Opus was drawn with a more penguin-like beak in the first, maybe, two strips he was in, but after that, he had a shnozz like Snoopy, and he also had the B&W contrast of Snoopy (of all dogs, Beagles have it naturally, which is probably why Snoopy was a Beagle, but penguins have it too, as unlikely they are as a pet), his wing hung down just like Snoopy’s ear, he had Snoopy’s belly, and his size proportion in relation to the characters was about the same as Snoopy’s. He could step right into Snoopy’s profile, other than the ridiculousness of his being a penguin.
His lack of confidence was sort of the opposite of Snoopy-- it was ironic-- Opus was more like Charlie Brown than Snoopy; however, Opus did have an active fantasy life.
IIRC, he was also the first comic strip animal to interact with humans, and just talk, not have thought bubbles. I mean, there have been animals that talked amongst themselves, but Opus could speak English.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but it always frustrated me that these thoroughly anthropomorphic animals had only thought bubbles. I was so relieved when Opus just came out and talked.
I had a stuffed Opus when I was in high school. It must be packed away somewhere. Probably with the boxes in storage from my mother’s.
I think the whole Peanuts comics is a great indication of how society has changed (probably for the better IMHO) since “we were kids”.
My wife and I were always big Peanuts fans, (I had Peanuts / Snoopy bedding, towels, apparel, stuffed dolls etc) so a few years ago when our kids were mid & early teens we put on the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin Halloween special. Both our kids went absolutely bananas and couldn’t watch it.
“This entire show is condoning bullying and making it look like a fun thing!”
“Look at way Lucy treats people, how can you find this funny?!?!?”
“These people are terrible friends, Charlie Brown gets treated like garbage by everyone.”
“Friends support each other, not tear each other down!”
My grade 9 daughter even talked about how if Charlie Brown was a friend of her’s she’d be pushing him to get counselling for his obvious mental health issues. My head was spinning!
After that lecture from our kids, my wife an I had a whole different perspective on Peanuts. I can certainly see their point. It had never really occurred to me that the whole Lucy / Charlie Brown dynamic glorifies the bully and laughs at victim in an abusive relationship.
BTW - we did try to sell our kids on the charm of Snoopy, but at that point they were way to repulsed by the rest to care.
That can’t possible be accurate. They had funny animals interacting with humans on equal footing for decades in cartoons and comic books - it seems really farfetched that nobody did the same thing in a newspaper comic strip for over eighty years, until Berke Brethed showed up.
I disagree. It isn’t glorifying the bully, it’s acknowledging it. It happened, and it happened to me, and I had no more idea at that age than CB did as to how to stop it. Like I posted earlier, Linus is never the object of the mob’s attacks, but he is just as bad as CB about the Christmas tree. Why does he get off free, while me and CB never did?
If one wants to put a psychological interpretation on it, Lucy and CB are in a codependent relationship. Charlie could get Linus to hold the football, or Sally, or Pigpen (who really is the bigger target of bullying, IMO), but then he’s happier getting the ball pulled away than in actually kicking it. It validates that he is the loser everyone tells him he is. And if Lucy can’t pull the ball away and get away with it, she has no self-worth.
Or he could just kick Lucy in the head.
But Schulz had none of that in mind. It’s just a funny strip.
That’s exactly my point, times have changed. To us it was just a funny strip. However, many kids these days are taught about bullying and do understand it and (at least in the case of my kids) have an idea of how to stop it. And they don’t see any humour in it.
I liken it now to watching an old Honeymooners episode and seeing Ralph threaten Alice with a cocked fist and a “BANG, ZOOM… right to the moon Alice!” I laughed out loud then, but now I cringe when I see him threatening to punch out his wife (especially having had female friends who were physically abused).
Also, I’m not saying I personally think Peanuts or Honeymooners or whatever else is worthy of scorn and should be banned. My wife and I still enjoyed the special. My point is simply that young people see things through a different lens than we did and society has changed for the better because of it, IMO.
My son said exactly that too :). He was bullied in elementary school and it stopped instantly when he planted a solid kick in the bully’s balls one day at recess . (BTW - That’s not how they were taught to deal with bullying, he was supposed to tell his teacher, but he improvised and it worked).
Ralph’s blustering in The Honeymooners was funny because we all knew he was a big gasbag and would never have done anything to hurt Alice. She knew it too, which is why she wasn’t afraid to stand up to him.
I can only imagine how disappointed today’s kids are when they get out into the real world and find nothing is as sweet and gentle as they’ve been conned into believing. People as abusive as Lucy are everywhere, and nothing is ever going to change that.
I don’t recall Snoopy using anything but thought bubbles, as did Buster Brown’s Tige decades earlier.
eta: I just looked at some old Buster Browns, and Tige talks just like the humans, although I don’t know if his talking was ever acknowledged by the other characters.
I loved Snoopy (and Peanuts) growing up; I had a sizable book collection (including the encyclopedias), loads of plushies, figures, all sorts of little accessories…I still have most of it. My dog was even named Snoopy! I honestly thought a lot of that stuff was “collectible” when I was a kid; heck, at some point, I was gifted every single piece of a ceramic [distorted-looking!] Snoopy kitchen set that was promptly stashed away in a chest for when I got a place of my own. (None of it was ever used, at least not by me - I discovered Fiestaware shortly before I graduated from high school.)
I still watch the holiday specials, but I honestly have iffy memories about the other specials – they made me too sad. I do have very fond memories of the “This is America, Charlie Brown” series though.
There has been previous discussion on the board regarding how mean the Peanuts characters are. I’ve always thought the depictions were somewhat accurate – kids can be really mean, after all. As has been pointed out upthread, the depiction of bullying in the strip and the shows hasn’t aged well, but it didn’t seem unusual during the time when I was growing up – you were expected to ignore or tolerate the bullying unless it progressed into physical violence.
And of course, decades later, Snoopy is still the go-to gift for me according to the relatives. This mostly works out; there’s a lot of cute Peanuts merchandise available now, and sometimes I get a really nice vintage item from the ones who love antique stores.
I worked at a movie theater in 1969 and one of the very first movies I saw over and over (on my breaks was ‘A Boy Named Charlie Brown’. It didn’t do great business. I watched it a few times and found it kind of empty and…bare? not much to it, and kind of melancholy. But the voices of those kids will never be forgotten! I haven’t seen the more recent Peanuts movie, is that any good, really? If it is, I will take a look, but there is something about the Peanuts movies and tv of the past that are special. Nostalgia, I guess.
The recent Peanuts movie is awesome! It is clever and fun and well made. A purist might not like it because Charlie is not shit on through the whole movie. He actually wins in the end.
And it’s still worth it if the only thing you see is the World War I flying ace sequences.
One of my favorite Peanuts strips is from when Snoopy acted more like a dog. Snoopy sniffs at his dinner and begins pushing his dish with his nose. In the next panel Charlie Brown and Linus are standing together.
CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK BUMPITY BUMP CRASH!
Linus: “Good grief, Charlie Brown. What was that noise?”
Charlie Brown: “Oh, that was Snoopy. If he doesn’t like his dinner, he pushes it down the stairs.”
