Hobbes at all. Nothing but silly tigers and stuff. Not into fantasy.
And Cathy?. . .Blaaaaaaaaahhhhh! Rhyme that with Orange.
Vestal Blue:
A USAF type that’s crashed in Boise? Scott Adams was an engineer.
Music for Peanuts? Never heard it. You don’t exactly sound too light yourself. Guess that’s why you’re not floating anymore.
JWK:
You mean you can’t give rights to copy some of your work to those you wish, while still suing others to whom you don’t wish to give such rights? I don’t believe that.
Right on, Padeye.
Alphagene:
Doesn’t ‘GQ’ stand for ‘go qwazy’? Wasn’t the OP a question? And no general asked any of the questions around here.
DAVEWOO71:
Yeah, well, the comics are always good when times are not so, and v. v.
Hey, DSY, I agree with you on something: Trudeau has been the pits for numerous years – way off in his own too-contrived sophistication.
salinqmind:
Well, the SF Chronicle has been printing reruns of Peanuts since the middle of January and intend to indefinitely, AFAIK.
Jinx:
Oh. Well, “s/he” is back and is s/he snickering. I thought the others were rather happy s/he had come back. I just wasn’t that interested in Peanuts – like I said. I’ve come back too many times in other threads, rebuttin’ all over the place. I wasn’t down on Peanuts; it just never struck me as anything worthy of all the noise at its demise, particularly since it had quite well petered out long ago.
I mean, can’t we get rid of Garfield now – quietly and painlessly? We’ve gotten the same few themes in that strip for nigh onto as long as Cathy or longer.
Oh well, at least, in the next war against the US, the enemy will know well how to wipe out this nation’s morale and will to fight – just torpedo its comic strips.
Ray ("What’s up, Doc,. . .must come down. . .and “That’s all, Folks!”)