For the same reason, I like the early strip where CB is shaking his fist and shouting, “I walked two miles to bring my dog to this park so he could frolic! I walked **two miles ** to give my dog a chance to frolic! And when I walk **two miles ** so my dog can frolic, he’d better frolic!” Meanwhile, Snoopy is running back and forth, shaking, almost in a spasm.
Which reminds me: I finally tracked down a DVD copy of “What a Nightmare”: the special where Snoopy binges on pizza, CB tells him he’d never make it as a sled dog in Alaska, and Snoopy dreams about being on the Iditarod, freezing and being menaced by the other dogs. An indigestion dream; he wakes up when it’s ending badly. Quite a challenge for the writers, because the bulk of it is non-dialogue. (I haven’t watched it yet; it’s a Christmas present for Mr. Rilch.)
This strip never fails to make me laugh (although I remember it being Lucy who was “menaced” by Snoopy. Oh well; still funny. “Unclean! Unclean!”
After Snoopy, Linus was my favorite. A bundle of contradictions: intelligent and erudite, and yet unshakable in his faith for a mythical figure who rises out of the pumpkin patch every Halloween. Go figure.
My late wife had some of these same objections. I’d point out that, yes, Charlie Brown gets treated like garbage a lot. However, most of the time his friends (belatedly) realize that his heart is in the right place and repent. Also, CB himself, while occasionally miserably, has a near-unshakable optimistic outlook on life. Yes, this leads him to try to kick the football and miss time and again, but it also drives Lucy and the other detractors batty when CB exclaims how his dad is always happy to see him at his barber shop, and this makes his day. Also, his excursion to summer camp, which he anticipated would be a hellish experience, turned out a revelation that his level-headedness was a positive trait that many people would appreciate.
For its first several years, Peanuts was primarily a standard gag strip, with very little of the psychological angle it later became known for.
Charlie Brown, for example, used to regularly wisecrack to Lucy, causing her to chase him off-screen in the final panel (with him usually chortling “It’s risky, but I get my laughs!”). Though he was still picked on to an extent, he wasn’t nearly the doormat he later became, and was triumphant just as often as he was beaten down.
My favorite, a line I used regularly on my kids when they were growing up —
Lucy, with sweat emanating from her brow: “Boy, am I hot!”
CB: “Are you hot, Lucy?”
Lucy: “I sure am.”
CB: “You don’t look so hot to me!” [Exits on the run with line quoted above.]
(OK, so it’s a dad joke, but this is from 1952; give me a break!)
Schulz later said he wasn’t proud of his early work. But IMHO, it was often very good — in a completely different way from his later approach. Not all strips were great, of course, but there are many that still make me laugh out loud.
I’d have to take a closer look to see exactly when the darker themes started rearing their heads, but it definitely took a few years.
Back to the thread topic, while I enjoy Snoopy from time to time, some of his more fantasy-fueled exploits get a little tiresome. I tend to enjoy the interactions of the kids more. (And yes, Linus is my favorite.)
My wife is an enormous Peanuts fan, and luckily, I have long appreciated the strip too. We are especially agreed on one point: it’s absolutely remarkable what Schulz, who drew every one of the 17,000+ strips himself, could do with the smallest variation of a pen stroke to convey an entire range of emotions — from hilarious to deeply touching.
It’s also worth pointing out that, despite what they say, everyone genuinely does seem to like Charlie Brown. I mean, why does everyone let him be the captain, and play on his baseball team?
I recall a story arc which had CB trying to bring his team into a better organized league, until they told him that he’d have to get rid of Snoopy and (IIRC) the girls.
It needs to be pointed out that in the world of Peanuts, only the daily and Sunday comic strips are considered to be “canon.” Anything else, including the beloved TV specials, does not have any direct involvement with Charles Schulz.
This is why the notion that Charlie Brown ever actually meets or has any interaction at all with the little red-headed girl is not considered to be genuine, even though this was portrayed on one of the TV specials. It never happened in the strip — indeed, the little red-headed girl was never even seen in the strips — so at least for hard-core Peanuts fanatics, it never actually happened.
He’s the only credited writer for several of those, primarily stories which originally appeared in the strips, but had no direct involvement? That’s a neat trick.
Come to Santa Rosa, California. Just north of town is the Charles M. Schulz - Sonoma County Airport, aka Snoopy International. Join the hoards of Japanese tourists taking selfies with the brass Snoopy statue at Railroad Square. Visit the Peanuts Museum and ice rink across from Coddingtown Mall. Then, if you dare, roll to Buena Park, down the road from Disneyland, for the Peanuts theme park that devoured Knott’s Berry Farm and Ghost town. Back in the day, kids could ride live alligators at the nearby Reptile Park, now long gone, ratz.
The Schultz home was totally destroyed by the 2017 wildfire that torched much of north Santa Rosa, including my old home. Snoopy’s ashes are now spread all over the county, along with much of Schultz’s benevolence. Snoopy lives on with Schultz’s anonymous support of Canine Companions For Independence. No, you won’t find that documented. We saw Schultz thanked at the CCFI campus when we donated, too.
There is no Peanuts comic strip that features a “story” in which Charlie Brown meets the little red-headed girl face-to-face. And as I said, the TV shows are not considered “canon” in the world of Peanuts.
Pursuant to your second post, Schulz “allowing” filmmakers to write new scripts that focus on the characters he created is quite a different thing from being “involved” in the TV productions. That level of involvement varied, depending on the show in question.
There are loads of authors who have seen their original novels or other works “adapted” for the screen by others with results that, shall we say, did not please them. If Schulz was indeed directly involved in the filmed story in question, that doesn’t change the fact that what was written still didn’t actually happen in “real life,” as defined by the Peanuts comic strip.
Schulz is the sole credited writer for the animated special in question. Go ahead and dislike the story, Schulz himself did; there’s no need to add the claim that he wasn’t directly involved.
